Redfall

Redfall
You see that vampire being stepped on in the cover? That's you begging for a refund of this game.
Platform(s): Xbox Series X/S Microsoft Windows Release Date: May 2, 2023 Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Developer(s): Arkane Studios Austin Publisher(s): Bethesda Softworks Country: United States

Redfall is a 2023 first-person shooter developed by Arkane Studios Austin and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released on May 2nd, 2023 for the Xbox Series X and S and Microsoft Windows. It is Arkane Studios' first Xbox exclusive. Due to Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda, the planned PlayStation 5 version was canceled.

Plot

After a failed scientific experiment, a legion of vampires invaded the isolated town of Redfall from the outside world. Trapped inside the town, four survivors band together to stop them.

Why It Should Be Staked

1. The main problem with the game is that the gameplay is a massive downgrade from other games developed by Arkane Studios. This is because 70% of Arkane Studios Austin, who made Prey (2017), left the studio after publishing that game. As a result, the gameplay suffers from various problems:
   • The stealth system is badly implemented and underdeveloped, and feels like this was added at the last minute because it is extremely easy to use. Not to mention, it's easily exploitable because you can kill everyone with this system, as long as they don't see you.
   • The gunplay is pretty bland and cookie-cutter and feels uninspired because it is generic and feels like a typical first-person shooter game, especially when compared to previous Arkane titles.
2. Weak graphics for 9th gen console standards that look like a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title. The character models are generic and look like they came from Fortnite, and the lighting is rather basic. Usually, Arkane Studios hides the bad graphics with a great art style, and that worked with Dishonored, but sadly, this is not the case with this game. To make matters worse, Arkane made Deathloop in 2021 before this game and that game had much better graphics than this. Let that sink in.
3. Shallow, unoriginal, and one-dimensional plot. The plot was made to cash in on the Resident Evil franchise, with barely any changes.
4. Despite the mediocre graphics, the game's optimization is rather poor, with constant frame drops and textures taking a long time to load. The game is also prone to crashing constantly. Not even the DLSS can fix the issue. And the fact that the game uses Denuvo Anti-Tamper (an anti-piracy DRM notorious for slowing performances in various games) doesn't help.
5. For some asinine reason, the Xbox Series X and S versions are locked at 30 FPS, despite being released in the consoles' early life. They also suffer from long texture loading.
6. Much like Cyberpunk 2077 and the 2022 reboot of Saints Row, despite being delayed to 2023 from its initial 2022 release, the game launched with plenty of bugs and glitches, such as an enemy that stays still and feels like it doesn't exist, with only its model staying still.
7. Much like Deathloop but even worse, the AI is incredibly stupid and brain-dead. When you're in front of them and there are objects in front of you and the other part of the enemy, the latter doesn't figure out how to kill.
8. For some reason, when playing in multiplayer, only the host gets rewarded for game progression, while other players, while they can get loots, don't get that type of progression. This is extremely baffling, as it makes the multiplayer matches overall useless.
9. The mission design is very basic, simplistic, and stale and often makes the game very repetitive throughout the entire playthrough, due to it being fetch quests.
10. Really bad animations. They have a few frames (with the lowest being 2 frames), and the running animation is very lazy. In addition, helping an Ally doesn't even have an animation.
    1. In addition, certain "animations", like sprinting, are barely existent and look cheap.
11. The cutscenes are practically nonexistent.
    • Those so-called "Cutscenes" are nothing more but still images that look like something out of Microsoft PowerPoint, now where have we heard about this before?
    • Heck, even the "movie" that plays in the cinema is not a movie, it is just a bunch of still images (Almost like the first level from the PSP game Miami Vice (2006).
12. Overpriced: The game cost US$70 at launch before it received a permanent price drop to US$40 on May 30, 2024, and considering how barebones the content is, it's very insulting.
13. Overall, this game is ruined Arkane's reputation, and what worse is Microsoft decided to shut down this studio (safe with Arkane Lyon) along with 3 other studios (Tango GameWorks, Alpha Dog Games, Roundhouse Studios).

Redeeming Qualities

1. The font looks great as it perfectly reassembles horror movies from the 80's such as The Shining, or even Stranger Things
2. The designs of the playable characters are pretty neat despite the issues from WISBS#2.
3. The concept of hunting vampires sounds decent, despite the horrible execution.
4. Luckily, this game, along with the many Bethesda games released in 2023, has no microtransactions at all, which is nice because the previous Bethesda games tend to have shady microtransactions implemented into them.
5. As Arkane promised, it will have the offline mode at a later date.

Reception

"You fucked it up!/You done fucked it up!"This game was given a 2/10 by AngryJoe.

Redfall received mixed-negative reviews from critics and very poor reviews from audiences and internet reviewers, faulting the game for the bugs and glitches, outdated graphics, poor optimization, and the braindead AI and overall calling the game undercooked and underwhelming. The PC version has a 53/100 critic score on Metacritic, while the Xbox Series S and X versions have a 56/100 critic score. The Steam reviews currently hold a "Mostly Negative" 38% rating, mostly criticizing the bad optimization. The game has been declared a commercial failure in May 2023. It was also declared as one of the worst games of 2023 by most journalists.

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