Deathloop spoilery Q&A + theories

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Deathloop spoilers ahead (mostly earlier-game stuff in this section)



* Why do only Cole and Julianna remember?

Cole and Julianna aren't the only ones who remember. 2-Bit also
remembers, and he's made out of part of Charlie's brain. So why
doesn't Charlie remember? Wenjie's lab has at least one note where
she explicitly calls out that Cole and Julianna remember the loops
and seem to have gained incredible competence since the beginning of
the loop, and other dialogue/notes indicate that everyone clearly
expected to be able to remember the loop. There's another NPC you can
encounter who remembers the loop and is desperate to get out, but I
never finished her side quest... The answer is that at a minimum, all
the Visionaries used to remember the loop, and most likely *everyone*
did. Over time they all stopped remembering with the exception of
Julianna, 2-bit, and (sort of) Cole.

* Why and how did they forget?

Julianna makes at least one reference to the idea that Cole forgot due
to some sort of trauma caused by the loop, so his brain effectively
hit reset as a coping mechanism. The ending gives one possible
explanation for how this might have happened. Another bit of Julianna
dialogue (and maybe a note, I can't remember) explains this: Once
someone in the loop becomes bored enough they begin to lose their
ability to remember the events of the loop, settling into their
repeated patterns, unable to move forward. Once this happens the only
thing that could possibly knock them out of this pattern is something
that moves outside of the loop - so Cole, Julianna, 2-Bit or <other
NPC>. We know from dialogue that at various points in time Cole and
Julianna have killed all of the visionaries (though not all in the
same iteration, probably), but the visionaries are still stuck in
their patterns. So, the answer is that they eventually ran out of
things to do, or grew frustrated with their lack of progress in their
personal efforts (something you see a lot of in the in-game dialogue
and lore - these people are all in bad shape), or otherwise ended up
forgetting. If you forget the loop you also lose everything you've
infused except Slabs, so they also had no physical evidence of past
iterations. Another bit of Julianna dialogue mentions that early on
Frank was recording new songs over many iterations and that she and
Cole liked some of those songs a lot. Now he plays the same songs on
the radio each loop and the audio logs you find indicate that he's in
no state to record new music. Charlie and Fia similarly seem to be in
a very bad state mentally and creatively. It seems likely that this
stress/frustration built up over time and eventually led to them
forgetting without leaving that stress behind, so they're all
miserable.

* What's with the clones?

No doubt you've seen the Wenjie clones wandering around her
laboratory. Similarly, we encounter duplicate Coles (with different
clothing, hair and even scars...) and the Juliannas we fight in the
four time periods are duplicates of the real Julianna we talk to on
the radio. All of these clones are visitors from other timelines
(likely past or future iterations of the loop) who temporarily have
shown up in the current iteration of the loop. All those weird wobbly
rainbow objects you harvest Residuum from are also visitors. The
source of these visitors seems to be a breach/disturbance in
the "Anomaly" located on the island that is being used to create and
maintain the Loop. Wenjie appears to be intentionally disturbing the
anomaly to conduct her experiments, which is why some lore text
mentions that her clones will all vanish by the evening. There's also
a little side quest where you disturb the loop in order to summon
visitors. The duplicate Coles are likely visitors from other loop
iterations or timelines (the differences in clothing and hair suggest
alternate timelines). Since they all have the same general goals some
of them interact with you directly to help you out. It's possible
that some of them are visiting you on purpose, but it's not clear
whether that's possible or just something the game writers did to
make things work. Game design, okay?

* What's with all the weird floating text no one else can see?

I never found a single scrap of lore or dialogue to suggest what's
going on with it, other than Cole's occasional voiced speculation.
Seems like it's probably messages from past Coles, but your guess is
as good as mine.




Later-game plot and lore spoilers follow!




* What's with the weird bunkers and spy equipment?

The military had a base on the island for a while and were performing
experiments on the anomaly, but eventually they pulled out because
they were unable to produce any useful results. The spies seem to
have either been monitoring the military or monitoring the AEON
project, but it's not clear which. Wenjie wants into all these
bunkers in order to access the military's research files and
equipment. Cole was involved in this research project, which is why
he's mentioned in so much of that early lore and why he's on the
island at all - he was central to the whole AEON effort and the
existence of the loop.

* Why was Cole in an asylum? Why did Egor break him out and sail to
  the island with him?

Near the end of the military's stay on the island, Cole piloted a
vehicle for an experiment that went haywire. The result was that Cole
ended up trapped in a version of the loop (apparently for ~17 years),
reliving the same day over and over. It's not clear whether he was
alone or where he was during this loop or how he broke out, but in
the end he would have seemed like a raving madman to anyone who
wasn't involved in the military research project. At some point Egor
encountered him and realized that the things Cole described were
possible and took him to the island, leading towards the creation of
Aeon and the loop.

* What's happening outside the loop?

Some documents (written by Wenjie, I think?) mention that they're
uncertain what is happening outside the loop and that the
consequences of it could be catastrophic, but they activated the loop
anyway. Based on various bits of lore and in-world evidence, the most
likely answer is that the world is progressing as normal outside the
loop. In particular, Egor is receiving radio transmissions of some
sort from outside, and the military/spy documents appear to indicate
that none of them encountered Cole after the experiment - so his
personal loop happened while time progressed in the outside world.
The same is almost certainly happening here. Egor's claims to be
communicating with "the future" make it likely that the transmissions
he's receiving are from after the beginning of the loop, otherwise
they would seem pretty mundane.




OK seriously though, ending spoilers ahead








* What's with Cole and Julianna?

Julianna is Cole's daughter. One of the military personnel on the
island during the experiments was her mother, and after the
experiment went wrong (and Cole went missing) she left the island,
gave birth to Julianna, raised her, and then died. At some point
Julianna tracked Cole down and then joined Aeon to follow him to the
island. She's got a grudge over dad leaving her mom to die, among
other things!

* How did Cole forget pt. 2

During the ending sequence it's revealed that Cole has gotten to the
point of breaking the loop at least once before - killing all the
other visionaries and then reaching Julianna. He didn't break the
loop, though. What's implied to have happened: After reaching
Julianna, Cole was tricked into killing her and for some reason he
didn't kill himself afterwards to fully break the loop (*all* the
Visionaries have to die) - maybe he was afraid he'd die for good,
maybe he was just too upset or something else happened. In the end,
the loop reset, and that might be what caused him to forget
everything. Depending on how your ending plays out, this can happen
again. When we speak with Julianna at the end she says that the
previous time this happened things were different, so Cole isn't
repeating past events exactly, he's just made it to the point of
breaking the loop again. Since this is the second time, Julianna is
certain that the ol' antique Dishonored dueling pistols will fire
successfully - this isn't the first time they've been fired.

* What's happening outside the loop pt. 2

If you break the loop the brief ending sequence shows us a glimpse of
the outside world, and it's real fucked up. Time has clearly been
passing since the beginning of the loop and it's possible that the
existence of the loop was doing damage outside like Wenjie suspected.
Most likely there are still living humans out there though given that
Egor was receiving radio transmissions from outside, but it's hard to
know how long the loop was operating for. Everyone is definitely in
for a rough time now that they're out of the loop. (Did the others
even survive? Who knows.)

* What's with the post-ending stinger dialogue and those weird vibes?

Look, they were in the loop for a long time and they didn't want to
get bored. Don't think about it too hard.