Arkane Studios has shown a knack for developing boundary-pushing first-person games, combining mechanics in new and unexpected ways time and time again. Now, the studio has recently joined the Xbox Game Studios family, following the completion of the Xbox-Bethesda deal.
Arkane's heavily anticipated Deathloop shares a lot of similarities with its spiritual predecessor Dishonored games. The availability of the games on Xbox's Game Pass service makes it one of the best times to revisit Dishonored or better yet try it out for the first time in anticipation of what's coming. It's worth noting that Deathloop is exclusive to PS5, due to existing contracts, but that shouldn't stop multi-console owners from checking out Arkane's pedigree ahead of time.
A Great Appetizer For Deathloop
Dishonored serves as a great appetizer for the upcoming Deathloop, having equal parts original ideas and similar ones. Dishonored, just like Deathloop, is played in the first-person perspective and players need to use their wits and skills to get around the world in an effort to complete the objectives at hand.
Deathloop's abilities seem quite similar to Dishonored, with the Blink ability working in exactly the same fashion. In addition to this, Arkane has already stated that multiple abilities from Dishonored would be making a return. Thus, players spending time with Dishonored would get a firm sense of what to expect from Deathloop, as well as some well-needed practice. Dishonored features a whole host of options for tackling the assassination at hand, containing both low and high chaos options. Arkane encourages players to experiment with these abilities quite often by way of gated content such as additional opportunities and multiple endings.
Deathloop's clockwork concept would require players to experiment quite a lot with different routes, methods, and abilities to escape the loop. Having previous experience with such replayability concepts would certainly help gamers a lot.
It's The Best Time To Play Dishonored Anyway
While playing Dishonored for the Deathloop similarities is perfectly fine, it seems to be the perfect time to revisit Dishonored anyway. The heavily-anticipated acquisition of Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media has finally been completed. Xbox has added 20 highly acclaimed Bethesda titles to its Game Pass catalog as a token of gratitude for its fans, and the Dishonored games have luckily made the cut.
In addition to this, Dishonored has also made the cut in receiving FPS boost patches on the Xbox Series consoles. Fans of Dishonored would remember the sub-30-fps performance of the original release on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The loading times for the game also proved tiring, as it could take up to a minute to get back into the game. Considering the frequent deaths and reloads that the player is expected to have, experimentation and retries can become quite the chore.
The next-gen upgrade in the form of Dishonored Definitive Edition did little in the name of improvements, falling to the same issues that plagued the original release. However, players on an Xbox Series X/S get the best possible console version of the game. Dishonored runs at 60 fps without any hiccups, and it takes just a couple of seconds to get back in the game. Players who were put off by these issues now have a solid reason to revisit the title on next-gen hardware, as well as newcomers can enjoy the game without any of the performance issues.
Deathloop is set for release on PC and PlayStation 5 on May 21, 2021.