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Deathloop - Dinga Bakaba and Sébastien Mitton Interview

We recently attended a hands-off preview event for Arkane Lyon's upcoming shooter Deathloop, where we also got a chance to catch up with game director Dinga Bakaba and art director Sébastien Mitton, to chat all things about this anticipated title.

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome back to Gamereactor. My name is Ben and today we have a pretty interesting little interview for you because I've recently just came out of a Deathloop hands-off preview event and taken a look at the game in much more broader detail."

"And to sort of build on that, I'm now here with Sébastien and Dinga from Arkane Lyon to chat even further about the game and to really, you know, dive into the intricacies about what we can expect when Deathloop does arrive later this year. So the first question that I really want to throw at either one of you guys, so you know, please do pick it up, is that it's around sort of the fan response because Deathloop is quite an unusual concept and, you know, this game now makes tons of sense to me now after seeing all this extended gameplay and having the explanation, but for the most part, you know, people have been a little bit sort of confused as about what exactly Deathloop is ever since its initial release. So how has the fan response been to the game over the past few months ever since, you know, you started revealing more and more about it?
So, I mean, as far as we can tell, we are very, you know, happy with the response."

"People are intrigued by the game, they want to know more about it.
You know, it comes a lot as in the lists of what people are most interested to discover, you know, on the PS5. So, yeah, I mean, couldn't be happier. It's always difficult, you know, when you are making a game that wants to be original and try some new things and it's not like, and you are like us and you refuse like easy classifications."

"It's always complicated, but, you know, we are confident in the material that, like, I can tell you that we spend a lot of time looking at each every inch of every screenshot, each and every second of each video that we share because, you know, we care a lot about what people get of this game that is, again, yes, we try to make something original and, of course, we don't have the, I would say, the credentials of someone like Hideo Kojima with, you know, Death Stranding. But, I mean, you know, I'd say that this is a game where a lot of the pleasure is uncovering the mystery of what the fuck is happening. Sorry, I don't know if I have to, if I allowed to curse, but, you know, what is happening on this island, who Colt is, who those people are, how does this world work? Like, a lot of the fun of the game is uncovering that through the story and through the gameplay. So, definitely, we are living on purpose, a lot of mystery and et cetera, et cetera, and we are glad that there is some interest, right, from the community. So, on my side, couldn't have gone better. And, you know, as well, one of the major parts about Deathloop is the time looping mechanic, but it's not as, should we say, as defining as what initially it seemed to be, you know. This time looping system is very much a part of a tool that Colt uses in his kit to really, you know, push forward the story and build on this game. Because, in reality, Deathloop is more of a, you know, should we say, a story-driven puzzle game at its core. Is that correct?
Well, story-driven, 100%. Puzzle game, I wouldn't say so. It's more that the story is about Colt solving a puzzle, you know. But the player is not playing a puzzle game, so to speak."

"The player is really doing an investigation. I think you could say that. It's an investigation, it's a first-person shooter, it's an action-adventure game, like however you want to frame that. But in a sense, yes, you're playing this action game and the story is about solving this puzzle. But as far as you are, you're, you know, following leads, investigating an area, learning more about this character, his relationship with that character, which means that maybe if I manipulate them in that way, I can set them up for being able to kill both at the same time, you know, and things like that. So we like to, the reason we say murder puzzle is, again, it's kind of a narrative thing. It's trying to distill a lot of that experience and how the player feels like, you know. We wanted the player to feel smart as they go through the story."

"We've, you know, it's like those, you know, detective books, you know, those detective stories like those Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, you know, where there is some, the investigator comes and there is like this impossible murder that has been going on. Like, how could someone be killed in this yellow room with just this size? And then Hercule Poirot is like, yeah, it must have been a monkey. A monkey? Yeah. So it's kind of, sorry for spoiling but my point is that, yeah, we wanted to take the opposite approach, which is you are the person who is going to make an assassination that is absolutely impossible. And you're going to have to investigate, prepare that. And then once everything is set up, perform it. And that's, you know, that's what the story is about, preparing for this impossible kill and performing it."

"And yeah, I would say that it's interesting what you said about the time loop because in a way it is extremely intricately linked with absolutely everything in the game, the story, the art, the gameplay, like it permeates all those things. But like in, you know, we are a big action game. So, you know, it is an element among others inside the game experience, but it is something that gives a lot of, not only flavor, like it does give a lot of flavor to the experience, but also sometimes some very unique moments that are only possible in Deathloop because of this premise."

"And, you know, you talk about all these different elements and how the fact that, you know, the game can be, you can really abuse the sandbox and the way that the world is designed to really approach the way that you eliminate your targets differently. You know, it's not a very linear experience in that regard. There's a lot of different ways you can do things, a lot of different things that you can learn to be able to use to your advantage. Can we assume that, you know, everybody's experience of Deathloop is going to be a little bit different than one another's? You know, does it really offer that? I mean, at the very least, some of the moving parts that are clearly there are, first of all, the order in which you will make things. It's quite improbable that everyone will learn the same things at the same time and deduce that they have to do this thing and choose to do this or that. It's impossible. The way you will be going through this investigation, the order in which you will be chasing the target and then pick up on some lead and follow that lead to completion or switch to another one or go to the side content because, oh, apparently there is a cool weapon hidden somewhere on this district. I'm going to pick up on that. And so, because of this kind of freedom of, like, this is the most, I would say, player authored campaign that we've made. Like, it's minutiously designed, et cetera, et cetera, but you can really choose how you approach it. And that's, I think, something that will make each experience different. And the other thing is play style. Like, yes, you know, you can play more stealthily. You can use more your powers. Even the way we go about powers is that you have, you know, some slots and you have to choose which power you want to bring with you inside the mission and then you can change them out and swap them out for the next mission. And each of those powers have upgrades. And same story. There is two slots of upgrades and you can swap them out."

"So, you know, there is something conscious about I'm going with this loadout so I will be able to do this. Or wait a minute. You know what? Next time I'll try to do this slightly differently or I'll do something else now that I'm geared like this. Actually, it's a good idea to do this other thing that I had trouble with. So, all this hopefully make an experience that is quite organic. And even though we are trying to help the player knowing at all time what they need to do, what they can do, what they could do, you know, that so that it's not overwhelming and you always know how to go back on track to continue and finish the game. We still try to make this, you know, have this kind of big sandbox, yes, of things to do and ways to do these things."

"And I suppose I got a question here more for Sebastian. You know, the game itself is, you can see the influence of other Arcane Leon titles, particularly, you know, Dishonored. You can see not only just in the way that it sort of looks, but also in the many abilities and the movement systems, for example. But, you know, how did Dishonored really let you make Deathloop the title it is today, you know, make it truly unique and different to anything you've ever done before?
It is true that in the Dishonored games, we developed quite a few things that make us, well, set us apart from other productions that you might see in the video game world."

"With our approach, which is very classical to art. The Victorian era was perfect for that in the Dishonored games. That really enabled us to really go into how people thought at the time.
We really got into that mindset. Whereas in Deathloop, over time, when we chatted about the 60s, about kind of the party and everything is kind of new."

"To see, seeing life in a different light, that helped us for all the dialogues, among other things. And we started thinking about in this different mode in the 60s, more free, more generous, more happy. And that really created the difference in tone between what we did on the Dishonored games, because the look of the architecture changes, the fabric changes, the materials, the design changes. But the base philosophy is still the same, you know, making, using great references, understanding things before you go into it, not copying things that already exist, but rather looking at what exists, talking about it, and after that, putting, mixing it all together to create something that's unique every single time."

"Even though we always go off of a real base from the real world, we always twist it, change it, and we go into a what-if scenario. That's really interesting that the player is going to have foundations that he thinks he understands. And we're slowly going to bring him into something that is not normal, that he doesn't know. And that's the whole point of video games, is to enable people to travel, and so that they don't just have the impression of doing what they do in real life. We bring them somewhere else. That's also science fiction. I really like this side of science fiction, but close to our real life, not going 3,000 years in the future."

"Here, we did it the other way around. We're into 2020, 2021, and we did science fiction, but in the past. And I really loved that. I loved the Men in Black movie where they go back into the 60s. And I said, oh, that's really great. I love it. And right now, actually, I just realized that that Men in Black, I think the third or the fourth one, that's an approach that really subconsciously motivated me. You go from the modern to the 60s, and you see how things that come from the future integrate into the past. I really think it's excellent. I'm not sure it answers the original question, how you were hoping for, but yeah, there's kind of two different pictures, Dishonored and Deathloop, and different ways of seeing things."

"Thank you very much. Talking about one of the other core concepts in Deathloop, which is obviously Giuliana and the assassin that is also working directly against Colt at pretty much every turn. This is a sort of an invasion sort of mechanic. It's a mechanic where not only it could be a player, it could be an AI, that comes into the game and actively tries to kill you. So is this something that's going to be quite, should we say, intrusive? You're going to have to constantly be looking over your shoulder, wondering where Giuliana is coming from."

"Or is this something that we can sort of expect at certain times throughout the day on Colt's journey? This is definitely something that is quite defining of the experience of the game.
The way it works is that we have those four areas, and we have four districts, and we have four time periods. Morning, noon, afternoon, night. And there is eight targets, so they are sprinkled in those periods slash areas, right? And every area slash period where there is no target is kind of a free roam, and there is some cool side content, by the way, pretty organic. Sometimes it's just little stories that are happening there. Sometimes it's gameplay. I don't like to say side quest, because it's quite more organic than this, but something that you can play with and sometimes get a reward for, or some narrative nuggets about the world, etc. Giuliana will try to protect the visionaries. So if you're going to somewhere where there is no visionary, no target, then she will never invade. She will only try to invade when you're going after a target, or even if you're not going after them, in an area where there is a target. Because you enter those districts with different goals. Sometimes you're going for the target, sometimes you're going for this side thing, trying to get some reward or something. But yeah, there is always a risk that she invades when there is a target around."

"And when she does, yes, the tension usually probably rises. So what happens is that you do not, as Colt, you do not have to kill her, actually. You can find ways to do your objective and extract without even bumping into her. If you're sneaky or fast, or depending on how you play, we don't force this confrontation. If you compare it to the invasions in something like Bloodborne, for instance, in Bloodborne you're locked with the invader and one of you is going to die, which is really cool and it creates a lot of tension. But here you're locked with the invader, but you can find ways to extract and to escape her, which is interesting."

"And on the Juliana's side, she's not like, yeah, fictionally she's someone who enjoys the hunt.
She's not about only killing you. I mean, whether she dies or not, I'm immortal, what do I care? So it's not about winning, it's really about creating interesting moments, interesting stories with someone. And those stories we have seen in playtests or in our experimentation can be quite diverse. Sometimes it's a head-on confrontation, sometimes it's a long 10 minutes cat and mouse, I don't know where you are, I close every door so you don't know that I entered this building. I don't even kill enemies so that you don't see the traces of dead people on the ground. And it can be very, very slow and pure mind game. Sometimes it can be even fun, really funny encounters where someone would try to role play or I would be trying to give you jump scares and not even kill you or harassing you and then disappearing and stalk you for a while and then harass you again and then wait for you at the exit. It can be a lot of different ways these encounters play out. And that's what we wanted because Juliana is the real threat on Blackreef, honestly. So our recommendation for this game is to, you know, even like I mean we are Arkane, we do single-player games, you know, we love single-player games to be entirely fair and we know that a lot of our audience loves them. But this time we would encourage everyone to at least try and activate it from time to time if things start to get, you know, walk in the park, just activate the invasions and see what cool situations come out of it. Yes, sometimes frustration, sometimes triumph, sometimes just a funny thing you will want to tell your friends online after because it was unique, you know. So that's how we see this mode, an anecdote generator more than a competitive experience."

"Okay, as a final question, with the game itself, you know, being, you know, having the time loop and mechanic and when you die you go back to the beginning, you know, with some more information, with some new abilities and the sort of whole works there. But, you know, you go back to the beginning and it's in the core concept of it. Is difficulty something we should be concerned about or is this game, you know, very much tailored so that as you keep going you keep getting stronger and the day gets easier and easier? Yeah, it's an interesting question. The way we approach it is that, first of all, you know, in the beginning of the game Colt is just that one guy with a gun, like that's basically it, you know. And then, yes, you're quite fragile, you die easily, so stealth will be a good idea or avoiding enemies depending on how skilled you are. Maybe, you know, some people will actually go straight right in, like that really depends, like it's not forbidden, it's just hard in the beginning. And as you, you know, then you start to find a way to keep your stuff, like, oh, now I get to keep my stuff, that's interesting. And when you're able to do that and, you know, rise in power, you know, and now you're not just a random soldier trying to end the time loop, you're a kind of super-powered assassin, you know, dashing around and can, you know, activate this armor power, if you get it, to sustain heavy fire and stuff like that."

"When you get to that, yes, the difficulty becomes much less of a thing.
It's still, it's more about now you're very powerful, you usually know the areas better, so you're not, like, stressed out, like, what's that behind this, you know. And you sometimes will know the patrols, where they are, etc, etc. And, yeah, you have this great feeling of mastery over the space, over the tools, and over time itself. And that's the important part, because when we say that the day restarts, it doesn't mean that you have to go through each and every period."

"If you want to just skip directly to the afternoon because you have something to do there, you can do that, and there is no punishment to that, on the contrary. Like, that's the, I mean, some people like to play Skyrim without fast travel, I respect that, but, you know, just being able to go straight to where you need to be and to do is something we wanted. In this, you know, and the thing is that we, yeah, which is something that you, an impression that you can get that, oh, so each time I will wake up on the beach and do this thing. No, each time you, the day starts, you choose where you want to go, or you choose whether you want to go to the next period. So, you really focus on what you want to do. And also very important regarding challenge is the fact that, and I alluded to it, which is the fact that due to the freedom of approach, if something is too difficult going head-on, maybe try something else, or maybe do something else and come back later because, you know, again, you can do things in any order. There is always something to do somewhere else or sometime else on the island and then come back to it. So, it is definitely not a game that is a commentary about difficulty. It's something that, again, yes, there is some challenging moments, there is some moments, but, you know, it's not a game about, like, if you compared it to the roguelike structure, for instance, where you would go through the same biome with the same level of challenge each time and then to the second biome that is more difficult and the third that is more difficult, et cetera, et cetera. It's not, and then get to the end of the run and be happy about it and maybe try a new one. This is not about that. Definitely going through the end of the day is not an objective by itself and you don't have to go through each period to go to the next step. So, it is a challenging game. It's an action game. You know, the game adapts a little bit to how you play to make sure that, you know, the challenge is spiced up as it goes and that you get better rewards, you know, for killing enemies and stuff. But, you know, it's designed so that you will overpower those challenges should you want it."

"Because also, interestingly, if you want a difficult experience, though, all the progression, I literally mean all the progression, like being able to acquire those things, those powers, et cetera, it's entirely optional. You can finish the entire game with this crappy gun that jams every now and then. It jams quite often, actually. It's pretty crappy."

"You can finish the entire game with that should you want it because, you know, all the progression is optional. Thank you very much for speaking with us, Sebastian and Digger.
And, you know, I'm very looking forward to checking out the game when it does land on PC and PlayStation 5 later this year. So, have a good day and take care, everyone."

"Thank you. Take care."

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