level to light up with the right map marker so you can load in run to an objective collect your new passcode and then run back to the safety of this menu it's here that you'll spend time awkwardly sorting through duplicate trinkets and weapons and trying to discern which ones you've already equipped versus which ones you still need to infuse versus which ones you might need to infuse three of because all of your weapons need fast reloading etc etc none of these individual things are complicated in and of themselves but i look at death loop and i see an experience that is so gamey and one that struggles to create a sense of immersion because it never tries to solve any of its design challenges through immersive gameplay based solutions it relies on this menu to do all of that heavy lifting imagine a singular connected world that you could move through uninterrupted from end to end nope there's a menu and you choose which level to load imagine time flowing as you played nope time stands completely still whenever you play the game and if you want to advance time you do it through this menu imagine being able to change abilities or character trinkets or weapon mods during gameplay nope you come back to this menu and you do all of that here imagine being able to logically intuit the solutions to the game's puzzles no they are not logic based solutions that a player could organically arrive at through deduction and experimentation so the only way to progress the player is to pile the solution into this menu and then give the player map markers to head towards arcane are the undisputed masters of the immersive sim genre and ironically enough death loop is one of the least immersive games i played this year because it's never trying to be immersive there's this serious lack of kinesthetic link between player and world order the outcomes that you as a player affect i never felt like black reef was a real place beginning any foray into it felt like booting up a custom match in halo where i would select the map and i would pick and ban abilities and weapons and attachments and i would set the game mode objectives and then i would hit the launch button that was a feeling i just couldn't get past and given how cutting-edge arcane have been since their inception this reliance on a menu to drive forward so many of the game's core features felt like a big regression
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