If the name Arkane Studios means something to you, that’s normal. The famous French studio intends to continue its success story with Redfall, a new cooperative FPS which unfortunately gives bad first impressions.
For Xbox, the year 2023 promises to be crucial. The X brand continues to struggle in terms of console exclusives against Playstation, which has already found its identity. After a sluggish Halo, a Darktide still absent on Xbox Series, and a very successful Forza Horizon 5, the owner of Bethesda needs a big release to establish his presence on the home console market. And this release, it comes to us precisely from Bethesda and more particularly from Arkane studios. The French studio has taken on the heavy task of producing Redfall, a completely new release that joins the broad category of cooperative FPS. But unfortunately, this open world which will be limited to 30 fps on Xbox Series upon its release is worrying. And rightly so. We explain why just below.
To put the release of Redfall into perspective, you have to say that this is Xbox’s big hit in 2023, before the release of Starfield. The Xbox Series X is in great need of quality exclusives to compete against the PS5 in a competitive market, and it is therefore logically towards the talented studios of Arkane that the green giant has turned. The studio has an impressive pedigree (Dishonored, Prey, Deathloop) and is highly regarded for its ability to build living dioramas, ideal for building an open-world game. Only here, a few weeks before the release of this vampire-slayer in coop, a first bad news has fallen: the game will only be released with a single graphics mode on consoles, limiting the gameplay to 30 fps in 4K on Series X, and at 30 fps in 1440p on Series S. A hard pill to swallow for players accustomed for more than 10 years to the famous 60 frames per second.
This bad news comes just after the publication of a preview of the game from IGN, a preview that unleashed waves of criticism on Youtube and on the web for several reasons. First, the level of play of the journalist holding the controller is execrable, making the few combat sequences difficult to watch without tearing your eyes out, really, we put it for you just below for a little comic break in your reading. Second, the few combat and exploration images were legitimately singled out as disappointing. Nothing seems unique in this open-world shooter, which seems to have the only positive point of replacing zombies with vampires. The environments seem generic, representing the views and reviews of the American countryside (Fortnite bis in short), the animations are poor, the fights horribly stiff… All observed in just a few minutes of gameplay.
In addition, note that these observations echo one of the written previews of the game published on March 22, that of PC Gamer. Where many newspapers did not hide their excitement after spending 90 minutes playing this future release, sometimes not hesitating to raise it to the rank of possible “game of the year”, the editorial staff of PC Gamer as for her, she expressed doubts about its quality, not hesitating to describe it as a “sad fall from the iconic Arkane studio”. Note that Robin Valentine, the author, noted many negative points in his preview, points that might remind you of something: generic environments and poor graphics, empty and lifeless world except for a few groups of enemies, absence incentive to explore, lack of interaction with the environment, repetitive and boring dungeons, fights without particular interest, poor animations… The list is long and strangely resembles the first impressions of the public four weeks later, after the release of the game’s first gameplay footage.
So without advancing on the total veracity of PC Gamer’s impressions, it nevertheless seemed important to us to recall the existence of this edifying preview as the game’s release approaches, and thus to underline the relevance of the public’s critical gaze. a month later. It should also be noted that all the newspapers having had the chance to test Redfall have nevertheless highlighted some similar negative points in their often rave reviews. In particular the emptiness of its open world as IGN France points out, or the absence of real impact of the scenario according to Gamereactor. French side JVC remains positive but underlines dated graphics, poor animations, and a narration far too classic.
Far from us the idea of dismantling Redfall before its release, but rather of gathering the markers which seem to justify the doubts of the public. No, the players are not crazy; despite overall very or even overly positive previews, the first journalistic reviews of Redfall mention impressions of incompleteness. Worse still, they also talk about dated animations and empty environments. Two disturbing elements for an open world shooter.
By its first images, Redfall seems to be presenting itself as a forgettable title, like an attempt at mainstream gaming by a studio acclaimed for its intricate and niche games. Add to that 30 frames per second on Xbox Series and you may smell a faint aroma of disaster not unlike Gotham Knights, released technically outdated, empty, and at 30 frames per second on consoles. Now, as video game fans, we just have to pray that Arkane triumphantly proves to us the impertinence of our worries.
What is the release date of Redfall?
Redfall showed itself in detail yesterday during the Developer Direct from Xbox and Bethesda. A sequence of ten minutes of gameplay which concluded with a major piece of information, the game is planned for the May 2, 2023 for release exclusively on PC and Xbox Series. It will also be available in the Xbox Game Pass from day one. Unfortunately for Sony players, the game should not be released on Playstation 5 and will remain one more step forward from Xbox in the war of video game exclusives.