Redfall - New game from Arkane.

[danutz_plusplus]

I think they've gotten pretty directionless. They also lost one of the cofounders, last I remember. Raphaël Colantonio.
Unfortunately, as wonderful as the Dishonored games and Prey were, it seems they just never broke any records in terms of sales.
Which is really unfortunate. It means their core game system just aren't that succesfull. So they probably don't know what to do.
Which is really stupid. Objectively they should stick with what they know best. But that doesn't gel well with the corporate priorities of money-money-money.

 

[largh]

Perhaps one flop like this will change their direction. How about: immersion and story focussed RPGs?!

 

[JDR13]

I think they've gotten pretty directionless.

I have to disagree. They're definitely going in the wrong direction.

 

[JFarrell71]

Perhaps one flop like this will change their direction. How about: immersion and story focussed RPGs?!

A flop like this could end them entirely, though maybe their relationship with Microsoft will save them this time.

I bought Redfall and am trying to come to my own conclusions, though I made the mistake of reading the noise around the release. It's fun so far but I'm very early on. The environments have that Arkane feel, with lots of well written notes (though the spoken dialogue has not been as good, for some reason).

 

[Zloth]

So, a genre that's dearly loved by some but ignored by most? We had that before with isometric (well, sorta isometricish) RPGs. Then we got Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity, thank you Kickstarter. Could Arkane go independent and do something similar?

 

[JDR13]

So, a genre that's dearly loved by some but ignored by most? We had that before with isometric (well, sorta isometricish) RPGs. Then we got Divinity: Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity, thank you Kickstarter. Could Arkane go independent and do something similar?

It's a nice thought, but it's highly unlikely. I don't see them saying goodbye to that Microsoft money.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

It's a nice thought, but it's highly unlikely. I don't see them saying goodbye to that Microsoft money.

They don't even have that choice. They're owned by MS. Only if they were to buy themselves out of the ownership, or if some other studio buys them.
Frankly speaking we're only talking about the IP ownership. That's the only thing MS actually bought.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I bought Redfall and am trying to come to my own conclusions, though I made the mistake of reading the noise around the release. It's fun so far but I'm very early on. The environments have that Arkane feel, with lots of well written notes (though the spoken dialogue has not been as good, for some reason).

I was also a bit morbidly curious, so I also purchased Redfall. And I got it from greenmangaming, so no refunds for me.

 

[Shagnak]

Many player reviews indicate yet another broken release. I seem to have some good luck as far as "broken on release" games go, but I think I'll be dusting off my Gamepass account for this, rather than buying it outright. After I'm finished with Dead Island 2.

 

[JFarrell71]

Many player reviews indicate yet another broken release.

Player reviews, in a general sense, can suck a dick.

Player reviews, again in general, feel no need to check settings before they are posted after 0.4 hours. They mostly feel the need to rush to the keyboard and write about the very first impression they have, biased, incomplete, or just plain false as it may be. They feel the need to bandwagon and join mobs.

I'm playing on Xbox and have put in around 3 hours so far, and there has been absolutely nothing "broken" about it. Sometimes textures take a second to fully load in. I can't put it in suspend because of its always online nature. Annoying, sure. Broken, don't make me laugh.

As usual, because fans are so damned hysterical about everything, I feel the need to defend a game I don't even know I like yet.

My impressions:

Gameplay is solid. Gun types don't feel the same, despite what some reviews say. (Do different shotguns feel the same? Maybe. Don't know yet). Btw, set your interface lag or whatever it's called to "low", not the default, because it smooths camera movement considerably. At least on a controller.

There's good environmental storytelling and a fair number of things like notes and such to find. I forget the name, but the Redfall equivalent of voice logs said 1/100 when I found my first one. So it's not "empty" as some have said. Did they expect a bunch of NPCs to be running around? I don't know why they would. No Arkane game has had them, and this was never billed as an RPG.

Graphics are good. They look like Arkane graphics always do, kinda like a more realistic cell shaded effect.

I don't know how well multiplayer works because I'm playing solo.

 

[JDR13]

I'm playing on Xbox and have put in around 3 hours so far, and there has been absolutely nothing "broken" about it. Sometimes textures take a second to fully load in. I can't put it in suspend because of its always online nature. Annoying, sure. Broken, don't make me laugh.

I think Shagnak is referring to Steam reviews. Just because it's running decent on Xbox doesn't mean it's not broken on PC.

Of course "broken" is almost always an exaggeration, but there are currently 798 Steam reviews, and a measly 30% of them are positive. It obviously has some significant issues on PC.

 

[Shagnak]

Player reviews, in a general sense, can suck a dick.

I like the cut of your jib.

I'm meaning the reports on PC/Steam, with 4090s etc running like shit. Most of the time I have different experiences to these reports, but I can't discount them.
The last few games I've played that have reported issues have run fine on my humble 6600xt, so yeah, YMWV.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I also played around 1h, on PC. It's sort of serviceable imo. Nothing special, but nothing as bad as others have encountered. But having seen some of the bugs, I guess I just didn't encounter as many.
It's obviously not very polished imo. There's loads of weird quirky things. The AI sometimes spazes out. Also, it runs decently but once in a while I get noticeable framedrops.

The most glaring thing about it, imo, is that it really doesn't look like a AAA big-budget game. And for the 70 euros (I got it for 56 on greenman) you really expect more.
The cinematics are the sort you see in indie games, with plenty of stylized 2D art with transition animations between the images.
The usual ingame cinematics are also replaced with something similar, and absolutely no voice-acting in them. I cleared the first outpost, the firestation, and none of the NPCs have any dialogue lines, except for a grumpy (mhhhm).
The only NPC that says anything or is voiced is a doctor, who seems like a sort of local leader.
The environment does feature loads of logs/articles/readables, but those are pretty cheap to produce.

If it were priced at 30-40 euros the expectations would've been a lot lower for it.
So, while the negative onslaught is probably overblown, the game also doesn't do itself a lot of justice. It really has no place masquerading as a AAA big-budget game, at 70 euros.

But the worst thing about it, imo, is that the narrative seems to be very flimsy and superficial.
It very much seems more of a co-op shooter, with very little narrative context. Which is kind of sad, since it does have a pretty good atmosphere.
It could be a solid horror game, if it treated itself more seriously and was more of a stealth shooter.

 

[mbuddha]

I never understood the point of blanket dismissing Steam player reviews. It's not rocket science to determine who played the game enough to have something worthwhile to say, and some are even well-written. There are Arkane fans like me who love Dishonored, Prey, etc who are providing valid reasons on how Redfall doesn't hold a candle to those games.

 

[JFarrell71]

I never understood the point of blanket dismissing Steam player reviews. It's not rocket science to determine who played the game enough to have something worthwhile to say, and some are even well-written. There are Arkane fans like me who love Dishonored, Prey, etc who are providing valid reasons on how Redfall doesn't hold a candle to those games.

I'm as capable as anyone of shifting through mounds of shit to find a few diamonds, but that's not why I say fuck user reviews. It's all too bog easy to slap a negative on a game after playing it for 20 minutes and then, voila, a game is overwhelmingly negative and those jackasses get to feel oh so special for destroying a game's sales out of the gate. And there's no mistaking the absolute glee many derive from doing so.

By the way, Age of Wonders IV is the game that seems semi-broken at launch but they got a hotfix out quickly, and switching to that in the beta branch allowed me to play. Otherwise I (and others) got crashes with a message about a graphics card error. For those who bought that.

 

[Zloth]

They don't even have that choice. They're owned by MS. Only if they were to buy themselves out of the ownership, or if some other studio buys them.

Or if they quit and start their own studio. That's one HUGE risk, though.

 

[Couchpotato]

BluesNews has a review roundup and yeah not looking good.

 

[Couchpotato]

Perhaps one flop like this will change their direction. How about: immersion and story focussed RPGs?!

Well a few years back Dishonored 2 almost killed the studio at Bethesda. Which is why they switched to co-op online for their newer games. Looks like history is repeating.

Bethesda weren't sure if they wanted Dishonored 3, and so we got Deathloop instead

Arkane founder Raphaël Colantonio reveals that Deathloop was initially meant to be a short project to keep the studio moving after Death Of The Outsider

www.rockpapershotgun.com

Arkane Shouldn't Dismiss Dishonored - It's Still Their Best Work

The new-look Arkane could still learn from its own past.

www.dualshockers.com

 

[largh]

Regarding user reviewers: it's a broken system and I don't think there's a point looking at the average score seriously when considering to buy a game the first few months after release. Far too easy to review-bomb and no-one can give a serious recommendation after a few hours. Professional reviews are better in that sense. Over time the user average tends to settle and the score gets more representative of the game quality (and price). You all know this, but I wrote it anyway...

We have been playing Fallout 4 and Skyrim lately. These are by no means new games and still buggy to the point a mean user could call them "broken". Just wait for Starfield. That will probably be the most "broken" release of the year

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Aren't steam reviews only allowed if you actually own the game? That seems like a fair compromise.
Not sure what happens if you write a review and then refund the game.