Redfall review: Arkane's vampire shooter is an uninspired disappointment
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There was a lot of anticipation for Arkane Studios' latest game, unsurprisingly so considering the developer's recent track record at releasing acclaimed games including the Dishonored series, 2017's Prey, and Deathloop. But as you may have seen by now, vampire shooter Redfall has been hit with a huge backlash since its launch.
Players have made their feelings clear, with the game's Metacritic user score at 3.1 and 1.9 on Xbox and PC respectively, at the time of writing. The wave of criticism has even led to Xbox boss Phil Spencer to publicly apologise for 'under-delivering'.
Is it as terrible as people are saying? We would argue that the level of outrage has been over-inflated, with online pile-ons and review-bombing in effect. We would also say that Redfall is not aggressively bad. But it is a mediocre and uninspired game at its core where most of its ideas end up being half-baked.
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The game follows a cast of four survivors in a fictional Massachusetts town called Redfall, which has been taken over by vampires. While weapons are the primary way of taking down enemies, including vampire-worshipping cultists and a private security company with their own agenda, each of the playable characters comes with three unique abilities that set the heroes apart.
However, even after upgrading the abilities through the skill tree, they don't have a significant enough bearing on your combat prowess. It's a step back from Arkane's previous games, which not only put greater emphasis and importance on your powers but also contributed in making fights unpredictable.
That's not to say they don't have their uses. For example, Layla has the ability to launch herself and her allies up into the air, handy for traversal and even allowing for some missions to be approached a little differently — such as being able to ambush more easily from the roof instead of going through the front or back door of a building. But we wish there were more opportunities for the abilities to shine.
The weapons themselves similarly don't reach their potential, due to the loot system. Throughout the campaign, you have to loot and collect progressively more powerful weapons to replace your existing gear. Your level-3 assault rifle becomes redundant an hour later when you find a level 5 or 6, though higher-rarity weapons can come with perks that make them last a little longer.
The issue is that most of the time, there isn't any real difference between each weapon in its type aside from better stats. There's no excitement from picking up a new weapon, and so looting becomes monotonous, especially since there is a heavy amount of micromanagement in sorting out which weapons to get rid of.
This has an impact on the open world. The town of Redfall — which encompasses two maps — has its moments but large chunks of areas lack a sense of place. The second major area is an improvement and has a more interesting layout, but it doesn't compensate for some of the game's design.
Safehouses are scattered across the town with sidequests tied to them, but those sidequests are generic without adding to the lore and it's a chore when the main story, at multiple points, forces you to complete some of them to progress. Meanwhile, historical markers can be found and provide fast travel points, but don't contribute meaningful world-building, and so only really exist from a mechanical standpoint.
Even coming across a location off the beaten path inhabited by cultists or vampires fails to inspire. Clear out a house or cave and you're left with rummaging through loot, which is unrewarding by itself, and the odd snippet of forgettable environmental storytelling through notes. This means that during a main mission, you can generally go straight from point A to point B without missing out on anything.
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That's not to say there aren't positive things to be said about the game. It's just that they are often prevented from flourishing by other aspects. Some of the stronger vampires have interesting designs and powers, but the AI is underwhelming at times. There are a few enjoyable missions, but most are largely repetitive. There's a potentially engaging narrative in there, but it's undermined by sluggish storytelling.
We were fortunate enough to have had a largely bug-free experience, and any performance issues were minor and easy to look past. But that only emphasised how mediocre the base of the game ended up being for us.
Redfall isn't as unplayable as some of the most intense reaction might lead you to believe. That said, we found it to be a rather mindless experience, often finding ourselves going through the motions. And when considering how it falls short in ways we wouldn't have expected from an Arkane title, the game is sadly a disappointment.
Platform reviewed on: PC
Redfall is out now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass.
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