Redfall Review | One Foot in the Grave

I find the discourse around Redfall to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I think it’s necessary to hold developers and publishers (especially those charging premium prices) accountable for the product they’re releasing. On the other, so much of the conversation about Redfall has been unproductively negative that people who simply looked at a few screenshots and clips on social media think they’re equipped to trash the game in its entirety. To make matters worse, there are some reviews that seem to be getting a bit too much enjoyment from shitting on it. So my approach to Redfall, having spent over ten hours exploring the vampire-infested fictional American town, is to be as honest as possible, sharing both what I liked about the game and what I think could be better. All without a provocative title proclaiming it to be a disaster.

Redfall is the latest game from Arkane Studios, the developers of the critically acclaimed Dishonored series and, most recently, the Game of the Year nominee, Deathloop. Since their last release, a timed PlayStation exclusive, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media, and as a result, Redfall became an Xbox console exclusive. While Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks was the first surprise exclusive since that deal closed, Redfall has a lot more riding on it, owing to Arkane’s glowing track record. This was Xbox’s first AAA new IP release of the year and with it being a Game Pass title day one, there were a lot of eyes on it. So the question is, how did it fare?

The first choice you make in Redfall is picking your character. You can select from one of four (Jacob Boyer, Devinder ‘Dev’ Crousley, Remi De La Rosa, and Layla Ellison). Each one has their own set of unique unlockable abilities ranging from a mono-pod ground pound to calling up vampire ex-boyfriends. While partying up with friends might be the advertised way to play, I went through the majority of the game solo and I preferred it that way. (A point I will touch on at the end.) For anyone that is playing co-op though, keep in mind that progress is only saved for the host player. The others will have to level up separately if they wish to play on their own.

Once you hit play, Redfall opens with the player waking up on a beached ferry full of people that were trying to escape the titular town. You (and your friends if you play in co-op) are the sole survivors and must venture back into town to escape danger. Soon, you find that there are more than just vampires to keep an eye out for. Cultists, who serve the blood-suckers, and Bellwether employees, who picked the corpo life, are everywhere. After rescuing a few hostages, you seek refuge in a firehouse, which will double as your base of operations. From there, you can talk to NPCs, buy supplies, and carry out missions.

The premise of Redfall is great, being set in a small town haunted by a vampiric threat reminiscent of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. However, the first big downfall of the game comes from its story presentation. The cutscenes all have a 3D freeze-frame parallax effect that makes Redfall feel more like a budget indie release than a AAA console seller. Even the mere act of going to the briefing table to begin the next mission only to have a narrated slideshow is underwhelming. More importantly, the presentation has always been a noteworthy point in Arkane’s previous games, and looking back at the opening of 2012’s Dishonored to Redfall shows a disappointing disparity in production value. Not to mention that some of those simple-looking cutscenes can also have audio issues where lines of dialogue will cut out in odd blips.

Thankfully, after the opening, Redfall gives you the reins and you are free to explore the sizeable town. To me, as is often the case with other Arkane games, the setting is the star. Most of my enjoyment of the game came from exploring the map, looting buildings, and finding secrets. Daytime encounters are pretty stress-free with a handful of human enemies cropping up every few blocks. But when night falls, the threat increases and there can be great moments of tension as you sneak through a building knowing a vampire might be close or (worse) fighting for your life when you get jumped by a whole horde of them. This is where Redfall shines; when you forget about the weird cutscenes, and take in the often striking visuals and spooky atmosphere. It’s often the case that some of the more organic story moments from gameplay are better at furthering the narrative than cutscenes.

Redfall is a looter-shooter and whether you like the looting and shooting will change based on personal preference. The looting isn’t centered around grinding for parts and upgrading equipment. Instead, you find weapons of varying levels and rarity in chests and trunks around the map and it’s up to you to compare which ones are better for your playstyle and salvage the others. You can have three weapons equipped at any given time and there’s a decent amount of weapon variety to let you choose how you want to tackle each situation. There are silenced snipers for long-range attacks and shotguns and assault rifles for more up-close encounters. There are also custom vampire-killing weapons like UV blasters and stake launchers that don’t have as much readily available ammo but do a lot more damage to the pale-faced monsters. I personally like the looting mechanics because instead of looting until you fill your inventory and selling it to a vendor, you just collect items as you play and useless items will automatically be exchanged for coins.

As for the shooter part, it still isn’t your Call of Duty or Battlefield, with gunplay being comparatively stiffer. While FOV and performance options are welcome, they don’t do much to make the gameplay smoother. Especially when we still have the elephant in the room; framerate. It was a big point of contention prior to release that Redfall wouldn’t launch with 60fps support and to be quite honest, it’s unacceptable for a AAA game of this caliber to only play at 30fps. Perhaps it’s only because I play and review so many games on a regular basis that I notice, but you can tell the difference and it’s not a good look when an Xbox console exclusive doesn’t feel optimized on the highest-end console it was made for. Oddly enough, I played the game on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S and I found performance to be more consistent on the lower-end machine. Consequently, a majority of my time in Redfall was spent on Series S. When the news was announced that 60fps will come via an update at a later date, the release date for the game as a whole should have really been pushed with it.

Arkane is known for empowering the player to tackle each situation as they want. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube of people executing crazy combos in Dishonored. Redfall might not offer as much freedom as those games, but it’s still an important part of the gameplay loop. When approaching a building, you can choose to charge in through the front door, guns blazing, or find a quieter way in. As you play, you’ll spot conveniently placed ramps and vehicles to climb to the roof or side paths that lead to below-ground entrances. I played as Remi for my main playthrough, who can use her trusty robot sidekick Bribon to distract enemies while you sneak in. Meanwhile, Jacob can send out a raven to spot enemies, Layla can use a psychic elevator to get to higher ground, and Dev can stun enemies momentarily. The use of character abilities and environment is essential in getting the most out of the game. Redfall might be a first-person game with guns, but playing it as a straightforward shooter will only make the experience boring and frustrating.

It is at this point that I want to mention the obvious; player experience heavily dictates their thoughts on a game. I understand that some people have had a less-than-ideal one, with glitches around every corner. For me, that was not the case. It wasn’t entirely smooth, but I rarely had game-breaking bugs. What I did come across in my time with Redfall was a plethora of textures that didn’t load immediately. This ranged from logos on trucks to the reticles on my sniper. On more than one occasion, I would aim down sights to find the crosshair blurry for a few seconds before it snapped into focus. The bigger problem though is the production value. I reiterate that this is a AAA game and seeing the same “red_flannel_dead_body” model appear multiple times in the same location is immersion-breaking. I also had one odd instance where I was trapped in a planter when I returned to Redfall after destroying a vampire nest, but fast traveling to a nearby safehouse fixed it.

Redfall is advertised as a co-op game and though it claims to be the same experience whether you’re playing by yourself or with friends, that’s just not the case. Much like other Arkane games, I prefer Redfall solo. This is nothing against the net code, which is actually good at keeping the action in sync, and nothing against my friends, who decided to join me in Redfall despite not having any interest in the game. It’s the mere fact that some of the suspense that works so well when playing by yourself goes away when playing with multiple people. I have noticed no changes in enemy spawns or difficulty when in co-op and the same threat with more people just becomes less of a threat. Some of the natural chaos that comes from playing with friends also takes away from that intensity. Unless you play Redfall as they did in the gameplay demo from the Xbox + Bethesda Showcase, I think you will get the same results.

Last up, I want to talk about the visuals and audio. I have already mentioned how the game looks, but to describe it in one word: fine. It’s not bad, except for when textures don’t load, and sometimes people and objects can have a plastic-like quality. But there are moments when it can look great. In those fleeting moments, when you turn a corner and see a red tree contrasting against the blue sky of the setting sun, is when the game is at its best. That’s when you get a glimpse of the Arkane we love. The audio is a mostly positive matter though. Other than the few (and I really do mean few) audio blips during cutscenes, the general sound design of Redfall is awesome. The caws of crows on the rooftops and the creak of the floorboards below you work together to build out the environment. As a result, the sound is a key reason why the game can be as intense as it gets. I also want to make a special note of the music, which is, to put it simply, dope.

Nearly two thousand words later, it’s time to wrap up this review. Redfall is a game full of unrealized potential and that’s a shame. Under all the muck of technical issues and production shortcomings, you can see glimpses of the creative vision that Arkane was aspiring for. But it’s not the job of players to sift through that to get to the good stuff. At the end of the day, despite the core gameplay loop not being for everyone, there is enough here to like and even love, but the game was taken out of the oven too soon. I personally found myself returning to the game day after day not just for the purpose of finishing this review, and if you have Game Pass, I still think it’s worth checking out. However, considering the current state of the game (and the $70 price tag) I would recommend waiting until the promised 60fps update (and perhaps a few more along the way) rolls through before diving in. Redfall is out now on Xbox Series X|S and PC. It is also available on Xbox Game Pass on all platforms.