Deadlight: Director’s Cut Review – PlayStation 4

Deadlight was first released just under four years ago, for the Xbox 360. Now, in the guise of a Director’s Cut, it has found its way to the current console generation and is releasing on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Deadlight: Director’s Cut focuses on Randall Wayne, a Canadian who finds himself in the middle of a zombie-infested Seattle in the summer of 1986. Taking the form of a 2D sidescrolling puzzle-platformer, Deadlight: Director’s Cut tasks players with making their way across the city in search of Randall’s wife and daughter, evading Shadows and the remaining humans that make Seattle such a dangerous place.

Deadlight is a dark game, both in theme and presentation, and for most of the game Randall is represented by a figure in silhouette, contrasted against the world around him. For a 2D game, the world of Deadlight contains a lot of depth, making the city of Seattle feel like a real place, rather than merely serving as a place for traversal and combat. You’ll experience a variety of locations, from sewers and subways systems to sports stadiums and cemeteries, and there a number of sequences where I was on the edge of my seat, such as trying to escape from a military helicopter or accidentally setting off a car alarm and having to make a quick escape from a horde of Shadows.

These fast-paced moments are interspersed with sections consisting of environmental puzzles or exploration, and these segments are reminiscent of the classic Prince of Persia, or the newer Castlevania: Mirror of Fate title that released a few years back. This latter comparison makes sense, as the developer, Tequila Works, contains a number of team members from Mercury Steam, the developers of the newer Castlevania games. Deadlight is divided into three chapters, and each has a slightly different gameplay focus. The first chapter serves to introduce you to Deadlight’s world and gameplay mechanics, while the second chapter introduces more environmental puzzles. Chapter three, meanwhile, focuses more on combat, with battles against Shadows and the military being commonplace.

Unfortunately, each of these chapters, and Deadlight as a whole, doesn’t last a particularly long time. My run through of the game didn’t take much longer than four hours, and though there are excuses to go back through the game, such as collecting ID cards and diary entries, these don’t add enough to the experience to make it worthwhile, making a single playthrough of Deadlight enough to see almost everything the game has to offer. Though the gameplay is varied and well-executed, that’s almost the only thing that encouraged me to continue with the game, as the narrative that was supposed to provide weight to the experience fell flat.

This is partly due to the native language of the game not being English, which is heavily reflected in the awkward writing, and partly because any sort of narrative payoff is ruined by the characters not being especially interesting or easily identified with. Randall is mopey and miserable, which is understandable considering the situation he finds himself in, but he does nothing to redeem himself or garner any sympathy, and I very quickly found myself identifying with him only in the sense of him being my avatar for this game, instead of seeing him as a fully fleshed-out character.

There are a number of issues within the game itself, such as enemies clipping through walls and objects, and a couple of occasions where Randall would fall through the game world, ending up in an infinite fall through the nether. A couple of design decisions cause me to raise my eyebrows too, especially considering the fact that Deadlight seems to pride itself on the gritty realism of its world. One of these issues is the fact that lost entries of Randall’s diaries can be found strewn across the city of Seattle, which doesn’t seem to make any narrative sense, and the other is that through the course of the game, Randall develops the ability to wall jump. While these probably aren’t game-breaking issues for many, the reliance on videogame tropes such as unexplained collectibles and a not-entirely agile man loaded down with weaponry bring able to perform parkour certainly took me out of the otherwise well-designed game world.

As a Director’s Cut, Deadlight doesn’t add a whole lot to the experience, but does contain a Survival mode that may entertain some players for a few minutes, and a selection of behind-the-scenes goodies, such as concept art, trailers, and a developer diary that is interesting to watch to follow the creators’ inspirations and objectives for Deadlight. It isn’t really enough to entice people to repurchase the game if they’ve already played it, but it’s a nice little bonus for those interested in games developed away from the usual videogame centers of power.

Coming away from Deadlight, I realized that I enjoyed it in almost the purest videogame sense. While I quickly lost interest in the characters and narrative, I enjoyed the mixture of traversal and combat that the gameplay presented, however short the experience may have been. This Director’s Cut doesn’t put enough on the plate to encourage those who have already played Deadlight to return for a second helping, and some gamers may come away disappointed with the story or the length of the game, but Deadlight is a solid enough game, and gamers looking for a zombie experience should be satisfied.

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Author: Jack Moulder
Born in England but currently living in Toronto, Canada, Jack's been gaming as long as he can remember, which just happens to coincide with his 6th birthday, where he received an original Gameboy and a copy of Tetris, which his parents immediately 'borrowed' and proceeded to rack up all the high scores that Jack's feeble 6-year-old fingers couldn't accomplish. A lover of sports games, RPGs and shooters, Jack's up for playing pretty much anything, so long as it doesn't kick his ass too frequently. He has a delicate temperament.

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