History VideoGame / Deathloop

* UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets: The Motherland, a major military and economic superpower located beyond Blackreef, appears to be an in-universe analogue to the real-world [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheUSSR Soviet Union]] whose presence is absolutely ''littered'' throughout the entire island by virtue of their forces having constructed various military bases here way before the arrival of the AEON Program. [[spoiler: Documents found later in the game also reveal that both Colt Vahn and his lover Lila Blake were originally soldiers of the Motherland and members of ''Operation: Horizon'', a secret expeditionary mission dedicated to investigating Blackreef's temporal anomaly.]]

''DEATHLOOP'' is a {{Rogueli|ke}}te FirstPersonShooter ImmersiveSim, developed by Creator/ArkaneStudios Lyon team for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows [=PCs=], and later released on the UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS.

It released on September 14, 2021 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and PC via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and the Bethesda Launcher.

* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Lampshaded in the stealth tutorial, which notes that the Eternalists weren't recruited for their good attention spans. Indeed, the guards are often stoned or looking to ''get'' stoned and most of them have no idea what they are doing during combat.

[[caption-width-right:349:''"So... protocol is in effect. Protect your Visionaries, kill Colt, and [[ArcWords have a fulfilling day]]."'']]

* BonusBoss: The Goldenloop update added "The Garbage Collector" to an underground area in Karl's Bay, posessing a new slab (allegedly the one Frank would have used, but threw away). The Collector is NighInvulnerable and can only be taken down through stealth due or similar trickery due to the bomb-defusing suit he's wearing.

* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain. Colt vs Juliana. Pretty heavily {{Justified}} because [[spoiler: they're father and daughter]], much to Colt's shock as he was convinced that he and Julianna dated before and [[WomanScorned that]] was the reason she was coming after him with such passion for killing him. [[spoiler: [[DaddyIssues Not so]]]].

* PermanentlyMissableContent:
** Largely {{Averted|Trope}}, due to the GroundhogDayLoop that forms the game's premise. Couldn't afford to infuse the rare gun you found? It'll be there next loop -- in fact if you found it laying around in the world, it'll be in the exact same place. The game even goes out of its way to stress that you don't have to make the most of every segment of a loop if the player wants to jump straight to following up a lead earlier/later in the day.
** Played with in regards to Colt's infused inventory. Infusion causes the items to [[ExactWords return to his arsenal at the start of a new loop]]. If you take something out with you and swap it for something else, the infused item will disappear from the loadout screen for the rest of the day. This is particularly jarring with slabs, since [[LimitedLoadout you can only carry two]] and new ones have to be carried back at least once.

* PlotHole: [[spoiler: Juliana notes that Colt never, in any loop, gives her the code to the tunnels. But he doesn't need to - it's a 4 digit code with only 10,000 possibilities, and she has literally all the time in the world to brute force it. Even if it locks the panel after a certain number of tries, that screws Colt over more than her. Though given Julianna's real goals, it's very possible she just never bothered since she wants Colt to have some sort of an edge against her.]]

** [[spoiler:The mammoth-like creature that was excavated in Karl's Bay]]

** [[spoiler:A [[https://i.redd.it/l7joopt8gtq71.jpg warning sign]] in the [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Deathloop/comments/pz57hu/proof_of_tyvia_setting_anyone_else_see_these_on/ version of the game from its release day]] has a clear reference to Tyvia, the northernmost Isle of the Empire from ''Dishonored''. The texture was swapped with one without said reference in a subsequent patch but ''Deathloop'' still ultimately takes place on a frigid island close to a polar region, with Russian-sounding names on the map and governed by a state called "The Motherland" which relies heavily on Soviet-era nomenclature and aesthetics. Just like Tyvia.]]

* SkippableBoss: The Collector is an extremely durable slab holder who is NighInvulnerable and resistant to many slabs (Karnesis can do little but slightly stagger him). And if he notices you, a fair amount of enemy back up with filter in behind you including two suicide bombers. And without a certain code, stealth killing him is very difficult as the only other door into his lair has a mine on it that will explode as soon as you open the door. But you can avoid having to face him at all by [[spoiler:killing the mostly naked man at the bar next to Frank's mansion at Firstad Rock at noon who happens to be singing the exact same song the Collector sings in Karl's Bay. If you do so, you can walk straight into the Collector's lair and take the slab out of an unlocked safe. Though you will still have to deal with the aforementioned enemy backup after grabbing the slab.]]

* TheSeventies: The game has the aesthetics of this time period, though an audio log from Dr. Wenjie reveals that the year is actually 1965.
* SuperDrowningSkills: The water around Blackreef is lethally cold, so ankle-deep water will harm you and falling into the ocean will outright kill you. Complicating matters is that over the course of the day, the tide comes and goes, revealing more areas to explore during some time periods, and ice shelfs may form when the sun isn't hitting the water.

* TimeRewindMechanic: Colt's Reprise ability allows him to rewind to where he was a few seconds ago before dying, giving him a chance to fix a mistake. He can use this ability twice per area, refreshing when he leaves and goes to the next map. Killing Julianna and absorbing her Residuum also somehow replenishes this ability without the need of going into the tunnel.

* UnstoppableRage: Fia's Havoc slab turns the user invincible and improves damage output.

* WhamShot: Marketing for the game painted the GroundhogDayLoop as being based on MentalTimeTravel rather than physical, so the player is equally taken aback as Colt is when he follows the glowing messages' instructions to jump out a window in the library shortly after meeting Juliana for the 'second' time and getting his leg caught mid-fall by what appears to be another version of himself that then gives him the contextual information he needs to proceed deeper into Blackreef before they're both killed by Julianna.
** [[spoiler: When investigating the Project Horizon bunkers, Colt will eventually come across a document mentioning that Colt had impregnated Lila, the woman with the hand-drawn picture in Colt's apartment. More importantly, it shows her last name is Blake, as in [[LukeYouAreMyFather ''Julianna Blake'']].]]
** [[spoiler: During the final scene of the game, Julianna hands you a box containing antique duelling pistols, which also happen to be the exact same pistols from ''Dishonored'', revealing the games share a setting.]]

* YearOutsideHourInside: [[spoiler:It turns out that the timeloop is more of a pocket dimension than all of reality looping on itself. Because of the first loop he was stuck in, Colt looks like he's in his 30s despite the fact that his daughter Julianna is in her 20s. Time passed in the outside world while Blackreef was repeatedly looping. And if you do finally break the loop at the end, at least a century has taken place in the real world, and clearly something has gone horribly wrong in the interim with the seas having dried up and the skies being an ominous red swirl.]]
* YouShouldntKnowThisAlready: Every password in the game is randomized from the start, so the player needs to find the actual clues to solve them in a playthough instead of looking them up online. Though naturally, this knowledge carries over from loop to loop... with the notable exception of the code to the pressurization controls in Wenjie's lab, for which she has managed to create a process to make it unique for each loop.

** While he does suffer the BagOfSpilling at the start of each day, his path to the major areas will always provide him with a starter kit of a basic gun, some trinkets, including one that allows him to Double Jump, and a slab with the Reprise ability. After OpeningTheSandbox, the gameplay portion of Colt acquiring these items is skipped, and he starts at the map selection screen.
** The Reprise ability allows for Colt to die twice in a given area before he is forced to restart the day. Whenever he leaves an area for a given time period, this is refreshed. It will also rewind time as far as necessary to put Colt in a stable area and gives a few seconds of near-invisibility, making it incredibly unlikely to just drop you back into a deathtrap. Your Reprise also gets reset if you manage to kill Juliana and absorb her residuum ghost, which can offset the trouble an invasion can do to your planned schedule.

** Time does not actually pass within an area until Colt retreats back to his tunnels, so the player doesn't need to worry about spending too much time exploring and missing any important events.
** The [[AppliedPhlebotinum Residuum]] infusion mechanic is the main method for the player to build up power and carry items and abilities between loops, so the player isn't at the mercy of enemy drops.
** Julianna will only invade if a Visionary is present in a map. In addition, if Colt manages to defeat her, her residuum ghost will refresh any lost Reprises.

** Visionaries are worth more than enough Residuum to infuse whatever they dropped, with plenty left over. Assuming you don't use Reprise and abandon the dropped Residuum during your escape, you'll never have to farm more Residuum to secure the slab/gun/upgrade they dropped.
** Even though the Hackamjig has a maximum range to hack turrets/cameras/etc, once you actually begin hacking something, you can move outside that range without any issue, letting you begin hacking a camera or turret that's at an awkward angle then back away to finish the hack.
** Frank is one of the only Visionaries without a slab of any kind, and this is good because [[spoiler:the only time you can kill him in person is in the morning, otherwise the only way to kill him involves a method where he isn't even in the same zone as you when he dies, which would obviously make it impossible to loot his body. Thus, you only need to kill him once in person to obtain everything he has of value to take and can spend your mornings focusing on other matters.]]
** If there is nothing to be found in a zone, because Colt has completed all the tasks there for that time period, the game will not allow the player to select it.

** If the player already has all the upgrades for a particular Slab the Visionary who owns it will instead drop additional residium to infuse other items.

* AssassinOutclassin: A foundational element of the game's premise. Colt and Julianna are rival assassins locked in a time loop who are trying to enact this trope on each other. [[spoiler: Julianna reveals that she was actually Blackreef's archivist before Colt decided to break the loop and started killing her again and again in his attempts to do so before she got sick of it and started utilizing the MentalTimeTravel powers they both share to learn how to fight back, eventually starting to like killing Colt again and again in the hunt before the game 'starts'. When the player gains control of an amnesiac Colt, Julianna has become the far better fighter between them, despite Colt's own skills, and he has to learn as much as he can about Blackreef's resources, weapons and how to use them against her before she kills him and restarts the loop]].

** When playing as Julianna the player doesn't start out with the Karnesis slab that Julianna used in the prologue (possibly because this is a different Julianna) and also lacks the Sepulchra Breteira sniper rifle despite the player character prominintly holding it on the gear select menu.

''"DEATHLOOP"'' is a [[{{Roguelike}} Rogue-lite]] FirstPersonShooter ImmersiveSim, developed by Creator/ArkaneStudios Lyon team for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows [=PCs=], and later released on the UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndSeriesS.

You play as Colt, a ProfessionalKiller trapped in a GroundhogDayLoop on the mysterious island of Blackreef, where Colt and the island's villainous inhabitants hunt one another endlessly in an unending 'party' of debauchery and violence. Using your growing HyperspaceArsenal of weapons and [[StockSuperpowersIndex supernatural abilities]], you'll need to take out the 8 "[[VisionaryVillain Visionaries]]" ruling the stunning, chaotic island before the day resets in order to break the loop once and for all. By far the most dangerous Visionary is Julianna, a rival assassin whose sole mission is to take Colt out and keep the loop going... and the thing is, [[AsymmetricMultiplayer someone else can play as her too.]]

It released on September 14, 2021 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation5 and PC via {{UsefulNotes/Steam}} and the Bethesda Launcher.

** The infusion mechanic is the main method for the player to build up power and carry items and abilities between loops, so the player isn't at the mercy of enemy drops.

** Time does not actually pass within an area until Colt goes into the tunnels, so the player doesn't need to worry about spending too much time exploring and missing any important events.

** The Reprise ability allows for Colt to die twice in a given area before he is forced to restart the day. Whenever he leaves an area for a given time period, this is refreshed. It will also rewind time as far as necessary to put Colt in a stable area and gives a few seconds of near-invisibility, making it incredibly unlikely to just drop you back into a deathtrap. Your Reprise also gets reset if you manage to kill and absorb the residum from Juliana, which can offset the trouble an invasion can do to your planned schedule.

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Dying as Colt causes him to teleport back to a safe location far away from where you died. This ability makes dying a viable strategy for going back into stealth, escaping other players invading your game, and quickly returning to certain locations after luring enemies away. The only limitations are that it can only be done twice (unless gameplay settings are altered, and after which you are looped back to the beginning of the day, and you drop all [[AppliedPhlebotinum Residuum]] you have accumulated at the time at the spot you were felled (or the [[AntiFrustrationFeatures nearest accessible spot]] in some cases, like falling into the freezing water), which you will have to make an effort to reclaim.

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Dying as Colt causes him to teleport back to a safe location far away from where you died. This ability makes dying a viable strategy for going back into stealth, escaping other players invading your game, and quickly returning to certain locations after luring enemies away.

** [[spoiler:The Heritage Gun, beside having a very Dishonored-era look to it, is also stamped with the logo of the "Imperial Arsenal" and [[https://preview.redd.it/l4af5cikt4p71.png?width=2548&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa13f1179c17a8230d4bcdf11155f411a6f92fb0 sports an impression of the clock tower of Dunwall]]. Its serial number even contains the letters "DUNW".]]

** Charles's game that he plays at the Bay if he's still alive by nightfall is a series of these. First you have a bar that has a door with a lock on it. To open the lock, you must find 4 drawings painted on different walls around the bar that give you the code to the lock one by one, but you have only 3 minutes from unlocking the front door to figure out the code and open the door [[spoiler:though you can cheat a bit by going around to the side and climbing through a gap above the barred door there, letting you figure out the password at your own pace, then exit the bar and go in the "proper" entrance and immediately unlock the door]]. The second challenge is at the hanger where Harriet is in the morning. There are 6 switches and you have 30 seconds to activate them in the correct order. Your only hint as to what the correct order is is that the next switch in line will be beeping. Finally, (after grabbing multiple other boxes around the zone), you have the final challenge that's similar to the one at the hanger, except there are power neutralizers scattered around the obstacle course and multiple lasers that if tripped will instantly fail the test, forcing you to restart the entire event on another loop. Fortunately, the resulting reward is a very nice gun (that can alternate between a rifle and a shotgun on demand).

* SimpleYetAwesome: The Shift Slab's teleportation ability unlocks new routes through the environment, provides quick movement for travel, stealth or escapes as well as allowing you to break out if caught by Aleksei or Julianna's Karnesis power. That's before you start adding upgrades that allow for superpowered kicks or swapping enemies into long falls or deathtraps, or simply [[BoringButPractical extend Shift's reach]].

** Fia Zborowska: [[spoiler:It's implied the impermanence of the loop eventually drives her even crazier than she was before, as none of her artworks survive to the next day. By the time the game starts, she's rigging a quarter of the island to explode for her latest "masterpiece." She also started the loop high as a kite, and may have semi-RippleEffectProofMemory because of it.]]

** Fia Zborowska: [[spoiler:It's implied the impermanence of the loop eventually drives her even crazier than she was before, as none of her artworks survive to the next day. By the time the game starts, she's rigging a quarter of the island to explode for her latest "masterpiece."]]

** It's generally impossible to fail a mission outright, with a few exceptions such as Charlie's games and Fia's reactor. Your targets won't ever leave the map or move to an impenetrable location so if you're seen you can always just gun down every character on the map.

* SimpleYetAwesome: The Shift Slab's teleportation ability unlocks new routes through the environment, provides quick movement for travel, stealth or escapes as well as allowing you to break out if caught by Aleksei or Julianna's Karnesis power. That's before you start adding upgrades that allow for superpowered kicks or swapping enemies into long falls or deathtraps.