Time Loop Games Have Taken Over (And We Love That)

Deathloop stars Colt, an assassin trapped on an island going through a 24-hour time loop. Every other guest on the island is masked, armed, and fully aware that they’re looping- and they’re all hell-bent on stopping Colt. As Colt works to break the loop and return to his life, he’s thwarted by his counterpart, an assassin named Julianna. Julianna protects the loop by killing Colt- and mocks him mercilessly every step of the way. Fun guns, great powers, and excellent voice acting all add up to make Deathloop one of the year’s most popular games.

Outer Wilds

Paragraph after paragraph, I’ve been waiting to let myself write about Outer Wilds. Oh man, Outer Wilds. This open-world jaunt starts as a cute and devilish puzzle game, complete with extremely realistic physics, a handful of adorable NPCs, and a duct-taped-up old spaceship. By the end, Outer Wilds is one of the most emotionally impactful games you’ll ever play. It’s amazing how wrapped up in the solar system you get when you’re trying to understand what makes it tick.

Outer Wilds is a pure time loop game- nothing comes with you through the loops besides what you, the player, learned along the way. What’s amazing about Outer Wilds is that it never changes, but your understanding of it does. In every loop of Outer Wilds, you come to understand a little more of the history of the solar system you’re trapped in and the lives of the long-dead aliens that built the ruins you’re exploring. This amazing game is rapidly moving from “beloved indie darling” into the realm of modern classic as word of it gets around the gaming community. There’s already a documentary about it, and basically, every person who plays it ends up sharing it with others. For game designers, Outer Wilds showed a new way to make time loop games fresh again. Which is why —

Top Image: Annapurna Interactive