Overview

2023 has been an interesting year for the world of video games, where we've seen tons of titles thrive and show promise on top of the whirlwind of remakes that have hit our consoles or libraries. The year would kick off in Xbox's favour. The release of HiFi Rush showed that on the first-party front, Xbox was building up momentum to deliver and rival its competitors. It has been a rough start to this generation for Xbox, with the release of Halo Infinite coming and going. Numerous delays, and whilst Xbox has seen some success with double A and Indie Games. The platform needs to get a proper foothold and deliver that hard-hitting experience that could rival that platform's competitors. However, with all the recent acquisitions and games, they are looking to release the payoff of all the acquisitions and legwork that Microsoft had taken in the background.

That's why it is beyond disappointing that the release of Redfall is as soulless and messy as it is. It lacks any form of creative vision and feels devoid of anything you'd imagine from the likes of Arkane. On a fundamental level, it is a game that fights against itself and many aspects of its design, as if it doesn't know what it wants to be. Its mission structure is tedious and lacks any substance of captivating narrative threads to compensate. It is a looter shooter that doesn't distribute loot meaningfully with a hierarchy of gear that feels redundant and forgettable. It feels like Arkane tried to make a looter that could rival its contemporaries but forgot almost all of the core tenants, from replayability, meaning loot drops, and character progression.

(That's a nice-looking bbq meme)

At this point, what hasn't already been said regarding Redfall is plagued with a myriad of issues both on the technical level and on the most basic levels of game design. It is insane to imagine a studio as creative and industry-leading as Arkane.

It is important to mention that at the time of this review, even Xbox's CEO Phil Spencer, has even come forward to identify the mistakes taken here with Redfall. Phil stated that during the development of Redfall, Xbox was entirely hands-off to the point where Arkane would need to be made aware of and utilise the extra resources Microsoft could allocate. It is worrying that something that was this broken and lacking was able to fly under the radar and sets a bad precedent for future releases. So what is it that makes Redfall so bad? Let's get into it.

Gameplay

Technical Issues

Frame Rate Issues

On the technical front, Redfall is an absolute mess. It is plagued with technical issues stemming from texture pop-in, stuttering and continous issues with basic performance Before its release Redfall was announced to be locked at 30fps on the Xbox consoles. This is the least of the game's troubles post-release, as even on PC, Redfall struggles to maintain 60fps on the PC. Now my PC specs aren't insane. I'm running a 2080Ti build, and whilst that isn't the most powerful machine in the world, I expect a game like Redfall to at least run at a solid 60fps. When playing Redfall, I struggle to hit even 30fps on Medium graphics, and I see my performance improve when setting DLSS to Ultra Performance and graphics to low. However, even on the lowest settings, I still experience the occasional frame rate drop occasionally during encounters. So with that in mind, I think to myself, "Ok, it is probably a me issue". I look into the game. I check only to find that within the first two hours of this game's launch, many have echoed the same issues with their performance. It is horrendous, and throughout my hours with the game leaves me nauseous. It feels choppy and borderline unplayable at times.

Controls Issues

When playing Redfall, I plugged in my Xbox One Controller as I typically like to kick back on the couch when I play my games. When my character spawned into the game, I immediately noticed how stiff and clunky the movement in Redfall felt. You feel like the second you move the joystick in a particular direction. There is a huge overcorrection. This super fast turning is annoying in itself, and I believe lowering the sensitivity somewhat improved my movement. However, the aim-down sights movement is slow as shit, and there are no real options to alter this. It's baffling to me that a triple-A shooter in 2023 cannot change your controller sensitivity on a weapon.

UI Issues

If you're watching someone play Redfall, you're probably noticing a few things, but you probably are noticing with most reviewers how lost people look throughout their gameplay experience. This is tied to how poorly Redfall handles its UI and map design. Redfall, which to me is beyond frustrating. It feels redundant. The UI in Redfall is borderline unusable, and it serves no purpose other than to show you where a handful of locations are within the map, which sounds normal. Still, it doesn't provide the ability to mark these locations doesn't show and maps for places you're inside, like caves or buildings. It doesn't even allow you to add different Icons of interest to your mini-map HUD. You can only do this by setting a ping to the objective. It is like this whole game is duct-taped together.

These are just the tip of the iceberg regarding the absence of signifiers and misguiding signifiers throughout the experience. Some examples of this take form in Redfall's side activities called Nests which we'll dive into more shortly. However, I complete this activity, and the 1-minute timer begins to tick down. I hear my character repetitively say, "I need to get out of here", whilst the reality of these nests is that once you complete it, you're supposed to collect as much loot as possible. Maybe that's on me, but when the whole place is crumbling, and all signs indicate that I'm supposed to leave, I will run for it.

Beyond all of these myriads of issues, even in the instance that some grand patch were to release for Redfall and fix these issues, there would still be one major component missing here, and that is a good game because on a deep and mechanical level, in almost every way Redfall is a bad experience with very little to no redeeming factors that would keep you playing.

Shallow Open-world

The open world of Redfall is hollow and lifeless. There is minimal to do, and whatever activities there are that do populate this world are the most boilerplate and boring activities you can think of. There are safe houses you clear with their own set of missions that allow you to clean up different neighbourhoods. Clearing out neighbourhoods takes form by completing these safehouse missions. One is a fetch quest, and the second is the underboss. Underbosses are supposed to be the boss of a neighbourhood, and when defeating them, you take their skull and claim the area secured, which has no real impact on the world of Redfall.

One activity that I touched on earlier was these nests that will sprout up around the map in Redfall. The areas on the map that are hosts to nests are meant to have stronger enemies and are identifiable by a blue dome when in the area. To enter the nest, you'll find a blue door and enter. These activities are the one thing in Redfall that I see being fun if built upon and improved. But right now, whilst these areas look cool, they're dull encounters filled with no more than six enemies and a big destroyable heart, which can be broken by interacting with three objects and collecting loot. It is an idea on paper that sounds cool, having these nests and destroying the big heart of the nest. But in execution, it feels like the equivalent of a burger that is nothing more than a bun and a slice of cheese. All the meat of Redfall's activities feels absent and undercooked.

It is so tedious and tiring. What is worse than this is the main missions comprised the same types of barebones and thoughtless missions. They all revolve around going to a place, interacting with an object or killing a foe. The level of effort here is abysmal. As I mentioned earlier, the world of Redfall is a nightmare to navigate, even when finding your destination is never rewarding. Its open-world design is a complete and utter mess, and it isn't a performance problem. It is a design problem. The point of an open world is to invoke curiosity, brimming with life and activities. Here in Redfall, there is nothing but a vacant lifeless world with no activities, incentives, no rewards.

A Redundant Loot-System

Before we dive into this section of the video, it is important to do a refresher on what makes a loot system effective in a video game. You could reference many core elements, such as stats, player expression, or the grind. But the essential core component of any loot-based system would be the sense of progression. If one aspect of Redfall's whole gameplay loop feels completely absent, it is its sense of progression.

Throughout Redfall, you're exploring looting and completing your mindless missions. Throughout, you'll uncover different loot to acquire that are all colour graded with other rarities. These rarities feel completely redundant and do not reflect the value they're supposed to represent. For example, I found a blue and purple sniper rifle in the same bag I was looting. It feels borderline like a parody. The reason to acquire gear, the customisations to your weapons, and the stats for your weapon are all absent or shallowly shoehorned into the experience to drive an excuse to explore this soulless town. But why bother collecting anything? It is all arbitrary. The fact that I was able to acquire a legendary weapon within my first two hours of playing the game, only to have it become redundant within the next 20 minutes of playing, is baffling and shows a core misunderstanding of how these loot-based systems are supposed to operate and function within this type of game.

Useless Skill Trees

Throughout your playthrough in Redfall, you'll be dispatching and fighting different enemies and completing missions which, like any game, provide you with experience pooled towards levelling up and acquiring skill points. The skill tree in Redfall, whilst the skill tree is reasonably sized, and the abilities you receive are mostly redundant. Some provide additional benefits, such as having my partner that I summon with my ultimate revive me or receiving ammo from enemies that shoot at your barrier. These additions are cool and speak to each playable character's abilities and overall kits, which are alright. But many of the abilities on the skill tree feel unnecessary fodder to pad out the skill tree, and the inclusion of abilities that only show a benefit in coop play feels useless to someone like myself who is playing solo.

Enemies

The enemies in Redfall, whilst on paper, appear to have various enemies. There will only be two that you'll regularly encounter: the human cultists or standard vampires. You'll encounter a few enemies in this game, from the blood bags, enemies that self-destruct when their health gets low, the anglers that will hook and grab you, and watchers who'll snipe you from afar if you come into their view. These are a few enemies that come to mind; honestly, there is a good variety of enemies here. The unfortunate part is how sparse these encounters occur and how well mapped out and intelligently designed the levels and missions are to utilise and use these enemies properly.

But this is the only issue with enemies in Redfall. Still, unfortunately, many of these enemies come with technical issues from bugged out mapping and pathing, randomly spawning in the game, and getting caught on objects, to name a few. But one enemy that best encapsulates the experience of enemy encounters is The Rook. So you'll reach a particular moment within the story and anger the vampire gods, who will dispatch this big burly vampire called The Rook. This guy is supposed to be a formidable foe, but the reality is that he must fear heights as climbing onto any object will send him into a fit where he'll run around aimlessly whilst you widdle him down.

Story

A Desolate slideshow of a story

The story of Redfall on paper consists of some cool ideas. Vampires have overthrown the town of Redfall, and by the time the town finds out, it is too late, and now they're trapped and unable to escape. The only option is to take back Redfall. You play as one of the four characters of Redfall who've acquired powers for reasons that aren't explained or explored throughout the story. You establish a base of operations and begin to take back the town.

Whilst many aspects of this may sound interesting, it's delivered in the most underwhelming ways possible. The cutscenes throughout Redfall's story are still images that feel like the events are being told through a Powerpoint presentation. But it isn't just the cutscenes, its even scenes where you watch video reels too. It feels like many corners were cut here in the story. It isn't just the cutscenes, but it also takes form throughout many of the missions where you sit around watching blue skeletal figures of people having discussions, never with your character. These are meant to be memories that unfold and flesh out the story but are mostly underwhelming. Redfall's substance of events all come in the form of books and notes littered throughout the map, and I tried to read a few of these, but after a while, I just lost interest. It's again a shame. Some areas of Redfall could be charming, from its premise to the portrayal of the vampires. But it fails to captivate or tell even the most basic of stories and create any characters that feel memorable or worthwhile interacting with. There is a hideout full of characters that all serve as nothing more than a face to accommodate a feature such as being a vendor.

Conclusion

In closing off this video, I'd like to ask you, the viewer, the question. What were you looking for in Redfall? Because regardless of what it is, I can assure you that there is something better.

A Looter? (Destiny, Borderlands, Dead Island) An Open World? ( Ghost of Tsushima, Far Cry, Horizon Zero Dawn) An Immersive Sim (Deus Ex, Thief, Dishonoured) A Vampire Game (Vampire Masquerade, Legacy of Kain, Bloodranye)

What is clear here is that this game was dead on arrival and for the price point of what is 70 US dollars, or here in Australia what is 120 dollars is an absolute joke of an asking price, and there are far better games you could grab for a fraction of the cost. The statistics speak for themselves at the time of recording this video the active player lower than a 1000 and an all time peak barely reaching over 6000 through Steam. I do understand that many are probably picking this one up through game pass, but when compared to many of Xbox's other games such as Grounded or Halo Infinite which were both accessible on game pass, it tells a very troubling tale here.

I remember thinking to myself when I saw Redfall's release date thinking, "Wow, sandwiched between Jedi Survivor and Zelda", and I wouldn't be surprised if it was placed in this window so we'd conveniently forget about the Redfall incident. But unfortunately not, this game is one that wasn't ready to see the light of day and ultimately is one that should have been scrapped. It is clear here from the absolute lack of foundations it feels like it is in a continuous bout of figuring out what it wants to be and immediately contradicting itself. It is bogged down with bugs and, like a vampire, sucks your life out. I still have faith in both Arkane and Xbox and we want all the major platforms to be competitive, and thrive. But with the current track record, Xbox has triple-A releases. If they continue to release games to the quality and standard of Redfall, it is hard to envision how much more Xbox's integrity can endure, and people are right to be concerned for Starfield, and what future releases may come. I'm ready to be proven wrong, and I'm optimistic they can turn it around, but sadly Redfall is a strong reminder of the low points we can hit with video games, and is a game that I recommend you avoid, as any cost of time and money could be better spent elsewhere.