izigame.me

Right, what to say about Redfall...
Its a dissapointment. Simple. Its almost like Arkane made the game with one hand behind their back, while running out of money and being pressured by Bethesda to release it.
The world is characterful and detailed in most places like you would expect from an Arkane game, like Dishonoured or Deathloop. Shops and houses are full of items and are believable. The subtle story being told through the cultish markings and unfortunate victims of the Vampire invasion are true to Arkane's brilliant story telling.
BUT, the world is just..empty. There are so few enemies.. and what enemies there are can all be killed without you taking a scratch, in seconds. Streets are full of market stalls full of detail, picnic benches, and parked cars. All with explosives, power boxes, ignitable oil, or detonatable cars. Environmental hazards to help you fight the vampires. The problem is, there are never any enemies to fight you near them. Ive been downed more by me shooting an electrical substation and it electrocuting me in a fight, than the vampires.
For content ive played the game for about 5 hours at this point, on Midnight difficulty, the equivalent of Hard at release. All of which has been done with coop with one other person.
Enemies die instantly, to a single pistol shot to the head. Which is cool, guns feel powerful, but it makes stealth gameplay, something Arkane basically specialises in, pointless. Even in the tutorial it suggests you sneak past some cultists. Why bother? You can kill all of them with a simple headshot. Enemies seem to wait about 3 seconds to before they choose to shoot at you, Vampires, while slightly more challenging can be dispatched easily with a couple of shots while their attacks are easily dodged just by walking backwards. Its almost as if the devs put the game in easy, low population mode for testing and forgot to take it out of it again before release. Where are all the civilians? Did they all go on holiday prior the the Vampire invasion? You find the odd person to rescue, a few in safe houses, but other than that, they are clearly all dead or turned into cultists. Weird.
Weapons are far to frequent, with you getting legendary weapons straight out of the gate. The looter shooter system is pretty basic and you cant sell weapons in the traditional sense, instead you just scrap things which gives you dollars/credits. Picking up random items in the world, like brandy, pipewrenches and packs of toilet paper (a covid joke which I appreciate), also awards you with cash. The shops are basically useless however. Weapons like the stake gun need nerfing as you can easily 2 shot a boss with it, and im only level 5... Enemies as a whole need to be tougher, more frequent and far more intelligent.
My buddy and I set off a shop alarm while breaking in, and expected a horde of vampires and cultists to swarm us. Despite the building across the street having enemies in, non came.
Lets talk about graphics abit. The game is on Unreal Engine 5. Some of the cool new physics are present, but overall, while the game does not look bad, its hardly looks next gen. This i think is more to do with the art style. Arkane has always had a very cool, dystopian art style, with over accentuated, grim, almost caricature like characters. This is evident in the vampires and player characters design and proportions, but it is much more subtle than something like dishonoured. The colour palette of the game is similar to their other games with subtle pastel tones, however its like a "Lite" version of an Arkane game. Where as Dishonoured lent into the style 10/10, Deathloop about a 8/10 and prey about a 6/10. This game is only about a 2/10, as if they wanted a hint of their other games but nothing more.
Sound design is good, with decent music and the voice acting for the most part is enjoyable. The characters interact well to each other (I played as Dev the plucky British cryptid hunter).
Coop worked fine but you can only host a game then join in. You cannot join mid match and no matchmaking. So thats bare bones.
Bugs, game is buggy as hell. Enemies that are immortal and cant see you are semi frequent, forcing me to reload the game to fix it. Nice to get close and admire the character models and hear some of their passive dialogue but other than that, annoying. T-posing characters, jittering in the floor and enemies stuck in floors to name but a few.
I really hope they patch it and improve it and don't just abandon it. At this stage im enjoying it for what it is, but only with the hope that it is improved upon. I cannot recommend buying it now. See if they patch it.
Arkane, I am dissapointed in you. Let people publicly test your game next time, and remember to test it yourself, because, if you did and didnt see these flaws, then you deserve the negative press you are getting.