You may have heard of recent bad reviews of the Xbox exclusive, Redfall. The open world first-person shooter Redfall was supposed to be one of the marquee titles for Xbox in 2023. Developed by Arkane Austin, the studio behind the Dishonored series and Prey, Redfall promised an intriguing mix of single player and co-op gameplay in an open world overrun by vampires. However, when reviews dropped, the response was overwhelmingly negative and critical, with many reviewers calling Redfall a major disappointment and misfire for Arkane and Xbox.
There are several reasons why Redfall failed to resonate with reviewers. The most common complaints centered around the generic open world design, lack of compelling story and characters, repetitious missions, and technical issues.
Redfall’s open world island of Mason felt uninspired and dull according to most reviewers. The landscape was rather empty and barren, lacking interesting landmarks or a sense of place. Missions were scattered randomly around the map without much context, making exploration feel aimless. The world simply wasn’t very engaging to spend time in.
The story and characters were also considered very weak and poorly developed. Reviewers couldn’t connect or care about any of the four playable characters, who spouted cheesy dialogue. The narrative about the vampire infestation fueled by a mysterious biotech company was seen as clichéd, predictable, and lacking in twists or turns. For a game focused on story and characters like Redfall, this was a fatal flaw.
Gameplay was viewed as repetitive and grindy. While Redfall introduced some interesting weapons and abilities to take on vampires, the mission design boiled down to going to a location, clearing out nests of vampires or human enemies in a rather mindless fashion, and then moving on to the next spot. Side quests and objectives weren’t compelling enough to break up the monotony. The four-player co-op, one of the key features Arkane touted, didn’t do much to improve the experience either according to reviews.
Finally, Redfall launched with a number of bugs, glitches, and technical issues that soured the experience. Several reviews mentioned problems like broken quests, freezes and crashes, clipping issues, and lag—unacceptable issues for a major first-party release like Redfall. These technical problems only further reinforced the perception of Redfall as an undercooked, unfinished game.
In response to the deluge of negative reviews and fan reactions, Xbox executives Phil Spencer apologized for the poor quality of Redfall and Arkane went back to work on major patches to fix technical issues and gameplay systems in an attempt to improve the experience. However, the damage was already done, cementing Redfall’s status as one of the most disappointing Xbox exclusives in recent memory. The road ahead to win back players and rebuild trust in the Redfall brand will be a long one for Arkane and Xbox.
The story was poorly designed, filled with plot holes, clichés, and absurd twists. Characters lacked depth or complexity.
Gameplay was unpolished, with unresponsive controls, limited mechanics, uninspired level design, and trivial puzzles. Combat was repetitive and the sci-fi/horror blend never felt cohesive.
Technical problems plagued the experience, including framerate issues, loading times, bugs, crashes, and texture/level issues. The game felt rushed and unfinished.
The developers: Obviously, the studio itself failed in creating a finished, polished game that fulfilled its promises or met minimum standards of quality. Heads should roll for the incompetence on display.
Xbox leadership: As publisher, Xbox greenlit the game’s development and marketing budget.
The developers could potentially patch the game over time to fix remaining issues and implement improvements based on feedback, but after such a poor launch, many players have already abandoned the game, questioning if patches alone could undo the damage. Major overhauls seem too little, too late.
