Raphaël Colantonio, founder of Arkane Studios, said in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun that Death Loop was developed because publisher Bethesda wasn't sure if he wanted another Dishonored franchise.
Bethesda wanted to suspend the series Dishonored, which, according to Colantonio, was originally intended as a small project where Arkane could learn something new and keep working so that he could later have the opportunity to develop a larger scale game. "Bethesda wants us to do something, they don't quite know what we're going to do after Dishonored, do we want Dishonored 3? I don't know, then let's do some simple things first and then see. ”
Colantonio also revealed that Death Loop could be an attempt by the studio to learn how to develop and publish multiplayer games, saying, "We didn't want to do Dishonored 3, we could go through a mini-game, maybe a multiplayer game, so that we could learn from the multiplayer development experience, which might have microtransactions, have recycling features, like meat pigeon games. The studio's experience with Predator: Moon Crash helped develop the meat pigeon element in Death Loop, and Arkane and Bethesda also wanted to have recycled elements during gameplay.
Colantonio left Arkane Studios around the time of Death Loop and is currently working at WolfEye Studios, an independent studio that developed Wild West.