Any reasonable person wouldn't begrudge a studio making a conscious decision to make something different. Not entirely different, but one long-time fans may not have seen coming. Completely outside of one's comfort zone or not, it's always more interesting (and beneficial in the long run) when any developer can shake off the feeling they might be some one-note outfit when the end product turns out great. But it also means that the opposite result sticks out more than any sore thumb ever could. Even for a studio as prolific and as respected in such a short amount of time as Arkane, one of the forerunners of first-person stealth and player freedom wrapped around well-adapted visual aesthetics, taking a stab at something different is equal parts exciting as it is curious.

Perhaps it's one's continued fondness for the Dishonored series playing its part, but I'll be the first one to admit that from day one, when it was first announced -- sans-gameplay, little more than a cinematic teaser -- Redfall from Arkane Studios' Austin branch (to be more precise) could only muster cautious optimism from myself. Granted, teasers are not the one true red-flag that kills any and all intrigue. But consider for a minute the first detail and implication to said project's premise was that of four characters/players with equal presence. Word of advice for any studio from someone who'll naturally revert to solo play by default when available: the best kind of co-op is that which can co-exist alongside its solo-play form, not that which is used to pave over any and all figurative cracks in the end product.

Because to say Redfall is marred by so many weaknesses in its foundation would not only serve to highlight just how far short Arkane's latest falters from the get-go at its most basic level; it also highlights how bereft of technical consistency, on top of sheer enjoyment, there is to be had in a game that so quickly falls into formulaic repetition. Take away the momentarily-pleasant sprinkling of Arkane-pedigree level design, stealth-honed exploration and subtle storytelling that comes with it and Redfall would completely lose its sense of self. The problem isn't that these fond traits are still present and here to be found, it's that they're so few and far between in favor of a more open-world design that does nothing to either improve or compliment what came before. Even with its modest size of two stand-alone maps, still feels too stretched-out for its own good.  Combine this with an equally-shallow loot grind that quickly devolves into sticking with the highest numbers and lest we forget: a tale of vampires taking over a small island town that if anything feels poorly fleshed out and implemented. And that's before we begin to go over the numerous technical bugs and issues served up during this roughly fifteen-hour campaign. Suffice it to say this is Arkane's weakest effort to date and an effort whose rough PC version at release should not go unnoticed.

Redfall Review Screenshot

In fact, the very PC performance of Redfall would be a good place to start. If not for the best of reasons; on the back of recent news that the console version will be restricted to 30FPS, in an age where most games offer either a fidelity or performance mode to choose from. On PC, the results are a mess that includes, but isn't limited to: texture pop-in, enemy AI getting caught in foliage, quest markers for disabled missions still showing on the map, inconsistent frame-rates and at one point a major game-breaking road-block that had me caught in a part of the map mere inches from a mission objective -- forcing me to respawn a distance away just to continue. And that's without including a total of five separate crashes experienced during play. Anyone who suspected the PC version would fair better as an alternative may want to reign in those expectations. Add Redfall to the [worryingly] growing list of poor PC ports this year.

But to simply skim over those issues would be a disservice. It's alarming that despite Redfall not exactly being the most visually-detailed or demanding of titles, it's issues are so widespread. For one, the frame-rate on its own can wildly dart all over the place, no matter how much tinkering and tweaking one does to their respective video settings. Try as you might, as was in my case, switching resolutions (between 1440p and 1080p output here) -- on top of fine-tuning individual video settings between Medium/High/Epic -- proves fruitless. In one instance, having an average frame-rate of around 80FPS, just about cut in half to low-40s, at certain points. The game, at its worst, when surrounded by numerous foes during a segment of direct confrontation/combat dipping as low as 15 frames. Whether the begrudged always online status has anything to do with this or not is hard to say, but the fact of the matter is that regardless of personal build or pre-determined settings, Redfall seldom manages to stay consistent for too long. Tack on all the texture pop-in, surface glitches, as well as the way objects from any distance will bizarrely lose clarity -- smoke and fog too rendering in chunky, pixel-like squares -- and while it's not out-and-out terrible, the issues have an unfortunate habit of popping up at the most unwelcome of times.

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One of which -- the kind that makes you want to quit out of the game completely -- is the button prompt required to finish off the more vampiric foes. The idea is that players are required to deplete a vampire's health so as to stun them and subsequently finish them off with a stake through the heart. A nuisance in of itself that, outside of special moves, this is the primary way to finish off said enemies. Worse still that more often than not, this prompt doesn't appear -- a frustration that's capped off by the fact that if you fail to hit the prompt in time, said vampire will regain all their health and the fight resumes. Now consider there are higher-level vampires to take out with larger pools of health and heavier-hitting attacks...and once again, the prompt does not appear when you need to. Of any bug present (and persistent on top) throughout Redfall, this is its most damning. To the point one would engage with any vampire and think: "for God's sake that prompt better function this time" due to how frequent it ended up occurring. A matter of pot luck then on whether this component of combat functions.

But even if these issues are ironed out, to say Redfall's main combat loop is worthy of mention would be a lie too. Guns that lack weight and impact, despite being competently functional to handle, human enemies that don't provide much of a challenge and by contrast, vampire types that serve more as bullet sponges than unique challenges to analyze and overcome. Outside of possibly one vampire type dubbed, the Shroud, that as its name might imply, severely restricts your view to a small radius, requiring you to keep in close proximity or simply fire blindly to take it out. But it's rather more comical that it's the human fodder that seem to outnumber the vampires here -- for all its marketing and its premise, you're more likely to encounter brain-dead human AI than you are vampires in Redfall. And with the fact that enemies, like yourself, don't necessarily level-up as you progress in the game, it means that there comes a point where you've acquired a strong-enough weapon (or simply a weapon with high-enough numbers attached) to simply go in guns-blazing, killing humans with a well-placed rifle round to the head.

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You might think that the assortment of weapons may provide opportunity to be more thoughtful and tactical in one's load-out. Especially when it's assumed that vampires are more vulnerable to weapons that fire stakes or cast UV light. But grind for just a few hours for differently color-coded guns and the idea of switching between weapon types becomes pointless. What your wield is strong enough that simply unloading ballistics into any enemy, human or vampire, will suffice. It's outside of combat -- or at least instances where combat hasn't been triggered yet -- when you're exploring the finely-crafted buildings or interiors where Redfall finally musters some semblance of longer-lasting enjoyment. Again, Arkane's talent for level design and deducing how best to approach a situation does bring with it a brief respite away from the overwhelming bore. A mansion in the Southern part of the first region by far one of a handful of consolations. But all this does is raise a bigger issue here: none of this is exclusive to Redfall -- the best parts are those which are commonplace in any other Arkane release. Eventually revealing a telling reality here and one that sadly comes to undermine a lot of the individual elements: Arkane simply don't know what they want this game to be. And whether it's a symptom of trying to have it both ways -- attempting something different, but making sure not to isolate long-time fans -- Redfall ends up in this strange middle-ground of attempting to appeal to everyone but ultimately satisfying no one.

This is prevalent more so when it comes to the actual storytelling and the way Redfall aims to deliver its unfolding events. While there's nothing wrong with the game deciding against fully-animated cutscenes, instead relying on a stitched-together sequence of freeze-frames, the problem is that it's hard to care about anyone and anything taking place when Redfall itself comes across like it too doesn't care. I fail to recount one NPC or secondary character in Redfall worthy of mention -- most of whom are little more than quest-givers with a voice-box. The mission structure of said quests in Redfall, however, further serves to prove that as far as plot, backstory and motivations to keep going, the game simply thinks this is all irrelevant. A series of fetch-quests and eliminating of named vampires that more annoyingly have to be enabled at a mission table of sorts back at one of two designated hubs again and again. You can't simply continue on with quests once one is completed, but instead are reliant on you fast-traveling back to a hub. Even the more important story beats and revelations mid-mission are relegated to mere hologram-like exchanges of dialogue -- your character capping things off by explaining: "oh so this happened and then that happened, which is why this person did this but that happened too" comments. So if Redfall -- and Arkane by extension -- doesn't care about dedicating time and resources to its story, why should we?

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It's rare for a game to feel like it's both wasting your time whilst investing little of its own, but the more hours you invest, the more you realize Redfall just cannot find any reasonable answers to justify its intended direction. Latching onto the bare minimum to make its experience feel meatier than it actually is. And no amount of skill tree upgrades can counter the growing malaise that how one plays after the fifteenth hour feels in anyway different to the first, outside of a shorter cool-down for one's abilities and slightly more ammo you're able to carry. Those "Vampire God" main bosses you have to take down? Well to do that, you first need to beat three named vampires to unlock each main boss' respective hiding places? To do that: you first need to complete an accompanying side mission. To do that: you first need to hunt down their associated safe-houses? It all becomes one mind-numbing chore after another. Even the very nature to go open-world to accomplish this approach is questionable given how little is placed to justify its existence. You might like the sound of Arkane-esque level design spread out over a larger swathe of land and while pockets of that same intrigue do exist, the space in-between is too empty to feel meaningful. Resulting in, more often than not, simply sprinting through empty fields to get to the next objective. And what about the dreaded "Rook"-type vampires that hunt you down should you [un]knowingly fill a meter to instigate said battle? Nope, just another class of bullet-sponge with overpowered hits that can kill you in no time at all. Easier to just deliberately die to them, so as to reset the meter and move on with proceedings. This might sound like a rather apathetic and defeatist attitude to take, but it's hard to truly care about what's happening when Redfall itself doesn't seem to want to properly flesh these mechanics out.

Such is the scale of issues plaguing Redfall at nearly every turn, it's inevitable that -- call it desperation or not -- one's intentions quickly shift from taking issue with the failings to simply laughing at them. Namely with how broken and unbalanced certain parts end up being. Take the character of Jacob and his ability to go invisible for a short time. Cue the moment of realization (and accompanying laughter of disbelief) when you find that so long as you're in this state, enemies don't react to you whatsoever. Regardless of whether you're motionless, moving while crouching or even sprinting around. Resulting in many a moment where I could just sprint into a building full of foes, invisibility enabled, activate a device and get out -- completely nullifying the desire to approach things cautiously. Made worse (or "better" in an ironic manner) by the fact that even during combat when all enemies are attacking you, simply activating the ability again stops them in their tracks.

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Closing Comments:

From a studio having delivered far better and should in all likelihood have done so once more, Redfall is an uncharacteristically poor and cobbled-together brand of tedium. Though pockets of the developer's signature traits remain when it comes to exploration, level design and reading up on the world of this fictional small-town settlement, it's as far as the game goes in injecting a sense of care or thought to what it's offering and asking of its player. Shamelessly limping from one half-hearted implementation and excuse to pad out its run-time to the next. The killing blow undoubtedly coming by way of its PC performance. A myriad of issues big and small that will take some doing to rectify. But even then, with a lack of enemy variety, creative mission design and simply reason to stay invested or evolve from out of, its gameplay just isn't all that fun to engage with from the off. A bare minimum effort with such scarce appeal, Redfall stands as a devoid and near-lifeless pivot away from the standard we've come to expect from Arkane Studios.

redfall

Reviewed on PC