Potential buyers are wondering whether Deathloop is a roguelike or not. While the genre has increased in popularity over the past few years, it still remains polarizing, and many players don’t enjoy the proposition of dying and repetition it entails. While some get satisfaction out of trying over and over until they get a successful run, others just find the process frustrating. However, given Deathloop’s unique premise, it’s hard to tell if it’s a roguelike at first glance or not.
Is Deathloop a roguelike or rogue-lite?
Deathloop is not a roguelike. It wears the disguise of a roguelike at times, but it lacks some of the genre’s hallmarks.
At first glance, Deathloop’s premise of a cycle of death and rebirth is reminiscent of games like Returnal, Hades, and Binding of Issac. However, there are a few things that prevent it from being classified as a roguelike.
First and foremost, there is no randomization to level layouts. Part of the challenge in a roguelike is that each time a player enters a level, it’s arranged differently. Each of the four locations in Deathloop change depending on the time of day a player visits it, but the layout itself remains the same.
There is also no permadeath, and players don’t have to start a new run with their progress reset. At the beginning of the game, Cole lacks the ability to bring gear with him into the next loop, but that changes fairly early on when he kills Wenjie for the first time. Once players gain the ability to spend Residuum to infuse gear and keep it permanently, it no longer shares this facet with roguelikes.
By the mid-point of the game, Deathloop is more about deciphering the puzzle of killing the visionaries in the right order to stop the loop. While the game world’s status resets at the beginning of each day, Cole can retain information, like door codes, and any infused gear stays as well. This means the player starts each loop stronger than the last, something that isn’t indicative of a roguelike.
