OLD WORLDFraser Brown:I’ve
dreamed of splicing all
my favourite games
with Crusader Kings at some
point or another, but few more
so than (^) Civilization. Firaxis’
series has spawned some
genuine masterpieces, but it’s
also starting to feel a bit
familiar and unadventurous,
especially compared to
Paradox’s wildly ambitious and
proudly weird grand strategy
RPG. Could the best parts of
both coexist in a single game?
Old World proved they could,
while also being a fantastic
historical 4X in its own right.
Old World is a game of
building empires and
expanding cities, but with
heaps of human drama and
complications, and both aspects
interact with each other in
interesting ways. When you
found a city, for instance, you
have to make a single family its
ruler. Each comes with unique
mechanical bonuses, but there’s
also your relationship with the
families to consider, and the
people who belong to them.
Maybe you’ll give it to the
family of your favourite general
and best mate, or use it as an
olive branch to mend things
with a family you’ve pissed off.
All the intrigue and strategy
exist in harmony, even if things
aren’t looking so great at court.
It’s so much more than Civ
with Crusader Kings’ humanity,
though. Mohawk Games and
designer Soren Johnson have
also reconsidered a big list of
4X systems, as well as finding
ways to make the genre more
manageable without sacrificing
complexity – sometimes they
add even more interesting
opportunities. The Orders
system is fantastic for this very
reason. It ostensibly limits how
much you can do in a single
turn, teaching you to prioritise,
but that limitation can be
neutralised by making certain
decisions that will shape your
civilisation and ruler. Simpler
but just as welcome, you can
undo any action you take, or an
entire turn. It’s great for fixing
silly mistakes, but it’s also a
boon for experimentation and
learning the ropes.
All this, combined with its
more focused timeframe – the
name’s a giveaway – and fairly
brisk campaign make it easy to
get stuck into, but it’s still
dense and sometimes opaque.
I thought it was great at
launch, but I can appreciate it
even more now.
Phil Savage: Finally, an
Arkane game that
dares you to let your
hair down. Where Dishonored
wagged its finger at high-chaos
murder and mayhem,
Deathloop positively revels in it.
Sure, your overall objective is
to break the very timeloop that
lets you fight and kill without
consequence, but along the
way it’s constantly asking: do
you really want this to end?
Are you not having fun?
I am having fun. It’s easy to
miss how good Arkane’s
combat usually is, because
there’s a sense that being quiet
and nonlethal is the right way
to play. In Deathloop, the lack of
a quickload key means that, if
you’re spotted, you’re unable to
correct your mistake. And
eventually you start to ask if
being noticed is even a mistake
at all. You’ve got an arsenal of
cool guns, and a selection of
powers that make you really
good at taking out your targets.
Is it really so bad to use them?
It’s all underpinned by the
invasion system, where other
players can join your game in
an attempt to hunt you down.
These cat-and-mouse battles let
you use the full breadth of
Deathloop’s many systems, in
encounters that are as hilarious
as they are tense. There’s little
more satisfying than turning an
invader’s impatience against
them as you slowly manipulate
the environment to your
advantage. And, as an invader, it
feels great to weaponise the
added tension of your sudden
appearance – goading your
quarry into making a mistake
that costs them their life.
Deathloop has as much in
common with Arkane’s
entertainingly messy Dark
Messiah: Might & Magic^ as^ it^
does with the seminal
Dishonored^ series,^ and^ it’s^ all^
the better for it.
Jody Macgregor: Deathloop
does feel like Arkane’s response
to people who felt pressured to
sneak through (^) Dishonored.
That’s how I’d have played
whether it felt right or not, so
Deathloop – with its guilt-free
murderthons and, instead of
quicksaves, a modern take on
ye olde three lives – shouldn’t
be for me. And yet I kicked
people off cliffs, ran across
rooftops, set off dominos to
drop a landmine on someone’s
head, and loved it all.
DEATHLOOP
BEST
STRATEGY
2021
BEST
ACTION
2021