Hello gamers, how's everyone doing? Hope you're all great. It's been a little complicated to play as consistently this week as I would have liked, but here we are regardless, still pushing through DEATHLOOP and still making progress. And this time around things took a really satisfying turn because we finally got to a point in the game where everything starts to open up in a way that feels genuinely exciting. The imbuing system is fully understood, the training wheels are off, and Blackreef is now ours to explore however we want. Let me get into it.
Learning How and Why Imbuing Items Actually Works
So now that the Residuum Infusion system is fully unlocked and available, I spent some real time this session actually understanding how to use it properly rather than just scratching the surface of it. And once it clicks, it really clicks. The whole idea is straightforward but incredibly important for how you approach every single run going forward. Any weapon, trinket, or Slab power you find out in Blackreef is yours for that run — but the moment the loop resets, everything you picked up vanishes unless you've spent Residuum to infuse it beforehand.
Infusing is done through Colt's loadout screen between time periods, and the cost varies depending on the quality of what you're trying to hold onto. Common grey weapons are relatively cheap to infuse. Blue weapons cost more. And the really good stuff, the gold legendary tier weapons with unique names and special properties, those require a serious investment of Residuum to lock down permanently. But once something is infused, it's yours forever. It shows up in your inventory at the start of every loop no matter what happens, no matter how many times you die or how many days reset around you.
What makes this system even smarter is that it also applies to the Slab abilities you take from Visionaries. Every Visionary boss drops a Slab when you kill them, and infusing that Slab means Colt carries that power permanently. Kill the same Visionary again in a future loop and the duplicate Slab you pick up actually unlocks upgrade perks for the ability rather than being a redundant copy. So farming Visionaries repeatedly isn't just about Residuum income — it's actively improving your power set run after run. The whole thing is elegantly designed once you see how all the pieces fit together.
You can also sacrifice items you don't want in exchange for Residuum, which means nothing you pick up is ever truly wasted. Found a weapon that doesn't suit your playstyle? Break it down, pocket the Residuum, and put that toward locking in something you actually want to keep. It turns every decision in your loadout into something meaningful.
This Marks the End of the Welcome Tutorial
And here's the thing that really hit me this session — once you fully understand and engage with the Infusion system, DEATHLOOP essentially considers its tutorial complete. Everything up to this point, the first loops, the confusion, the clue-gathering, the struggle through Wenjie's lab, all of it was the game quietly teaching you its systems one layer at a time. It was holding your hand just enough to keep you from drowning without ever making it feel like you were being babysat.
But now? Now the structure changes completely. There's no more guided introduction pulling you from one objective to the next. The game essentially steps back, opens up the entirety of Blackreef, and says go figure it out. You know the districts, you know the time periods, you know how Residuum and Infusion work, you know that seven more Visionaries are out there somewhere waiting to be eliminated. How you approach all of that, in what order, at what time of day, with what loadout and what strategy, that's entirely up to you from this point forward. It's a genuinely satisfying shift in the game's tone and pacing. The moment it happens you feel it, and it makes everything that comes next feel like it actually belongs to you as a player rather than being handed to you step by step.
Our First Free Adventure Is the Weapons Library
So with the whole of Blackreef now open to explore on our own terms, the first thing that caught my attention and pulled me in a direction was the Weapons Library. And let me tell you, this place is exactly what it sounds like and it's a fantastic discovery. The Weapons Library is essentially a location on the island that functions as a hub for weapons knowledge — a place where different armaments are catalogued, stored, and available to study and interact with in a way that teaches you more about the tools available to Colt throughout the game.
Getting there was its own little adventure, and the exploration itself reminded me why DEATHLOOP's world design is so good. Blackreef is packed with secrets and side paths that you'd completely miss if you only ever followed objective markers without looking around. The Library wasn't handed to me on a map — I found leads pointing toward it and followed them, which is exactly how the game rewards curiosity. And the payoff is real because having that knowledge of the weapons available, what they do, how they feel, and what you might want to prioritize infusing as you move forward, gives you a genuinely useful edge in planning your approach to the remaining Visionaries.
It's also just a cool place from an atmosphere standpoint. Everything in Blackreef has that retro 60s visual identity that the game commits to completely, and the Library is no exception. It fits the world perfectly and adds another layer to the feeling that this island has a whole life and history to it beyond just being an arena for Colt to fight through.
Now What's Left Is Simple: Kill Visionaries, Upgrade Weapons, and Conquer Blackreef
So here's where DEATHLOOP stands for me right now, and honestly it's a pretty exciting place to be in. Wenjie is down. The Infusion system is fully operational and I'm actively building a loadout worth keeping. The Weapons Library has given me a clearer picture of what I want to be working with. And seven more Visionaries are out there across the four districts of Blackreef, each one tied to a specific time of day, each one protecting the loop in their own way and each one carrying a Slab worth taking for Colt's growing arsenal.
The road ahead is about piecing together the perfect loop — figuring out the right order, the right loadout, the right approach for each target so that when the time comes to run the whole thing in a single day, every variable is accounted for. It sounds like an enormous task, and it is, but the game has done such a good job of building toward this point that it feels thrilling rather than overwhelming. Every run is progress. Every bit of Residuum collected is an investment. Every piece of information discovered about a Visionary's schedule or habits is one step closer to the perfect loop.
So gamers, we're in it now, fully and properly in it. Blackreef is ours to take apart. See you in the next post!
