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IN MY review of The Forgotten City a few months ago, I said that time loop stories are rare in video games. If I could go back in time, I would recant that. This year has seen a veritable glut of Groundhog Day-’em-up games, including , a thriller starring James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe, and , which is probably the most ambitious of the lot.

Deathloop sees you play as Colt Vahn, who wakes up on the beach of the mysterious island of Blackreef having seemingly been killed by an unfamiliar woman. You quickly discover that the island has been put into a time loop by an organisation called the AEON Program. The same day, the first day of the loop, is endlessly repeating, and if you die before it ends, you return to the beach.

Only two people remember the events of the previous loop – Colt, who has only just started to remember, and Julianna, the woman who killed him and seems to have been aware of the loop for some time. Colt is determined to break the loop and escape, while Julianna has pledged to stop him.

He can only succeed by killing Julianna and seven other members of AEON known as Visionaries, who are keeping the loop active using artefacts called slabs that provide them with abilities, such as invisibility or teleportation, which you can claim for yourself. Exactly how it all works is pretty hand-wavy, though a dose of quantum physics seems to be involved, as is often the case with these things.

“Blackreef is inhabited by Eternalists, who have joined the island to enjoy a life of partying and killing”

Blackreef is a strange place, draped in 1960s kitsch and littered with retro-futuristic tech. Along with the Visionaries, it is inhabited by Eternalists, people who have joined the island to enjoy a life of unbridled partying and killing.

You explore the island by visiting one of four locations in either the morning, at noon, during the afternoon or in the evening – after that, the day loops again. These locations change throughout the day, so that a route that is accessible in the morning might be blocked in the evening, or certain events might only happen at noon. Since you can visit just four of the possible 16 combinations of location and time before the loop restarts, it initially isn’t possible to kill the seven Visionaries in one go. You need to figure out ways to get them to the same place and time.

Essentially, it is one big puzzle, with Colt picking up information, weapons or a slab and using them on the next loop. Colt and Julianna trade barbs via radio at the start of each loop, and their evolving relationship is key to the game – as Julianna is the only other person who remembers the previous loops, she can appear at any point in the game to interfere with your plans. There is even a multiplayer mode that allows you to play as Julianna and drop into someone else’s game, which is a fun twist.

The out-of-time island of Blackreef, with its various secret bunkers, strongly evokes the TV series Lost, and, just as with the show, I found myself drawn deeply in as I tried to piece together what was going on. Unfortunately, like Lost, I was gradually worn down by the pieces of story that never quite gel together or fully explain themselves, and found the ending ultimately unsatisfying.

Deathloop is one of the most interesting games released this year, but it isn’t quite as good as it could have been. Maybe a sequel will give its developer, Arkane Studios, a chance to get it right next time around.

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Games

Arkane Studios

PC, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One

Play as an assassin in a whale oil-fuelled alternative version of Victorian-style England, in a game sharing a lot of DNA with Deathloop.

Irrational Games

PC, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One

Arkane’s aesthetic is heavily influenced by Bioshock, set in a city under the sea where Ayn Rand’s libertarian philosophy has gone horribly wrong.