'Deathloop' is a must-play game, but if you've got the choice, enjoy it at its best on the PS5.

After a year of waiting, Xbox owners now finally get to play what is, arguably, the best game of 2021. Deathloop, which enjoyed a year of PlayStation 5 console exclusivity despite Microsoft buying Bethesda a few months before its release, arrived straight onto Game Pass yesterday (September 20). Frankly, it’s the best game on the service right now–even if Metal: Hellsinger, Death’s Door, It Takes Two, and House Flipper are absolute bangers.

After a few hours trying it out on Xbox Series X–and getting inevitably hooked once more–it’s clear that the latest port of Deathloop looks, feels, and plays in exactly the same way as its Sony predecessor. Admittedly, the UI is marginally improved, even if most of this is a product of Microsoft predictably binding the Memories menu to the view button, rather than the DualSense’s touchpad.

Yet the very same DualSense–which I think is far and away the console’s biggest technological selling point–is responsible for making Deathloop all the more engaging on PS5, fundamentally providing the definitive experience of last year’s GOTY contender.

It’s not because of those adaptive triggers, either, but to its credit Deathloop may give this functionality its most suitable FPS outing to date, thanks to a light-combat environment that often sees you spending more time lining up your shots under pressure than considering your initial tactics. It also makes the silent-but-deadly, and necessary, PT-6 Spiker feel all the more real in your hands.

Instead, it’s all about the PS5 controller’s tiny mono speaker. While Astro’s Playroom was essentially designed to showcase every incredible function of the DualSense, no PS5 game has come close to including this pint-sized noisebox in such a perfect way as Deathloop.

From the very beginning, you’re contacted by primary antagonist Julianna Blake (voiced to perfection by Ozioma Akagha), who toys with you from the first moments of the game. She also regularly chooses to hunt you down, usually when you least expect or want her to. She contacts you via a rickety radio, mostly at the beginning of each section of the game. For Xbox-owning Deathloop debutantes, these blunt and often brutal conversations play out as expected: through your TV.

However, on the PS5, her voice comes from the DualSense. It drags you deeper into Deathloop’s drop-dead gorgeous and delightfully dispiriting civilization, forging an even stronger relationship with your familiar yet confusing foe. Her voice is an eerie experience when it’s ripped away from your screen, filled with sarcasm, condescension, and hatred. It’s like she's right behind you, or closer than ever, at any given moment.

The PS5's DualSense controller is a tech marvel, and it's a crucial part of the 'Deathloop' ... [+] experience.

The speaker, which isn’t half as bad as it was on the DualShock 4, is still on the tinny side, making it underwhelming in other games, sounding pitchy or outright weird. In Deathloop’s technologically odd world–where incredible leaps in science have been made on the grandest scale, but simpler things like walkie-talkies are still firmly rooted in the same 1960s it derives its gorgeous art style from– the sound quality couldn’t be better suited if it had been actively planned between Sony and Arkane.

This perfect convergence of real-world technology and in-game restrictions is reminiscent of the iconic ‘Clean House’ mission from 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, when the game’s visuals offered the perfect “meeting in the middle” effect. While the MW reboot was inevitably held back by an expected graphical uncanny valley, this was more than enough to surpass player expectations of the monochromatic green limitations of night vision–to me, it’s the most realistic a console game has ever looked, even if it was because of real-life technological constraints. The same rules apply here.

Deathloop is still a real treat on Series X, and cannot be missed by anyone with Game Pass who’s yet to explore paradise lost in Blackreef. Next year’s Redfall, also created in partnership between Arkane and Bethesda, will hopefully provide a pseudo-successor that’s just as compulsive, even if it doesn’t look half as stylish.

If you’ve got the luxury of choice, pick up a cheap second-hand PS5 copy of Deathloop, or get it through PlayStation Plus Extra or Premium. Having Colt’s many lives in your hands is one thing, but having Julianna’s voice there is near-essential.