In a recent interview, Arkane Studios talked about their time-bending game Deathloop, how they came about the idea and the plethora of choices awaiting players once it launches.
Deathloop puts you in the shoes of Colt, an assassin stuck in a time loop on Blackreef island, whose only way out is to assassinate eight targets across the island. Failure means starting over, but Colt retains his memories so players get to learn all sorts of useful info along the way.
"Deathloop is about making your investigation, following the different threads and leads at your leisure, at your own pace, and approaching the moment-to-moment as you want to", Deathloop's director Dinga Bakaba told GamesRadar
There are four periods of the day and four districts, but the gameplay is not on the clock so to speak. Deathloop players can spend as much as they want in a district, and time of day will advance once they exit.
Where Deathloop may lack in scope, though, it makes up in depth as Arkane went to great lengths to make districts look cool and different in each of the four periods of the day.
Same goes for in-game characters, whose habits can be a valuable asset for players. "For instance, you might find two guards complaining about how lame it is to spend their first day in the time loop digging a tunnel. You can kill them, like any other enemy, but if you don't, you come back a bit later during the day, and they will have dug that tunnel. That might be a nice passage into another area", Bakaba said.
There's also the issue of resetting gear, whose repetitive reacquiring doesn't sound like a fun prospect, but Bakaba hinted at something that happens in the story, which allows Deathloop players to "start progressing in a different way".
You can find the full interview here .