Bethesda finally confirms it: Deathloop is a Dishonored game

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

Almost immediately after the release of Deathloop in 2021, fans began theorizing that it might somehow be connected to Dishonored, Arkane's previous game series. The two games are very different in many ways, but there are quite a few shared elements too, some overt and others quite subtle. Today, Deathloop creative director Dinga Bakaba made it official during an Xbox podcast: Deathloop is "one of the futures of the Dishonored world."

Some of the similarities between Deathloop and Dishonored are impossible to miss, like the supernatural abilities and the architectural style of Updaam. But there are less obvious pieces of connective tissue, too: This Reddit post from September 2021 is a good example of some early analysis of the two games that puts them together along a fairly consistent and convincing timeline.

Speaking during a new Xbox podcast, Bakaba said there's enough going on in Deathloop that not everyone sees everything, and so he's enjoyed watching the community discover the clues and put the pieces together—and he confirmed that, "Yes indeed, we envisioned Deathloop to be happening in the future, after Death of the Outsider."

Arkane didn't position Deathloop as a Dishonored spinoff because it wanted the game to be its own thing, with its own unique story, characters, time period, and so forth. At the same time, there was interest among developers about what would happen to the Dishonored world after the Outsider was no longer a presence. "And as we were making Deathloop, we said hey, that could be one of the things that could happen after that," Bakaba said.

"There are a lot of clues in the game, actually. There are some that are abused. One of them is really spoiler-y, so voila. But there are a lot of small things, and some that were under people's noses all the time, but people are just figuring out."

Bakaba said his favorite gentle hint is found on the Heritage Gun, a shotgun that can switch between conventional shotgun shells and slugs. "On the side, there is a little logo that you can barely see," Bakaba said. "But now that we've added idle breaks where the character plays with his guns, you can actually see that the logo is Dunwall Tower."

Even though fans had pretty well figured it out, it's fun to finally have the connection between the two games made official. "Once you know, you can unravel everything," Bakaba said. "And yes, it does make sense."

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Read more
Clockwork guards in Dishonored 2
Former Arkane designer says Dishonored 2 cost more to make than Skyrim, and while it didn't meet Bethesda's sales expectations, the series' reputation still 'saved the studio'
The character Neil in Death Stranding 2, who here is posing like Solid Snake.
Hideo Kojima really just went 'screw it' and made Metal Gear Stranding
Junya Ishizaki next to an image from Elden Ring: Nightreign
Elden Ring Nightreign director didn't want to 'encroach too much' on the lore fans hold sacred by including Dark Souls bosses, but admits 'I thought it'd be kind of fun'
Stabbing an enemy in the shoulder
How Dishonored and Deathloop led to a mesmerising indie horror game about tending to a monstrous train
Close up of Fallout Power Armor helmet on orange background
Disco Elysium game director Robert Kurvitz praises the first Fallout: 'It makes other post-apocalyptic worldbuilding seem like an amusement park'
The Doomslayer in armor
Doom: The Dark Ages won't end with the Slayer in a coffin waiting for the start of Doom 2016: 'That would mean that we couldn't tell any more medieval stories'
Latest in Games
A young witch watering a smiling mushroom in a magic garden
Here's a roguelite dungeon crawler Steam reviewers call 'a botanical Diablo' and 'like Cult of the Lamb' except you manage a mystical garden
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
Chatacabra from Monster Hunter Wilds
The latest Monster Hunter Wilds event quest gives piles of Armor Spheres for hunting a Chatacabra, making this a very bad week to be a frog in the Forbidden Lands
No Rest for the Wicked Steam early access screenshots
No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios is now 'fully independent' after acquiring the rights to the game from Take-Two
A hunter posing with an absurd Blangonga outfit in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Attention, fashion hunters: There's a Monster Hunter Wilds mod to disable all those obnoxious glowing buff effects that distract from your fits
Gallywix wears an uneasy smile as he's confronted by Xal'atath in WoW: The War Within.
World of Warcraft guild uses exploits to get world 'first' on the game's new raid, gets banned, puts its name backwards and does it again
Latest in News
A masked man with an axe in the woods
Rebellion CEO seems kind of awed by major studios making massive videogames: 'How do you organize a game that has 2,000 people working on it?'
A young witch watering a smiling mushroom in a magic garden
Here's a roguelite dungeon crawler Steam reviewers call 'a botanical Diablo' and 'like Cult of the Lamb' except you manage a mystical garden
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
Chatacabra from Monster Hunter Wilds
The latest Monster Hunter Wilds event quest gives piles of Armor Spheres for hunting a Chatacabra, making this a very bad week to be a frog in the Forbidden Lands
No Rest for the Wicked Steam early access screenshots
No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios is now 'fully independent' after acquiring the rights to the game from Take-Two
A hunter posing with an absurd Blangonga outfit in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Attention, fashion hunters: There's a Monster Hunter Wilds mod to disable all those obnoxious glowing buff effects that distract from your fits