Deathloop doesn't do no-kill runs and it sounds so liberating

Deathloop comes from the same studio behind Dishonored, but this time Arkane wants you to use all your lethal tools.

As we saw in the Deathloop gameplay reveal earlier this month, the upcoming PS5 game shares its fundamentals with the Dishonored series: open-ended levels with first-person action, stealth, and superpowers. While Dishonored encourages you to walk a non-lethal path by showing how the world is thrown into chaos by indiscriminate killing, in Deathloop it doesn't matter how many mooks you ace.

It's not an amorality thing, it's just that you live in a time loop! Anybody you kill will come back in the next loop, making life itself a game for everybody (except the main character, Cole, who is the one person trying to escape). Game director Dinga Bakaba explained to VG247 how Deathloop is taking stealth in a different direction from the Dishonored series.

"There are some abilities that are dedicated to that, to sneaking around, to making the best of stealth," Bakaba said. "So, you can play using stealth, although playing non-lethally is not something Colt is into, for a number of reasons. But the most important reason is, the only way he’s getting out of the island is by killing eight targets before the end of the day. So, because people don’t really die per se, because of the time loop, he just goes for the fastest option, which is either sneaking past them, or eliminating them through stealth, or action.”

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed going for no kills in Dishonored, and it felt especially worthwhile when I got the good ending. But I did get tired of hiding in the shadows and putting guards in sleeper holds, and I did go on rampages with all my rad murder powers before reloading to do it the right way. Arkane makes playgrounds filled with power tools - metaphorically speaking - and I'm glad that Deathloop won't make me feel judged for whipping out the Sawzall.

“You can really go crazy, go loud, go silent, explore as much as you want or be as fast as you want, but without missing out on the content,” Bakaba said.