6 Games Like Deathloop You Should Play

With its assassins, supernatural abilities, and a mysterious time loop packed into a vibrant cartoon 1960s setting, Deathloop is pretty much everything we didn’t know we needed in a game.

For a game where you’re essentially forced to die over and over again, Deathloop is chock-full of energy and quirky humor, with the bonus of having the stellar action gameplay we’ve come to expect from Arkane.

While Deathloop is quite unique in its premise, there are a number of games that offer a similar experience that might satisfy your cravings for time loops, sneakiness, and the glorious 1960s.

So, if you’re itching for more of the above, here are six games like Deathloop you should play.

 

Games Like Deathloop

1. Outer Wilds

Developer: Mobius Digital
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Featuring open world exploration, puzzles, and a Groundhog Day time loop, Outer Wilds is about an unnamed astronaut traversing through a solar system that blows up every 22 minutes from a supernova sun.

The game starts (and restarts) on the player character’s home planet, Timber Hearth, a small village inside a crater. You’re a recent recruit for Outer Wilds Ventures who’s tasked with the big job of uncovering the secrets of the Nomai, an extinct alien race that inhabited your solar system thousands of years ago.

Not long into your quest, you’ll also realize you’re caught in a time loop, so the task at hand just got bigger (or shorter depending on how you look at it). Using your trusty spaceship, you’ll travel to various planets and other points of interest to solve puzzles and read through notes left by the Nomai and other alien races, which in turn will help you figure out how to stop the solar system from its endless doom.

There’s no combat or violence in Outer Wilds, but that doesn’t mean you won’t end up dying. A lot. Aside from getting taken out each time the solar system detonates, you’ll have to keep an eye on your oxygen and health meters to make sure you don’t kick the bucket even more prematurely.

Restarting the game every 22 minutes might seem a little daunting initially, but each run encourages you to explore, learn from your mistakes, and investigate further until you finally know how to stop the time loop.

Outer Wilds shares a lot of similarities with Deathloop, but you’ll need to get your thinking cap on to solve this time loop rather than using violence.

 

2. Twelve Minutes

Developer: Luís António
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S

Using a unique top-down perspective, Twelve Minutes is a point-and-click interactive thriller that features a mysterious time loop, player choices, and a superstar cast of James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe.

You play as a nameless man trapped in a hellish nightmare that he’s forced to repeat over and over again. The game starts off nice enough: you go home to your wife at your tiny apartment and the two of you enjoy a romantic meal together. Then a police officer shows up and starts banging at the door, accusing your wife of murder.

The officer will tie you and your wife up and then knock you out, at which point time resets itself and you’ll be thrown back into the moment when you first arrived at your apartment. You’ll then have 12 minutes each run to figure out what your wife has done and what on earth is happening.

Twelve Minutes requires you to test out different dialogue branches and search for clues across your 3-room apartment to piece together the game’s plot. There are a lot of dark and violent moments in Twelve Minutes, as well as a few unexpected, albeit very disturbing, twists.

For instance, there are times where you’re forced to watch or participate in your wife’s graphic murder to learn critical plot information. And there are plenty more horrific moments where that came from.

Twelve Minutes certainly satisfies the time loop and violent parts of Deathloop, though it isn’t for the faint of heart.

 

3. Dishonored Series

Developer: Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4

The Dishonored games have a lot in common with Deathloop – they’re both made by the same studio and share a lot of the same gameplay elements. Not only do you play as an assassin with supernatural abilities in the Dishonored series, but you also explore sandbox levels to complete missions and take out enemies.

Curiosity and exploration are rewarded in the Dishonored games, just like in Deathloop. Taking the time to extensively search through a level will help you uncover secrets and collectibles, as well as open up solutions to previously unreachable items or impossible puzzles.

There are several Dishonored games and DLC packs, so there’s a lot to unpack if you’ve never played the series before. While it might be tempting to jump into one of the more recent Dishonored titles, it’s best to start with the first one so you can follow the plot and get a feel for the gameplay.

 

4. The Operative: No One Lives Forever

Developer: Monolith Productions
Publisher: Fox Interactive
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 2, Mac OS X

Set in the 1960s, No One Lives Forever has that same retro vibe as Deathloop, just with dated graphics. It’s a first-person shooter primarily focused on stealth gameplay, but you’ll have access to a range of firearms and gadgets (humorously disguised as female fashion accessories) in your toolkit.

You play as Cate Archer, a spy for a top-secret international organization committed to keeping humanity safe from megalomaniacs bent upon world domination. Throughout the game’s narrative, you’ll be given missions that take you to various locales like Morcool, the Alps, and the Caribbean.

The missions themselves are over-the-top (in a good way) and packed with action, whether you’re scuba diving in a sunken freight ship, falling from a crashed plane with no parachute, or snapping shots of secret files with a sunglasses camera.

The plot is wonderfully wacky and filled with humor – it’s often been described as having a combination of James Bond and Austin Powers.

Although graphically dated, No One Lives Forever is an overlooked gem with an eerily similar aesthetic and theme to Deathloop. The only downside is that it and its sequel are extremely hard to grab an official copy due to issues with ownership rights, so you might have to unearth the PS2.

 

5. We Happy Few

Developer: Compulsion Games
Publisher: Gearbox Publishing
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

Combining stealth, survival, and roguelike elements in a first-person perspective, We Happy Few follows three characters set over three acts. It takes place in the 1960s in a fictional city in England called Wellington Wells that’s on the brink of societal collapse.

The citizens of the city are under the effects of a hallucinogenic drug that hides the truth of the dystopian world they live in, while also making them susceptible to manipulation. The game is heavily inspired by the MaddAddam trilogy, as well as Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, and other dystopian literature.

We Happy Few’s gameplay focuses on a feeling of paranoia and morally grey decisions, the latter of which will shape the narrative in later sections. Each character you play has unique abilities and skills, alongside different reasons for wanting to leave Wellington Wells.

If you enjoy the 60s vibe and stealth elements of Deathloop, We Happy Few will scratch both those itches, with the bonus of having some creepy yet stellar storytelling.

 

6. Hitman (The World of Assassination Trilogy)

Developer: IO Interactive
Publisher: Square Enix, Warner Bros, IO Interactive
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Stadia

Deathloop is pretty much a supernatural version of the Hitman games as both feature stealth, assassins, and large sandbox levels. There are a huge number of Hitman titles in the series, including countless spinoffs, but the World of Assassination trilogy is a good place to start if you’re new to the franchise.

You follow Agent 47, a renowned hitman working for the International Contract Agency (ICA). 47 is a clone that was genetically engineered to have high intelligence and fitness, alongside a cold and obedient personality.

All three games are set in a third-person perspective and are set over various semi-open-world levels with one primary objective: eliminate the assigned targets. There are usually multiple ways to assassinate targets and you can choose to either attack discreetly or go in all guns blazing.

However, the Hitman series encourages you to use a more subtle approach. Successfully completing an objective without raising the alarm will reward cash bonuses or special weapons.

Agent 47 can also disguise himself as police officers, repairmen, waiters, etc, to deceive enemies and gain entry to off-limits areas. Rather than lurking in the shadows like a lot of other stealth games, the Hitman series is more about hiding in plain sight.

Deathloop is available on PC and PlayStation 5.

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