Redfall, Bethesda and Arkane’s vampire-slaying FPS, has had a rough time of it. It’s been poorly received by critics and players alike, which for a first-party Microsoft game (Microsoft owns developer Arkane Austin.) is really something. So if you want to know why Redfall is so bad, we have explained it all for you.
Reasons Why People Think Redfall Is Bad or Disappointing
Before we go any further, let’s take a look at some of the issues people have run into. Just why has Redfall been labeled a bad game? I was actually having fun with it for a while, but the lack of variety in the game has ground me down to the point where I’ve parted company with it.
And some of the things that I found entertaining could, admittedly, be considered flaws. I got a kick out of “kiting” vampires — getting them to follow me, then leading them to their doom beneath a UV lamp.
But these bloodsuckers were meant to be real menaces, going by Redfall’s trailers at least. What I got was a bunch of idiots who made What We Do in the Shadows’ vampires look capable.
And that’s just one of the game’s many issues. Our Editor-in-Chief Nick Calandra called it “embarrassing for Arkane Austin, and it’s an embarrassing big new IP launch for Xbox.” He criticized the bland mission design and the enemy AI and noted it lacked any of Arkane’s usual flair.
TheGamer’s Eric Switzer said that “playing Redfall feels like going to a fancy dinner and being served chunks of styrofoam painted to look just like steak and potatoes.” And while I wish I’d come up with that turn of phrase, it’s absolutely spot on.
The town of Redfall has its charm, and it’s the one part of the game that screams Arkane. It’s just a shame that the rest of the game is so lacking. It didn’t help that the game launched with significant technical issues including crashes, wonky textures, T-posing NPCs, and more.
But while some of those issues can be fixed, it’s going to be much harder to turn Redfall around. Aside from the uninspiring missions, there’s also the clueless AI (You’ll fight an awful lot of humans.) and its always-connected requirement. And despite this requirement, players can’t just drop in and out at will.
So What Happened to Redfall During Development?
No one, apart from Steam asset flippers, sets out to make a bad game. And right up until Dishonored, Arkane’s various studios had been doing pretty well. But two days after Redfall’s release, Phil Spencer (CEO of Xbox) was apologizing for the game’s state. If you were working at Arkane Austin, that can’t have been a good feeling.
The full story probably won’t come out for years, but Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that 70% of the staff who had worked on Prey (2017) left Arkane Austin during Redfall’s development. It also alleges that Arkane Austin originally envisioned the game as a purely multiplayer game with live-service elements.
However, according to the report, Arkane Austin didn’t have the staff numbers or the knowhow to create such a game, at least not at first. Arkane’s previous games had nearly all been single-player only, and the ones that did have multiplayer elements weren’t on the scale of Redfall.
So just what was Redfall supposed to be? According to Schreier, it was originally planned as a purely multiplayer title with microtransactions. That aspect was apparently dialed back later, and the game doesn’t have microtransactions. So while it’s been held back a few times, it still feels like a live-service game.
No one apart from Arkane and Arkane’s ex-staff know for sure. But it seems entirely likely that the reason why Redfall is so “bad” is that there was a shifting and overambitious vision of what the game was meant to be.
