Deathloop (Created by Arkane, Makers of Disonored and Prey)

ParadiseLost

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They just released a ~24 minute summary video yesterday.

My personal thoughts is that it looks like the first AAA Roguelike. Not sure if I'll get it - I'm giving it a pretty small chance.

My main concern is that Prey's performance is worse than much newer games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Outriders on my PC, so I'm concerned about Deathloop's optimization - worst case though I could return it if optimization was really bad.

My second concern is that Arkane's post-Dishonored games aren't nearly as good as Dishonored. I think Arkane really missed what made Dishonored great, and came away with the dubious idea that Dishonored was a success because of its gameplay as opposed to its story. Yes, its given Arkane a pretty devoted following, but every game after Dishonored consistently sold poorly.

Deathloop releases May of this year on PS5, Steam, Microsoft Store, and Bethesda.net, and it also will probably be a Day 1 XBox Game Pass release.
 
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Battlegrinder

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My second concern is that Arkane's post-Dishonored games aren't nearly as good as Dishonored. I think Arkane really missed what made Dishonored great, and came away with the dubious idea that Dishonored was a success because of its gameplay as opposed to its story. Yes, its given Arkane a pretty devoted following, but every game after Dishonored consistently sold poorly.

I think that's something they'd have reason to think, though, given that most of their previous titles were known for having far better gameplay than mechanics, Dishonored was a step back if anything, given it had a karma meter that restricted you from certain gameplay styles, which previous titles lacked (and given they backed away from that system in later games).
 

ParadiseLost

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I think that's something they'd have reason to think, though, given that most of their previous titles were known for having far better gameplay than mechanics, Dishonored was a step back if anything, given it had a karma meter that restricted you from certain gameplay styles, which previous titles lacked (and given they backed away from that system in later games).

Dishonored is by far Arkane's best sales success.

Dishonored's sales were so great that less than 2 weeks later they announced they had a franchise and had sequels in the works.

Dishonored 2's sales were abysmal enough they announced that they were pausing the franchise. [They might've actually lost money on Dishonored 2. It sold that bad.]

The fact that DOTO was made nearly entirely of recycled D2 assets should also tell you a lot about how bad D2's sales were.

Prey sold even worse, but it seems they probably slashed the development and marketing budget on it.

An important part of marketing is to separate why the most vocal customers say they play the game from why most people are actually buying the game.

What separates Dishonored from Dishonored 2 / Prey is that Dishonored had a very strong story/plot, along with good characters.
 

Battlegrinder

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What separates Dishonored from Dishonored 2 / Prey is that Dishonored had a very strong story/plot, along with good characters.

It's been a while since I've played either Dishonored, but I've played Prey lately, and the story and characters were fine.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

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I remember people hyping Dishonored up as "the spiritual successor to Thief!" and thinking "cool!", but when I actually played it, I was very disappointed. There was no light/dark detection, nor sound detection. The levels were also designed around you using the powers, so you were pretty much forced to use them. I also thought that the story was meh. Only thing to write home about was the British isles dieselpunk aesthetic/setting. Gloomwood has been shaping up to being more of what I wanted out of a Thief successor.
 

Battlegrinder

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I remember people hyping Dishonored up as "the spiritual successor to Thief!" and thinking "cool!", but when I actually played it, I was very disappointed. There was no light/dark detection, nor sound detection. The levels were also designed around you using the powers, so you were pretty much forced to use them. I also thought that the story was meh. Only thing to write home about was the British isles dieselpunk aesthetic/setting. Gloomwood has been shaping up to being more of what I wanted out of a Thief successor.

In dishonor's defense, the Thief style light based detection system has always been....clunky. In practice, it translates to "standing in a slightly shady spot makes you totally invisible to anyone no matter how close they are to you, even though you can clearly see into and navigate that same darkness."

And sound is even worse, particularly in thief, which had two surfaces: padded carpet that absorbed all sound, and The Loudest Tiles known to man, which master thief garret was apparently stomping around on while wearing tap dancing shoes.

I would also point out that every stealth game is designed around using it's mechanics, with various carefully placed hiding spots, predicatable patrol routes, no radio checks or similar procedures, and guards that are remarkably incurious about patches of moss suddenly appearing in the halls, the locations of other guards they haven't seen for a while, and that never ever need anything from the various crates, wardrobes, and storage closets scattered around their workspace.
 

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