Deathloop Changed Its Melee System During Production

Deathloop is one of the most innovative games in years, with our 4.5/5 review highlighting its "expertly crafted world". However, the game's unique gameplay looked a little different at one point in production, with Arkane Studios tweaking the time-bending adventure's combat system early on.

Deathloop's creative director, Dinga Bakaba spoke to Noclip about the game's combat system. Early during development, Bakaba advised that Deathloop had a system reminiscent of Dishonored's gameplay, where players could use machetes to combat and parry their opponents:

In the beginning, you could defend with the machete and parry and block like you said okay let's just ask ourselves all the questions that just put [sic] the fencing of Dishonored, we will figure it out later.

Read More: Deathloop Could Possibly Exist In The Dishonored Universe

Deathloop Changed Its Melee System During Production

Bakaba noted how Deathloop's multiplayer resulted in them revising these elements:

But as soon as we added the multiplayer, something went wrong. The client, which is the invader, had a delay over the host, which you are not feeling when you have hitscan bullets.

Arkane removed the parry system and eventually, incorporated the equally impactful kick mechanic:

So then we removed the timed parry and it was only [blocking] and that was boring as hell. So we said 'f*** defense, let's just replace defense with the kick like a big kick that makes you go oof.'

You can check out the full interview below.

Despite its impressive launch, many PC players have voiced their frustrations at Deathloop's stuttering issues on PC. However, the studio has released a patch to address the issue and will continue to launch more fixes soon.