Deathloop has made NPC AI a lot more aware of you with a new patch
Some welcome improvements for Invasion mode too
Arkane's sneak-o-shooter Deathloop is a good game, but maybe not quite as stealthy as you might expect from the studio behind Dishonored. Even our Deathloop review said "stealth is just the thing that goes wrong before a good fight". Well, you might want to be a bit sneakier now, as the game's second major update has arrived and it makes NPCs a fair bit smarter. The patch addresses some common complaints about the PvP Invasion mode too.
Update 2 has made many tweaks to the AI which, combined, should mean that NPCs will spot you more easily when you're trying to be sneaky, and try harder to murder you once they do know you're around. These include:
- NPCs now react to bullets passing close by, such as headshots that miss
- NPCs now react when another is assassinated close by
- NPCs now hear better and react faster to nearby footfalls
- NPCs under fire no longer move to take cover if the player is too close
- NPCs can now deduce the direction from which a grenade was thrown
- NPCs no longer stop trying to kill Colt if Julianna uses Nexus to link him to them
- Numerous other small fixes and improvements to NPC behavior, reactions, pathing, and placement
Sure, Colt can hold his own in a fight, but that fight might start a lot sooner—and with you in a worse position—if you don't account for the improved behaviour. I know our Ed thought Colt's squishy vulnerability was stopping him from enjoying Deathloop's action, and he'd be getting squished more after this. Time to hone violence, m'laddo.
If you enjoy Deathloop from the other perspective, hopping into other players' games as Julianna to murder Colt in Invasion mode, you might welcome some of the patch's other changes. These include:
- Colt dropping the game now counts as a win for a player-controlled Julianna
- AFK players are tagged
- Colt players who linger in Colt's tunnels for too long are automatically tagged and that causes the tunnel doors to open
Jeremy Peel relishes invading, and Brendy encouraged opting in to be invaded. The players who are still out there invading have wanted changes like this, and here they are.
The patch also increases the odds that you'll invade people on your Friends list rather than strangers. That's nice. Make that murder really sting with an added dose of betrayal.
See the Game Update 2 patch notes for info on more changes and fixes, including a few UI and controller quality-of-life issues. The devs add, "We continue to listen to community feedback and explore more quality of life and accessibility options for a future update."