Ever since the release of Deathloop last year, fans have speculated that the acclaimed time loop shooter was, in fact, set in the same universe as Arkane Studios’ much-loved Dishonored series - and now theorists can given finally themselves a pat on the back and pack away their cork boards: the developer has confirmed it is indeed so.
Creative director Dinga Bakaba broke the news during the latest episode of the Xbox podcast (thanks PC Gamer), confirming that Deathloop is “one of the futures of the Dishonored world.”
When asked directly about the possible connection between the two games, Bakaba explained, “We have a number of systems [that mean] not everyone has seen the same thing [in Deathloop], not everyone has heard the same song hidden somewhere, not everyone has seen every room. So it was nice to see the community pick up the little clues that we did sprinkle everywhere that, yes, indeed, we envisioned Deathloop to be happening in the future after [the third Dishonored game] Death of the Outsider.”
“It’s something we didn’t want to make [too big a deal about],” Bakaba continued, “because [Deathloop is] its own story, with its own character, its own time period that we wanted to flesh out… But at the same time, after Death of the Outsider… we always wondered about what would happen after that. And as we were making Deahtloop we said, ‘Hey, that could be one of the things that could happen.’
“There’s a certain timeline to link that, and there are a lot of clues actually in the game. Some that are obvious - one of them is really spoiler-y so voila - but there [are] a lot of small things, and some that were under people’s noses all the time [that they’re just now] figuring out.”
Bakaba pointed to Deathloop’s Heritage shotgun as his favourite example of this, noting the little logo on its side that, for a long time, could barely be seen. However, since Arkane gave protagonist Colt idle animations in the recent Goldenloop update, it’s now possible to clearly see that the logo actually depicts Dishonored’s Dunwall tower.
“So there’s a lot of little things like that, Bakaba continued, “and then you can start to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, if this is the Dishonored world, where can it happen? And then you can actually follow the thread and it all kind of makes sense.”
Bakaba also explained that if players take a step back to look at the world as a whole, they’ll notice further similarities between Dishonored and Deathloop, from its magic and technology to its classes and inequalities. “Even though that’s something that those characters flee [in Deathloop],” he added, “you can see that those differences are still there.”
“We tried to see everything as an evolution,” Bakaba concluded, “but each time [the characters] mentioned the past, either we were vague enough or we disguised, in natural ways, the names. Like, they talk about the motherland and not about Tyvia, but… once you know, you can unravel everything and, yes, it does makes sense. It was nice for us to be imagining one of the futures of the Dishonored world. "
Deathloop recently launched for Xbox after a year of PlayStation console exclusivity, and is now available on Game Pass for Xbox and PC. So if you fancy hoping in and trying to make those Dishonored connections for yourself, now is the perfect time.
