According to developer Arkane, Deathloop and Dishonored take place in the same universe.
We’ll let that sink in for a second. Yes, Deathloop, Arkane’s time-looping FPS takes place in same universe as Dishonored, the company’s Thief-inspired steampunk sneak-em-up. And yes, the first time we heard this revelation (thanks to Pure Xbox for spotting this), it made our brains hurt.
The apparent confirmation came from studio director Dinga Bakaba, who also directed Deathloop. “We envision Deathloop to be happening in the future after Death of the Outsider,” he stated in a recent official Xbox podcast, referring to the third and – so far – final Dishonored game.
We say “apparent”, because there’s nothing to stop Arkane or Bakaba himself from rolling this back later. But, as he explained, there are clues in Deathloop that connect the two games. So, even if the developer did try to dial this back, it’d have to either explain away those connections or otherwise patch them out.
In all honesty, we didn’t need the two connected. In our heads, Dishonored’s world was always going to be the same semi-magical steampunk-style realm. Yes, time moves on, but we’d mentally boxed the trilogy off, as some largely unchanging world.
Does this impact our enjoyment of the games? Not in the least. Deathloop is a fantastic game and we’ve put more time into the Dishonored trilogy than we’d care to admit. But if you’re an absolute lore-hound, you might appreciate having your suspicions confirmed.
