Arkane Confirms That Deathloop is a Dishonored Spin-off

Arkane has confirmed what many believed was already clear––Deathloop, the studio's time-bending, first-person shooter, is set within the world of Arkane's previous acclaimed roleplaying game, Dishonored.

The news was confirmed during an episode of the Xbox Podcast, where Arkane finally let the cat out of the bag. As noted before, though, this question has always lingered in community members' minds.

Sure, Deathloop and Dishonored seem very different on the surface. But, when you really dig into the supernatural abilities, as well as the architectural style of the two worlds, everything starts to fit together like puzzle pieces. Talking during the newest Xbox Podcast, Dinga Babaka, the creative director on Deathloop shared that the world in Deathloop is just one of the futures of the world featured in Dishonored and Dishonored 2.

Babaka noted that there is so much going on in Deathloop that not everyone is going to see all the clues. A Reddit thread posted back in 2021 breaks down a few of the different clues that the community has used to connect the two, and a lot of it––while seemingly far-fetched at first glance––does make sense when you really start to think about it.

Plus, it helps explain a lot of the similarities that lie within both the Dishonored games and Deathloop. The thread on Reddit does a really great job of breaking down a lot of the pain points between the two games, too, and while it's riddled with spoilers for Deathloop and even Dishonored, it's highly recommended that anyone who truly wants to understand the connection these two series check it out.

Of course, much of it is still speculation, as Babaka didn't outline exactly how the worlds connect or what led to the future we see in Deathloop. But, considering how highly acclaimed both the Dishonored games and Deathloop have been, it's reasonable to assume we'll see more out of this universe in the future sometime.

While it would have been nice to know that Deathloop was a spin-off of Dishonored, it makes sense that Arkane didn't bill it as such. By not outright billing it as a spin-off, the studio set the game up to succeed or fail on its own merits. And, because it wasn't outright connected, it left room for the game to shine without having to rise out of the shadow of the two previous titles set within that universe.

Deathloop was released last year, and it's available on all major consoles, including PlayStation and Xbox.

Newsweek has reached out to Arkane/Bethesda for comment.