Tools that might make the sandbox more fun are arbitrarily spread across four separate playable class characters.
Redfall struggles to grasp an identity of its own in a very noisy market.
Arkane is very clearly out of its depth with Redfall.
Redfall is the first Xbox exclusive from Arkane, known for Dishonored, Deathloop, and Prey.
One of those games is Redfall.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give Redfall right now is that this review wasn’t a chore.
I had fun with my time in Redfall, but it’s a far cry from Far Cry.
Arkane is capable of far better.
Redfall is set on an eponymous fictional island in Massachusetts, U.S.
The game takes place during the fall, giving Arkane a natural canvas of thematic reds to work with.
Arkane does so to great effect, buoyed by stunning lighting techniques and meticulously dense world design.
Indeed, lighting is a key aspect of Redfall’s gameplay.
In any case, 30 FPS is largely “fine” for Redfall, I found.
More on that shortly.
When you execute vampiric enemies, they explode in a Blade-like plume of embers and ash.
Some explosive weapons can execute several vampires at once.
On the flip side, the boss battles have some stunning art and design work behind them.
Beyond that specific instance with the fog, Redfall was generally performant frame rate-wise, maintaining its targets well.
Sadly, I suffered multiple, albeit infrequent crashes while playing.
There’s a range of small, nagging issues like this in Redfall, sadly.
For what it’s worth, cooperative play worked well without any issues.
Or at least, so they thought.
It puts the user in the position of, “should I take the story seriously or not?”
which undoubtedly reduces the impact of some of the game’s story beats.
Redfall makes it utterly clear that multiplayer service games are definitively not Arkane’s forte.
Redfall Review: Gameplay
As I write this, I literally just completed the game.
However, I doubt I’ll be returning to the game any time soon.
And hey, since Redfall is always-online, there is no pause button.
If you die, you simply respawn somewhere nearby.
The enemies you killed won’t respawn, and the mini-boss you half-killed won’t regenerate its health.
After a while, I stopped trying to be stealthy and careful because there was simply no point.
Avoiding enemies is a negative in Redfall, since it’s killing that grant you EXP and progression.
Redfall doesn’t really want you to stealth, anyway.
There are no stealth takedowns, for example.
you’re free to only use this stake for executing vampires, for some reason.
You see, Redfall has some of the worst itemization in the history of soft-RPG shooters.
It is fundamentally broken at its core, which speaks to incompetence.
I’ve seen many soft RPGs fall into this trap, but few as prolifically as Redfall.
You will need certain weapons to fight certain enemies.
The only interactions I’ve had with these systems have been negative.
About halfway through the game, my silenced sniper rifle was no longer powerful enough to use effectively.
Redfall offers absolutely no incentive to hunt down good items.
There are no special events that require co-ordinated team play.
And regardless, the game ends before you’ll even find any decent items for the most part.
The gunplay is solid for the most part too.
Environmental hazards are powerful tools for luring in groups of roaming enemies too.
The best way to deal with groups of angry melee-hungry vampires is to deploy an ultimate ability, generally.
While the shooter fundamentals are decent, Redfall’s gameplay just offers very little variety.
The activity loop at level 1 is virtually identical to that of level 20.
In stark contrast to other similar open-world shooters, the sandbox just feels a little lifeless too.
There aren’t many dynamic open-world “events” you often see in similar games.
There are no animals, no critters roaming around to give the world believability.
There are no NPCs outside of safehouses, and the ones that do exist have very little to say.
There are no hidden unique bosses anywhere, besides a few named variants of existing mobs.
Arkane gave itself a supernatural license with Redfall, atop a large and quite gorgeous sandbox.
The potential for wacky tools and weapons that could’ve had all sorts of crazy interactions seems quite clear.
And theydoexist, but they are locked behind multiplayer.
I can do both on the same character.
The connected players get to keep their loot, but, who cares?
The loot sucks anyway.
The glimpses of Arkane greatness do exist in Redfall.
I desperately wanted to love Redfall, but I’ll just have to settle for not totally hating it.
On the plus side, it did get me to installPreyagain(and you should play that instead.)
Redfall
Redfall is an open-world shooter from the developers of Prey and Dishonored.
Save the eponymous island from a plague of vampiric entities, armed with mysterious powers.
