Arkane has become one of my favorite developers in the past few years. I had played through Dishonored 1 & 2 and Prey when they first released, and approached them basically like Bioshock games, aka mostly straighforward shooters with magic powers. It wasn't until I replayed them and started experimenting with the powers, stealth vs aggressive styles, finding new ways to approach problems and really getting into the worldbuilding, story, and lore that they became something very special to me. Arkane are among the best, if not THE best, at what they do in the biz, in my opinion.
With that being said, I thought Deathloop was not on the same level as the Dishonored games and Prey, but, then again, not many (any?) games really are. It went for a streamlined, arcadey version of Arkane's strengths, and for that, I had a really good time with it. One thing I really appreciated about Deathloop was that it took away the ability to Quicksave/Quickload. I 100% understand that this is entirely my doing, but I tend to fall into chronic, compulsive Quicksaving/Quickloading when it's an option. As a tradeoff, Arkane made Deathloop MUCH easier--enemies go down like softies and are pretty dumb, which was fine by me. Not having QS/QL forced me to roll with my mistakes and come up with solutions on the spot instead of resetting. For that, I had a lot of fun actually playing it. I just don't think it gives back what you put into it like Prey/Dishonored do, where exploration, investing in the world, and experimentation are deftly rewarded. The story was light and fun. Good game, but it's not going to be in my list of all-timers like Prey/Dishonored are.
