Deathloop was enjoyable enough, but ultimately felt like a watered down Dishonored 2 with Outer-Wilds-for-babies grafted onto it. Outer Wilds is a Swiss watch puzzle box whose solving will make you feel like a genius, and will then make you shudder in acknowledgement of the several-orders-of-magnitude-greater genius required to construct such a thing. Deathloop semi-successfully recreates the joy of “discovering how it all fits together,” but ends up feeling far less rewarding because of how aggressively it guides you through the experience. Outer Wilds makes you rely on your wits to figure out where to go and what to do next. In Deathloop, you are forever presented with a series of clear cut objectives that tell you exactly where to go, exactly what to do, and exactly when to do it. They’ve removed any need for the player to perform the mental gymnastics that could have made this game more interesting

To its credit though, I love the aesthetic of Blackreef, the levels do uphold Dishonored’s legacy of lovingly crafted sandbox mazes with discoveries around every corner, and I adore Colt and Julianna as characters. It’s just the way you get from the game’s A to Z that leaves me feeling a little deflated