Bethesda was unhappy with Dishonored 2’s commercial failure – in terms of making the stealth game popular with broader audiences, at least – and decided Arkane needed to make Deathloop instead of another sequel. Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that Bethesda wanted the Arkane team to experiment and learn with a smaller project, and that’s how Deathloop was born.
“And then [Deathloop] became a big thing, over the years,” Colantonio said. “That was the funny thing: ‘Nah, we don’t wanna do Dishonored 3, but if you can pitch us a small game, something that maybe has multiplayer so we can learn multiplayer, something that maybe has microtransactions, maybe something with a lot of recycling, like a roguelike.’”
The popularity of roguelikes at the time meant that particular feature request became a permanent fixture. The project grew to the point where Colantonio said it would’ve cost just as much to make Dishonored 3, but Bethesda believed in its potential. The team thought multiplayer component, revamped layouts after Colt dies, different enemies, and basically everything else that makes Deathloop unique among roguelikes gave it a strong chance of success.
While he left Bethesda to make Weird West and didn’t say whether Deathloop lived up to the company’s expectations, it made its way to our list of the best games in 2021. Arkane Lyon also added a bit of Dishonored to Deathloop after the PS5 game launched, though. The team said both games take place in the same universe.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
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