STiFU

Finished Deathloop yesterday. My verdict:

Arkane Studios showing off once again that they are one of the best in game design: Pick the timeloop mystery adventure mechanics of Outer Wilds and remix them, add "Dark Souls"-like invasions in the form that other players can play your antagonist Juliana, and wrap it all in 60s-stylized first person shooter with abilities and upgrades, and an interesting story to unravel. This culminates in such a unique gameplay experience that "Deathloop" would have deserved Game of the Year 2021 WAY more than "It Takes Two". Especially the invasions add so much tension to your playthroughs, it is absolutely exhilarating. That is, unless your opponent lags incredibly, which sadly happens quite often. Combine this with the performance issues many players experienced, and you know why the game did not win game of the year. It is really sad to see technical issues hinder such a masterpiece of a game from doing well. The only criticism I have with respect to gameplay is that the first shot of any weapon is apparently always 100% accurate, which enables you to headshot enemies hundreds of meters away using your submachine gun, but other than that the gun play is on point. All in all, just 9/10 due to technical issues.