Blood turns cold.
When Redfall revealed itself last year, it was in a marketing push that I would teeter on calling a 'decent failure'. 'Decent' in that then game came off as competently made and the sort of game one would expect from a studio like 'Arkane'. A 'Failure' in the fact that people came away with absolutely no idea what the game they were looking at even was beyond a conceptual level, and the reveal was slightly tainted by the fact the name of the game had been leaked almost 8 years previously and thus was tied into a proposed secret Elder Scrolls project that people conjured in their own minds. (I guess the team weren't responsible for that.) Right away the obvious comparison, for a game that featured 4 co-op characters hunting down undead creatures across a conveniently evergreen stylised world, was 'Left 4 Dead'. Devs had to actually hit back on that, although they failed to provide a more apt comparison as though their game was so transformative that it totally defied description or something. (Hideo Kojima these developers were not.)
Perhaps the lack of knowing what we were even looking contributed to the collective disdain for this game taking up the airwaves whenever we were waiting for literally anything else that Bethesda was publishing to make some sort of debut. I'm sure the game had some fans since it's reveal, Arkane has definitely earned the trust of some, but you'd see chats across Twitch, Youtube and forum boards flooded with bored and disinterested reactions anytime the devs so much as hinted of Redfall's exsistence. I know that personally I found Deathloop to be a large let-down in where Arkane took the concept and failed to appropriately translate it over to the gameplay loop, and that was what put me off from this Vampire hunting title before I gave it the appropriate chance to impress. What this game needed was a more detailed look into it's loop, gameplay and reason for players to stick around. What it needed was a blowout event that people would stick around to watch. What it needed, was the Microsoft/Bethesda conference.
I'm definitely not the only person who rolled their eyes when they saw Redfall was coming to the event and not Starfield. (Apparently Starfield is getting it's own dedicated showcase at a later date. Fingers crossed on that one.) But now, on the otherside of being explained to like a child why Redfall shouldn't be totally ignored, I'll admit I'm interested. Not swooned off my feet or anything, but definitely not as cold to the product as I was before. As far as I can tell, the game we're looking at here appears to bear most in common to the gameplay loop of your typical Ubisoft title, which would usually send hot sweats of alarm through my body, but there's nothing inherently wrong with the style of open world that Ubisoft bases it's titles around, just the manner with which they always approach that style. Redfall seems to want to give us a check-box open world, but actually enrich the moment-to-moment gameplay within that world with actual playstyles, meaningful weapon upgrades and exciting side content- maybe enough to beat Ubisoft at thier own tired game.
Although in the wake of Deathloop it really is a toss-up about how 'free form' this is all supposed to be, approached in the right manner Redfall could potentially be a very robust Vampire hunting title formed around the unravelling and destruction of the scary 'Vampire gods' that the main story seems built around. These gods dog your efforts to save the town of Redfall, conjure hoards of biters to rip you to shreds in climax events that I really hope aren't wave defence sections and just hang like an oppressive presence over the entire game. Deathloop even had the confidence to show one of their Vampire Gods off, and I have to admit I was actually quite excited when I heard the concept of 'Vampire Gods' given that the classic interpretation of a 'vampire' is usually a godless creature. I was captured by a gust of imagination for what sort of 'creatively maudlin' or even 'Lovecraftian' and 'Abstract' these beings might be! And what we saw was... a big ugly creature sticking out the ground from the waist up. Not the heights of creative design either visually or, I imagine, in action... but hey, that's just one- maybe Arkane's real hits are being saved for release...
If I can shoot from the hip for a moment, I actually think the biggest comparison I was making whilst watching the gameplay, as strange as it might sound, was Borderlands. Hear me out; you have your 4 person co-op gameplay split between classes tied to personalities and RPG-style levelling trees, differing enemy types thanks to the vampiric mutations running through the afflicted, special abilities, pick-up gun loot; there's definitely a shade of what Borderlands established now alive in Redfall. But I think Redfall certainly has it's own distinct style too, likely informed from the pedigree of the developing studio in question. Being able to just stealth around certain objectives, although likely not in a manner nearly as robust as what Dishonoured would allow, sets the ground for meaningful gameplay choices- which I quite appreciate for my inherently stealthy self.
Unless I'm much mistaken and confused by the specific choice of verbiage in this trailer footage, I do believe there's even a vague rogue-like instancing wrapped into the vampire nests portion of the game. Although they don't touch on it in any sort of substantive depth, we've been explicitly told that these nests 'change' everytime you enter them, but we just don't know what exactly will be different. The provided example was about as basic as one could imagine: a simple base raid where you kill a giant heart and then survive a 'defend the spot' rush before escaping. What exactly about that could change up in a subsequent run? The placement of enemies, the layout of the location, maybe even the task required to clear the nest out itself? I would hope for the latter, because otherwise the 'changing content' tagline is going to fall a little limp in practice.
Perhaps my biggest pet peeve is the similarities I've spotted with Ubisoft openworlds, most notably being the idea of 'taking back Redfall neighbourhood by neighbourhood'. Such area zoning is very typical of Ubisoft games and typically whittles down the interesting gameplay loop of each new era to a few specific encounters which, once defeated, renders that location totally docile and frankly boring. I much prefer the idea of having to trek deeper into enemy lines as the game gets more dangerous in it's later acts, rather than seeing less and less vampires the further you progress until your vampire shooter because mostly a pleasant stroll simulator between action points. (Which almost every Ubisoft game seems to slowly become.) From here all the team needs is to throw in some random and reward-less collectibles, checkbox objectives and a few towers to scale. The unlockable safe houses with each cleared neighbourhood already devalues the significance of your main safehouse, but what do I know about game design, right? I've just been playing the damn things all my life...
Ultimately, I'm interested; which is a lot more than I could have said about Redfall before this gameplay footage. It's obviously one of those titles built for a co-op audience, and I lack game playing friends to fully take advantage of that, but if I managed to fall in love with the original Borderlands then I think there's some hope here too. Ever since the end of Dishonoured I've had the feeling that Arkane has struggled a little to regain it's niche and purpose, and Redfall isn't going to be eureka moment from what I've seen so far. But if the team can just manage to reach forth and really seize on this concept more than they ever did for Deathloop, then that would mark a positive trajectory for them nailing their next showstopper project which we all know Arkane has in them.
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