It has been 3 weeks since Redfall was released, and it’s been mostly radio silence from Arkane (the developers behind the title) aside from a single patch that did nothing to address some of the largest concerns about the game.
The AI is weak and – in many cases – completely incapable of creating any sort of challenge for the player regardless of difficulty.
The story delivery is fairly bland, leaving you feeling a more “Ok, let’s move it along here so I can get back to the gameplay”.
The gameplay itself? Disappointing. Loot systems, “personal choice” for how to engage, movement, general combat and more all fall exceptionally flat here.
The Arkane art style was delivered in a roughshod manner that feels less like a creative direction and more like they were stuck developing for lower-end hardware.
On top of all that, no matter how you play, you have to be online.
So, here is where I ask the question.. Can Redfall be fixed?
I don’t really feel like it can.
I’ve decided to give up on attempting to review the game, much like with The Last of us Part 1 on PC. After 3 weeks we’ve seen one barely useful patch, and no reasonable attempt to actually address gamers’ concerns about the aforementioned issues.
I feel like Redfall is going to end up going the way of Anthem.. An always-online loot shooter that was plagued with bugs at release and failed to deliver on it’s promise. An attempt was made to do an “Anthem 2.0” revitalization from the developers shortly after release, but that was abandoned in short order too.
The difference here is I felt like – despite it’s issues at launch – Anthem was eminently playable, and even enjoyable. I actually went back and played it a bit again a few months ago, and still had fun.
Redfall?
Well, let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t pay any actual money for it and instead played it on Games Pass.
There is a chance that Redfall can be saved, but with the amount of work needed to do so, I am imagining that we’ll see more of a half-hearted attempt to address a handful of issues, and then the title will be abandoned.