Redfall

Vampires on a budget

A very long time ago, probably about a decade ago; Bethesda had just finished releasing their final DLC for The Elder Scrolls Skyrim; entitled 'Dragonborn'. But that's not how they sold it in the marketing phase. I mean sure, narratively a tale about about the first Dragonborn fighting the last Dragonborn feels like a final note to send off the story of Skyrim, but you have to remember we're talking about one of the best and most beloved RPG's of alltime, people were willing to throw all sorts of logic out of the air in order to convince themselves that the journey wasn't over yet! Give me that fourth dose of dopamine because I'm not ready to face sober life Mr Howard; I need more fantasy! So imagine how giddily we received news of Bethesda Softworks, around about this time, filling a trademark for the name 'Redfall'. (Yes, nerds get excited about trademark filings. Sue us.) "Oh" we though to ourselves; "aren't the dark skinned humanoid races of The Elder Scrolls called Redguards? Inhabitants of the region of Hammerfell which just so happens to border the southwestern territories of Skyrim?" Followed up by the even more tenuous "Oh, oh! and the region to the west of Skyrim, Highrock has a capital called 'Daggerfall'!" In our hubris we drew lines where none existed.

I can but imagine what it must have felt like to be an Arkane employee back then, seeing all that fervour and excitement for a naming similarity you completely brushed past when it came to naming your follow-up project to the Dishonored games and thinking "Goddamn it, this is going to stick to us like a rash. No matter how long we wait to reveal this, how many years, it's going to disappoint because it won't be poxxy Skyrim!" And lo-and-behold, they waited an entire decade and you could still feel the deflated passions around the room during last year's E3 when the Redguard add-on pack (which had now evolved into a whole separate game in the conspiratorial minds of the community) was actually a completely unrelated game about boring vampires. Oh, and preppy teens that seem to have recently graduated from the 'Sunset Overdrive' school of "OH GOD, please think I'm cool and hip with the kids! PLEASE LIKE ME!"

Now that passions have cooled and we can see the Redfall game for what it actually is, complete with gameplay that really explains the game behind the name; that needy sense to be 'hip' has only grown stronger. I swear, this is what happens when a writer is stuck behind a desk for a full week whilst trying to write the inner monologue of a teenager. They always end up spewing up jokes about Student Debt and making Twilight refences to refer to the vampires. I feel like I need to say this, even no longer being a Teenager myself; Student Debt references are cringe, and Twilight hasn't been in the public consciousness since those movies came out. Their place in pop culture was muddied by a deluge of copy cat 'dull girl meets boring fantasy creature' love interest drivel, the most entertainingly bad of which being 'Fallen' which is a story about a boring girl caught in a love triangle between Satan and some angels or something; and then Twilight was expunged completely once Fifty Shades of Grey entered the world and effectively replaced it in pop. I don't know why I had to take that diatribe to explain things, but if some desperately out-of-touch writer is researching their next teen-focused project and just happens to stumble across this post through some magic, maybe I'll have saved them making a fool of themselves. I was too late for Arkane.

Redfall takes us to a totally new style of game for Arkane, a multiplayer survival action game which looks to take heavy cues from Left 4 Dead, at least in the style of gameplay that we saw, however the team seem adamant in not comparing the two. Which is... wow, are you people so blind you couldn't make out the egregiously obvious parallels? The swarms of enemies, the bad quips between player characters, special variant enemies, survival light gameplay elements, multiplayer? I mean how on earth could anyone possibly compare footage of a game so devoid of distinct personality with another title it's clearly suckling off the teat of? Maybe learn how to cut a freakin' trailer so as to not match all the beats of a Left 4 Dead style game, how about that? Oh and Pete? Peter Hines? Kindly keep your derogatory impressions of the 'Neanderthal community' to yourself. Thanks hun.

Right away I have to say; Redfall looks like a badly rendered post card. Which is to say, Arkane were doing much better when they adopted the stylistically exaggerated designs of Dishonored, or even Deathloop. This more grounded approach, at least for the general world if not the vampires themselves, looks kind of dull and a tad washed out. I'm not a visuals-or-death kind of player like some out there, but is seems strange to have an Arkane game looking so dull and forgettable like this. It kind of feels like a crime. Which is not say that my eyes were bleeding, indeed they weren't leaking much of anything on account of how they were shut solid and I was sleeping. Little of the visual style has arrested me so far, from the world to even the Vampires themselves who look like an attempt to make something old-school gothic with a bestial twist, but lack commitment on the beast end. Meh, maybe I'm just forever spoiled by 'Blood and Wine'. Nothing will ever compare to those vampires.

Did I mention that the jokes suck? Cause they really suck. I mean gawd, I'm not exactly rocking up to this game expecting it to whip a 'Live at the Apollo' set my way, but if the writers could find it in their heart not to make me moan in horror with every quip that'd be a nice middle ground, dontcha think? I don't know what it is about modern devs and making really bad Student Debt Jokes; it's so bargain bin 'relatable' trash that it brings down the overall vibe that the game had going for it up until that point. Which is to say I think there are snippets of a mid-ly decent horror experience wrapped up here, which is then bought down by the execution. The gameplay did big it up with the world's most oblivious player somehow missing a full grown floating vampire in the middle of the attic until it was close enough to jumpscare him, but I'll bet that down the right corridor with the right lighting at the right moment there might be a hint of doom-driven jumpscares packed into this measly game package.

I also like the idea of a squad based shooter game, however I've seen it done so many times in such a mediocre way of late that I'm far beyond celebrating with it's mere inclusion. These classes seem to be one of the chief ways that Arkane wants to differentiate the gameplay of this title to similar games, and that wall is only going to stay up if there's a real reason to play these classes in tandem with one another. But then, Arkane also want to tell us that Solo play is completely encouraged and does not come with AI teammates; so how are these classes going to matter if that is the case? Are they just going to be different shades of damage dealers? Because that would seem like a missed opportunity but I suppose it's easier than planning out the whole 'player synergy' thing. It's a shortcut. Kind of like making a game about time loops but then segmenting every significant event into a cordoned off level so that player have no possibility of playing around with that time looping mechanic. (But if Deathloop won so many awards for its mere existence, I'll bet Redfall is a shoe-in.)

There's a good game here, and I mean that. A genuine glinting gem in the dust, burdened by several weights of disappointment slathered in a light coat of 'generic'. I want to like Redfall; even after the inexplicable (And I suspect pointedly retroactive) praise of Deathloop, I think they're a very special studio with a knack for incredible ideas and robust gameplay designs. But I'm not seeing that spark from Redfall just of yet, and whilst I'm not worrying for the moment, I do wonder how deep we need to look in order to see it. Is this going to a case of "you need to play it, trust me"? Because I don't usually go for that sort of sales pitch. Perhaps this just isn't at all my game and my attention is best spent elsewhere; yes, I think that might be end up being the ticket.