Redfall Feels Like It’s Being Set Up To Fail

Redfall has been having a bit of a rough go of it in the lead up to its launch, as Arkane and Bethesda cannot seem to drum up interest in the game without stifling its hype in the process. Whether it was the lacklustre IGN gameplay showcase, the reveal that Redfall is going to be always-online even if people want to play it as a single-player game, or the more recent news that the Xbox Series X version of the game will be locked to 30fps at launch, people haven’t been too pleased with the way Redfall has been marketed.

Granted, Bethesda and Arkane have gone out to perform some damage control on the negative rep that Redfall has already managed to garner. Gameplay previews released after that IGN preview have showcased a faster pace of gameplay, which seems to be more agreeable to the gaming public at large. Meanwhile, they’ve also bent over backwards to remind people that they’re looking into removing the always online requirement entirely, and have promised that a 60fps performance mode is in the pipeline.

However, those positive pushes aren’t doing much to truly alleviate concerns that players have had about the game, particularly with regards to the online functionality and the framerate. Putting out a statement that you’ll remove the online-only functionality is nice and all, but is it really credit worthy to fix a situation you caused in the first place? As for the framerate fracas, playing a co-op shooter at 30fps isn’t the end of the world, but given how all the previews of Redfall have been at 60fps, it feels like the game has been somewhat falsely advertised. It’s also especially disappointing to feel like we’re already back at games being 30fps this soon into the next generation.

Couple all of that with the fact that Redfall is an open world co-op shooter that’s being made by Arkane, a studio who specialise in close-quarter, immersive sims that stuff interactivity and discoverability into tiny spaces, and it’s not hard to feel like Redfall is being set up to fail. To that end, there’s even the fact that Redfall, which looks similar to open world FPS titles like Far Cry (albeit with supernatural powers), is launching a week and a half before The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a game that could revolutionise open world games once again.

If Horizon Zero Dawn can suffer from the Zelda curse, Redfall certainly can too.

What’s worse is that it feels like Arkane could really do with an easy win right now. While their previous titles have earned huge amounts of critical acclaim, commercially they’ve never really set the world on fire. Dishonored was arguably Arkane’s biggest success story, but more recent games like Deathloop and Prey didn’t capture much mainstream attention. A big budget co-op shooter launching day one on Xbox Game Pass feels like a lay-up, but still, Redfall isn’t generating massive amounts of hype.

In truth, Redfall probably isn’t going to fail, at least not initially. A co-op game launching day one on Xbox Game Pass is certainly going to attract a few million players, easily, regardless of whether or not they were already interested in the concept. That is the power of Game Pass after all: convincing people who ordinarily wouldn’t travel outside of their FIFA/NBA/Madden and Call of Duty comfort zone to take a punt on something new. It’s likely that Redfall’s initial popularity will be buoyed by those people looking for a new game to play with their mates.

But what’s the longevity of a game like Redfall beyond that? Game Pass and the always online functionality means that physical game sales are practically pointless, while games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are likely going to overshadow Redfall in the weeks after launch. Redfall probably won’t end up being a disaster, but there was a potential here for Redfall to be Microsoft’s killer app going into the summer. Based on how the game’s been marketed and presented until then, it could just be an afterthought by June.

READ MORE: Is Redfall Coming To PS4 and PS5?