There are so many elements that contribute to the success or failure of a video game. Enough so that even the greatest games can collapse from lack of players after release, and the worst games can secure an unlikely victory despite their flaws. From development woes to marketing stumbles, most of the time a game misses the mark is due to a messy amalgamation of factors that's hard to pin down.
Sometimes, the hate a game receives at launch far outclasses what it deserves, with two notable examples in recent memory. It took me a while, but I finally visited what many consider to be "Xbox's greatest failure" in years: Redfall. The unfortunately doomed final title from the legendary Arkane Austin team suffered under the weight of endless criticisms when it dropped, eventually culminating in the shuttering of the studio that brought it to life. Is Redfall really the utter failure that so many claim it is?
Seeing as I put over two dozen hours into the game and 100% it... No, it isn't. Redfall's foremost sin is being mediocre during a period when Xbox's first-party content was under more scrutinization than ever.
A flawed game that still manages to be fun
My editor, Jez Corden, is the one who originally reviewed Redfall for Windows Central, and he concluded alongside his final 3/5 review score that, "While embers of fun do exist in Redfall, it's maddening that this is the product of the legendary studio that gave us Prey. Arkane is very clearly out of its depth with Redfall." I'm not one to beat around the bush, so I'll go out and say that Jez wasn't out of line with his assessment.
Even after a year of updates aimed at improving the game, the version of Redfall I played and enjoyed still wouldn't deserve higher than a 3.5/5 in my eyes. At its core, Redfall is flawed; that being said, I believe there's a tendency in the video games community to view any game that reviews worse than an 8/10 average as hot garbage, when that's simply not the case. A solid 7/10 game can still be a ton of fun despite its obvious flaws, and even in its damaged state, I knew many who still enjoyed Redfall at release — it was hardly unplayable.
Multiple post-launch updates saw a wealth of bug fixes and optimizations. Arkane Austin fixed glitches and crashes, improved NPC AI, refined movement and combat, added new weapons and content, and increased performance (including adding a long-awaited 60 FPS mode on Xbox Series X|S). No, Redfall's "Hero Pass" never came to light, but in its final update the game even got an offline mode... Which is why I was able to play it at all.
And, to be totally frank, I had a great time playing Redfall. As I mentioned before, I didn't take a quick jaunt through the ill-fated towns of Redfall and Burial Point — I completed every mission, explored every area, and found every secret I could. I spent over 30 hours in Redfall and 100% it for all intents and purposes. I wouldn't have bothered if I wasn't enjoying myself, as I had absolutely zero obligation to play it at all (I didn't even know I'd write about the game until the credits rolled, hence why there are no screenshots from my playthrough in this article).
I latched on to the faint tendrils of Arkane Studios' infamous magic in Redfall's dark and blood-splattered universe, and approached something close to falling in love with the premise of a town isolated from the world and besieged by vampires created through greed and the misuse of knowledge. I saw hints of wonder from the team that created Prey (2017), which remains one of my favorite games of all time to this day. Exploring these regions, discovering its scattered stories of strife and desperate survival, and slowly working toward a violent resolution made it easy to play the game for hours at a time.
The Redfall of today, which you can still play on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Xbox Game Pass, is in a much better state than at launch. Of course, it's still not perfect — I encountered crashes during loading screens, terrain and traversal glitches, odd behavior from enemies, and other minor issues. Overall, though, the game honestly ran fantastic on my Xbox Series X and felt quite stable. It's how the game should've launched, but that likely wouldn't have totally saved the game from coming under fire.
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The unfortunate tale of a game doomed to mediocrity
As I hinted at before, my personal score of 3.5/5 for Redfall has little to do with glitches, performance issues, or optimization flaws. Redfall plays perfectly fine on Xbox Series X at this point, and even without its co-op features (the studio shutdown also meant the end of Redfall's online servers) you can have a lot of fun playing it. The sad reality of this game, though, is that its struggles to find a cohesive identity likely started very early on in development, and no amount of post-launch updates would've totally saved it from that.
Redfall drew me in with its fascinating premise, the strong building blocks for an excellent narrative, and the addictive loop of exploring Redfall, avoiding or challenging vampires and their twisted cultists, rescuing survivors, and scavenging for the gear you need to survive in this hellish isolated bubble. For each gem you find, though, you either have to accept its lack of luster or first peer past the layer of grime coated on top.
Redfall's premise is held back by unnecessary gameplay mechanics like tying weapon strength to an arbitrary level progression system, or spreading the game's arsenal of unique abilities and skills across four entirely separate player classes (which in turn hampers Arkane's true strength, which is setting you loose in a highly dynamic, interactive sandbox). Redfall's campaign is crippled by awkward slideshow-esque cinematics, and a truncated mission structure that results in narrative gaps, and doesn't give characters and story beats time to be fleshed out or feel impactful.
Even the core gameplay loop feels laden with Redfall's strange attempts to be half-RPG-half-looter-shooter. None of these flaws would've been resolved after the game released, no matter how many updates Arkane Austin released — they're foundational design faults that should've been avoided early on.
Despite all of that... I'm still distraught by the loss of Xbox studios like Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. I wrote about how the closure of these studios flew in the face of Xbox's claims of being a haven for creativity, and after playing Redfall to completion it's even sadder how a single mishap can doom an entire storied developer. I'm far from alone in thinking that, with even Arkane Lyon's studio director commenting on the closures.
Redfall is far from perfect, but I'd honestly recommend it to anyone intrigued by the premise and is interested in a casual, open-world vampire slaying adventure, especially with it being readily available through Xbox Game Pass. It's an excellent example of a "C-tier game" in that Redfall was never going to win any awards or shake up the industry, but it can still offer hours of fun to those willing to overlook the flaws and simply enjoy the game for what it is.
Is Redfall secretly a hidden gem that was unfairly lambasted just for being a high-profile first-party Xbox exclusive? Ah, no, not quite. Did Redfall deserve the mountains of vitriol directed at it from all corners of the internet, including from thousands who never played it themselves? Also... no. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle; Redfall is an average game with just enough charm to err on the side of good, and can genuinely offer a fun time in spite of (or maybe because of) its unique flaws.
I'm personally glad I gave Redfall a chance, and I'm sad that we'll never see anything else come out of Arkane Austin because of its failure. I really wanted Prey 2.
