Arkane's Next AAA Game Didn't Deliver on AAA
There was a lot of interest surrounding Arkane's next title, Redfall, but I didn't really buy much into it. I find that reserving a lot of thoughts behind hype is probably best since media coverage can definitely skew final product comparison. But after recently resubbing to gamepass, I realized Redfall was in that library and foraged into the game knowing very little.
Like many, I was disappointed. There were a lot of promising systems in the game like character abilities, a wealth of different weapons, and an open-world style of approach. Unfortunately, everything seemed extremely half-baked. I kind of just stuck to one shotgun because it had an awesome skin and I could one-shot nearly every enemy. The vampires in the world weren't all that challenging, either. Fire a few shells off and then finish with a jab with a stake-mounted weapon.
Character abilities didn't seem all that useful either (I played Jacob Boyer). One ability allowed you to see characters behind obstacles outlined in red. Great, except it didn't matter much since they weren't large threats to begin with. I stopped using abilities and forgot about them. Chalk it up to the difficulty level I suppose, but I doubt I would have enjoyed using them in higher levels.
One lackluster feature too was dying didn't seem to be that much of a problem in the game. Countless times I died only to respawn nearby, where I'd just return and repeat my lootfest, either taking out humans or vampires. I would have liked to see *some* kind of detriment to dying to keep it a little more engaging.
I do have to hand it to Arkane for putting together an interesting open-world design in Redfall where the sun is blocked out permanently from the vampires taking over the town. They even secluded the town by warping the seawater around the town and freezing it in this wild, tornado-like blockade. It was a pretty impressive graphical demonstration, but not enough to warrant much play. 2.5 hours in and I moved on.
Rumor has it that some devs were pulled from Redfall to work on another unannounced project. Everyone's guess is Dishonored 3. I didn't finish the original and never touched the second, but as a recent Deathloop finisher, I think maybe that's a series I should explore more. With that said, Redfall was just a disappointment. I'm glad I gamepassed and then passed on it.