Arkane Studios

Deathloop reused Mooncrash's time-loop structure but dropped the fixes that made it work. Both games reset on death or at the end of the loop and make you finish every target in one loop: seven visionaries in Deathloop, five escape methods in Mooncrash. Mark Brown argues Deathloop ignores nearly all the patches Mooncrash made to the loop concept and to wider immersive sim problems.

Tone, style and story are far apart, but the underlying gameplay structure is very similar. "I can't shake this feeling of deja vu - that Deathloop is just Prey: Mooncrash - but not as good."

Small random changes in a fixed map keep each loop fresh. Mooncrash keeps one hand-built layout but randomises hazards, broken stairs, tram stations, escape pods and enemy spawns, so you learn shortcuts and safe spots and then have to adapt when one fails. Deathloop is near identical at the same time of day, so by the sixth afternoon in Updaam you know the perfect route and only Juliana's invasions bring surprise.

The map was fixed because random layouts are hard in detailed 3D. Arkane's team was obsessed with roguelikes like Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain and Dead Cells, according to a GDC talk. Brown's favourite Mooncrash moments came from random changes ruining his plans.

Permanent upgrades need difficulty that rises with the player. Mooncrash adds fire and radiation at 25 percent of missions, a shorter time limit at 50 percent and dust storms at 75 percent. Deathloop's infused weapons, trinkets and slabs stay forever while enemies stay the same, and Brown felt nearly invincible after 7 or 8 hours.

Permanent progression, borrowed from friendlier roguelikes like Rogue Legacy, leaves only a handful of runs in the balanced sweet spot. Mooncrash still got easy, with Brown buying superweapons before each run. Deathloop's Loop Stress makes visionaries stronger as you kill allies, but he never felt it, and the seven-visionary finale fell on the first attempt.

A pressure system forces hard choices, but it can be too harsh. Mooncrash's corruption meter brings tougher enemies and harder hacking, and a full meter forces a reset. Deathloop has nothing like it: you can clear a level and wander collecting Residuum, with only the Wake Up Challenge at The Complex adding time pressure.

Players found corruption anxiety-inducing, it clashes with stealth and exploration, and being killed without ceremony when time runs out is too harsh. Roguelikes use the same idea: Spelunky's ghost, the fleet in FTL, hunger in Don't Starve, timed doors in Dead Cells.

Splitting the hero into specialists breaks players' comfortable habits. Mooncrash splits Prey's Morgan into five specialists, so a go-to style is sometimes not viable and abilities unused in Prey got used. Deathloop gives one hero every tool, and Brown hacked turrets for about 30 hours without swapping his shift power.

Arkane's Rich Wilson names stealth or never killing humans as typical comfort patterns that leave players using a small part of the game. The weak spot in Mooncrash is that psychic characters can still use guns. Losing gear each loop could force variety in Deathloop, but infusion removes that pressure.

Characters sharing one loop can set each other up, like co-op with yourself. In Mooncrash the next character enters the same loop, so the engineer repairs a portal, the custodian hacks it, and the volunteer, who can do neither, escapes through it. Deathloop's four time periods carry over only a few changes, like cutting power to Otto's workshop in the morning.

Mooncrash also pits you against yourself: used escape pods are gone, dead characters return as phantoms, and scavenged items vanish. That tension fades because you can buy what you need and corruption makes a reset the better choice.

Let players plan the finale instead of scripting it. Mooncrash's final challenge lets you choose which character takes which escape route and in what order, such as sending the weakest first so the strongest are present when corruption peaks. Deathloop has one set route, order and method, laid out in a cutscene and quest log, with only how you find Alexis at his party left open.

Deathloop did borrow Mooncrash's trick for pacing a non-linear story: Mooncrash sends you back to the ship after a set number of Kasma orders, and Deathloop opens each level with a phone call between Juliana and Colt.

Prototype ideas in DLC, then carry the refinements into the full game. Brown argues bonus content is a good place to test ideas that a full release can expand, as long as the follow-up iterates on what was learned. Mooncrash came from Arkane Austin and Deathloop from Arkane Lyon with hardly any shared staff, which may explain why the lessons were lost.

Austin's next game, Redfall, picks up the multiple-character idea without a time loop. "bonus content like this can be a great way to experiment with new ideas and concepts."

Prototype the transformation itself, not just the two end states. Dana Nightingale's goal from day zero was letting the player move inside the building's guts, with separate spaces for normal people and for the assassin. Every moving room was prototyped around all the possibilities during a transformation, which is why changes are slow and players can slip through walls mid-move.

Prototyping began with only the inventor, Sokolov's role and the clockwork soldiers fixed, no layout and no set challenges. Artist David Di Giacomo built the mansion and its mechanisms. Jindosh's bedroom grew from a bed where he pulls a lever and finds a bathtub behind him, becoming three rooms with two configurations each around a rotating centre.

Zone a dense level with strong thresholds so players can forget behind them. The mansion is split into four clean sections, five with the assessment chamber, each cut off by strong thresholds, and no room has more than three normal ways in or out. Arkane calls this the door effect.

"every time the player goes through a door you can let them forget about what was behind them" This kept an extremely interconnected map understandable.

Let what the player notices set their goal, and allow skipping content. In the visitor's area an arc pylon blocks the way, but a grating with a hole or an openable window sets a different goal, so only a player who takes in nothing is fully blocked. Skipping half the level's content is accepted as the player's own choice.

An early maze version with destination panels was dropped because mastery was impossible in an antagonistic level. Taking Sokolov first changes how the level reacts, with guards and stowed clockwork soldiers emerging; only speedrunners reliably go for Jindosh first.

Validate how players naturally react instead of fighting it. The first atrium design had an immediately hostile clockwork soldier, which felt overwhelming, and about 80 percent of players hid anyway. The team made hiding work: if unspotted, Jindosh wonders aloud about a misfiring mechanism and a perfect stealth run continues.

Meeting Jindosh early, with loudspeaker taunts modelled on SHODAN from System Shock 2, gave more room to build the antagonist than Dishonored 1's brief or dead villains.

Non-human enemies let players use every tool without consequences. Clockwork soldiers exist so players can use their powers freely without triggering the chaos system. Two soldier types give a difficulty curve, since the first could see behind itself and attack in all directions, so Nightingale asked for an easier version early.

Clues come in two forms: observant players hear a guard say they're blind but can still hear, while players who dive in learn from animations and audio. The soldiers were redesigned after converging playtest feedback said they looked goofy; the old heads remain as target practice.

Precise cuts kept the level whole despite budget and tech limits. The wind corridor, an ethics-testing assessment chamber that would have taken half the map, and a pneumatic tube for Sokolov were all cut for scope. A third, non-violent outcome for Jindosh was cut because each outcome needed more voice recording.

The assessment chamber became a small rat maze, the most conservative version that still answered where Jindosh would keep Sokolov. Making Sokolov resistant to damage was the cheap fix for a dull escort. Rotating walls also clashed with AI pathfinding.

Unnoticed detail still adds to the overall feeling. The lab mechanism works realistically even though many players never notice it, and hidden closets in Jindosh's bedroom reward players who watch the mechanisms. The mansion team, almost an indie team inside the studio, kept taking the extra step.

"Even if a player isn't consciously aware of everything that's happening it all soaks in." A second near-indie team worked on Crack in the Slab.

Arkane carried the Looking Glass philosophy forward. Arkane made a new Prey as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and has a Thief-like in development. Warren Spector says the studio has extended the Looking Glass philosophy.