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Those darn vampires and their darned climate change!

Redfall is a game developed by Arkane Austin, developers of Prey, but you would absolutely not be able to tell without the splash screen on boot up. Ignoring how this game is a massive downgrade from Prey, it is fundamentally different. However, the game itself admittedly isn't what drove me to write this review, hell if things went differently I might have been willing to give it a POSITIVE one. It's more so...recent events surrounding the developer and the games future.
Gameplay
Redfall is a looter-hero-shooter, I'll say it right fucking here, this game plays nothing like an Arkane game. Through the open world of Redfall (which is split into two maps depending on story progression), you kill vampires and their cultists, get weapons of varying rarity and stats, level up and use skills....yeah there's no magic in the traditional Arkane sense; there are four characters (would have been six but MORE ON THAT LATER), known as Heroes, and each of them have their own skills, with two cooldowns and one ultimate that needs a recharge. Only two characters have skills that could fall under magic, and I didn't pick either of them. I need me my on-demand flashbang dammit.
In terms of mission structure, at multiple points you can select one of multiple missions(though it's more of a "which one do you do first" rather than a proper choice), and at certain points you need to acquire skulls to progress, done by completing Safehouse Missions. This is like the most obvious padding in the history of video games, but at least you can get them done with early. Contrary to what people say, this game is NOT like Left 4 Dead; it's simply NOT a horde shooter. It's more like Dying Light in mission structure (as well as in enemy variants).
Stealth is possible but is very bare bones (if it wasn't obvious for the fact an update had to add cultist stealth takedowns), so loud is very much the preferred approach. Then again, not like I played Prey stealthily either.
The gameplay in general is a massive stepdown from Prey, but honestly I kinda liked it, I definitely had some fun with the game. Not one of the greatest games ever made, but I think you could find worse. I mean, for a studio which never did co-op, open world or live-service before and were forced to (including the inclusion of vampires, that was forced too), it's not exactly good but honestly it's not the worst.
Story
Scientists make vampires real, blocking off the titular island town of Redfall via sea tides and a permanent eclipse. We have the technology. We can science magic into reality.
Meanwhile, six with DLC four shitheads end up getting plot armoured and being the ones to kill the vampires; totally not Insomniac Spider-Man ex-military Jacob, magic wielding uni student in crippling debt Layla, idk Remi and her robot Bribon, and self proclaimed "cryptid hunter" Devinder.
Redfall's story won't set the world on fire. It absolutely did not. But honestly I didn't hate it. There are some exposition missions but aside from that it's relatively well paced.
Graphics
I played on low, which resulted in ABSURD pop-in (especially with the shadows), and I had FSR on which resulted in less than stellar image quality. The UI itself has issues, with copious amounts of default Unreal Engine 4 UI font. Artisically, it's not really unique but it looks pretty nice.
Beyond Opinion
Note: As of today's (May 30th 2024) update a lot of this rant is void, but I'm still keeping it for posterity.
Warning: the following text is going to be dramatic as an edgy 2010's emo fanfic. You have been warned.
Now what I said is very much my opinion. The following is also admittedly my opinion despite the subheading. But there's a difference between an opinion about a game's various components and what I'm about to write.
You will walk through rocks. You will get semi-stuck between rocks(you can get out easily bur your viewmodel will spaz out). Your Heroes hands will get freaky when using a skill. Your character will t-pose in menus. You will ocassionally be told you can't connect to the Arknet despite being fine, and you will need to brute force your way into the game. The HUD will cut off at lower resolutions. You will fall through the ground(though that might be a HDD issue). Performance probably still isn't fully fixed. These are just some of the issues I experienced. Not saying it's launch-state Cyberpunk 2077, but compared to other games it is terifically below par.
Redfall in it's current state is broken as shit.
And it will remain broken as shit.
Today as of writing this review, Arkane Austin is announcing to be shutting down. Of course this means no Prey 2, but this also cause a more pressing matter at hand; the future of Redfall. With their shutdown, they have announced the cessation of further development. Now this would be fine if it was basic updates right? But no.
As part of the Bite Back edition, you would have been able to get access to two new Heroes. This will now not occur and you can get a refund for the value of the BB upgrade's price.I didn't buy the Bite Back edition (no way I would pay 85 quid for this game), but still.
But what I'd say more importantly, is the lack of further patches, and the fact that offline mode is no longer coming.
Admittedly this review has gotten a bit dramatic, but you have NEVER heard a game studio announce "we'll add offline mode" and then go "umm actually you're not getting offline mode". Even though this happening to Redfall isn't the biggest deal in the world, it surely doesn't set a good precedent. What if this happened to Sea of Thieves? Halo Infinite? People would be absolutely losing their bloody minds.
And on top of that, they will keep the game as broken as it is. If they were also pulling the game from sale or something, sure that'd probably mean they'd shut it down but it's not that big of a deal. Redfall would just be a drop in video game history. A stain in the long road.
But as of writing, Redfall is currently still for purchase; the Bite Back edition isn't anymore, no, but the game itself is, and it is very apparent to me this will be like this for the long run. Bethesda likely has the money to keep the game going for stupid long periods of time.
In my personal opinion, the continued sale of Redfall in its current state amounts to a scam. You may argue it was always a scam sure, but this has made it definite. There is NO way in hell Microsoft does not know how fucking scuffed this game is on a technical level. To bail out on it and STILL take money for it is, to me, absurd.
And as of writing, they were working on the DLC eight hours ago actually. They were working on the DLC and then they get shut down.
Arkane Austin was really forced to make a game they were not prepared for, and then proceeded to get killed when the end result doesn't end up being peak, ESPECIALLY while they are actively working to improve said game post-launch.
Fucking hell Microsoft.
And not to mention they also shut down other studios, including Tango Gameworks. What the fuck did THEY do? They did nothing wrong. Certified bruh moment

UPDATE 17/05/2024: So the tweets all said there will be no more updates but Hi-Fi Rush got one final update like a couple days ago so uhh hopium sesh time????????
UPDATE 26/05/2024: Apparently a final update with offline mode is confirmed, video game preservation w??????
Verdict
I hereby declare Redfall as
A "FUCKING HELL, MICROSOFT" MOMENT.
If you really must play this game, it goes on sale for 75% off pretty much every major sale. But know you are buying a broken game that will never be fixed, and a game fully playable in single-player that has been given a yet-undetermined expiry date due to it's online-only nature.