Redfall

[J4MES OX4D 10,064]

Talked about this in the Deathloop thread but it doesn't have its own one so I thought I'd create one even though interest seems non-existent or that people don't even know it exists. Out tomorrow, heavily review embargoed and already soaking up negative press thanks to it releasing on console at 30fps. Available on Game Pass but is £60 on its own which is absolutely insane for a non-licensed co-op driven game. Mitigating lost revenue through game pass players against full price purchasers is always a disastrous move as it's seen as punishing players who want to own the product against temporary free-riders. This is also an online-only game despite having single player and is also expected to have underlying DRM on PC which just adds further woes. It's another game that has been poorly marketed from Arkane and Bethesda and I feel it's another very poor effort from a company that has brought us titles like Dishonored and Prey. This looks even more dismal that Back 4 Blood and I think it's yet another mistake from the developers to produce such games. 

 

Redfall will only do 30 fps on Xbox consoles, and people are starting to worry | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Arkane says a "performance mode" option enabling 60 fps will be released later, but that won't help on launch day.

 

[phil bottle 9,847]

Indeed, it's a few years ago now that Bethesda stopped allowing people to review their games in advance of launch. Not suspect at all 😅

 

But I'll give it a go and see how it plays!

[GazzaGarratt 11,079]

The IGN review explained most of it and looks decent enough for a try. Mental that Gamepass as it on launch, makes me feel like it will have a 2 week stint in most peoples gaming diary but may drop off quickly after that.

[J4MES OX4D 10,064]

Skimmed through a few reviews and there's a couple of things that have only just come to light - this game has no online matchmaking so it is strictly co-op and doesn't even have public P2P. Then the ultimate kick in the teeth is that people joining the host don't have their stats or progress saved so the only way get anywhere in this game is by playing with bots or trying to convince your friends to replay swathes of the game they've already done so you can rank and progress the story yourself.  This is utterly ridiculous! 

[phil bottle 9,847]

I played for an hour on the Xbox, I'm intrigued enough that I've now started downloading on my PC too. Want to see how it feels with kb & mouse.

[phil bottle 9,847]

Most Steam reviews seem to be by people who have played the game 0.7 hours, so completely pointless and useless. The YouTube reviewers are panning it too.

 

My experience on PC so far has been pretty bug free. It does 4K medium settings at 60fps fine for me. That wasn't intentional but how it ran before I realised. I changed the settings to 1440p medium and was getting 80fps on average. 

 

Playing on standard difficulty, Dusk, I believe it's called, the enemies so far have been weak, so I may turn it up.

 

Movement and shooting is fine, similar to Prey.

 

Too early to say what I think of the game but I'll play some more this evening and see how it goes.

[phil bottle 9,847]

Shooting on console is poor, so think I'll stick to PC.

I suspect, looking at all the reviews, I won't be playing it very long 😁

[phil bottle 9,847]

I haven't yet reached a point where I'm hating the game.

Lucky me has encountered zero bugs.

I also put the settings up to Epic following a driver update and its as smooth as can be. Shooting feels good, movement is a tiny bit janky but still feels OK.

 

The enemies in other reviews seem to have poor AI but that's not been the case in single player mode. They spot me just fine.

I'm wondering if it just goes bad with co-op enabled.

 

But i will say that enemies are far too weak so far. 

[GazzaGarratt 11,079]

Its good to get your opinions @phil bottle as its difficult to always know who to trust out there. SkillUp is my go to for most of late andhe has absolutely hammered, and in fairness backed it up with evidence in his review. Some bits a re quite funny but leave you with the overall sadness on how it ended up how it has, especially as its being classed as a AAA game.  A hard but funny review review overall below.

 

 

[phil bottle 9,847]

3 minutes ago, GazzaGarratt said:

Its good to get your opinions @phil bottle as its difficult to always know who to trust out there. SkillUp is my go to for most of late andhe has absolutely hammered, and in fairness backed it up with evidence in his review. Some bits a re quite funny but leave you with the overall sadness on how it ended up how it has, especially as its being classed as a AAA game.  A hard but funny review review overall below.

 

 

 

The most balanced review I've seen is by ganeranx, and pretty much matches my experience. It seems different ppl have different experiences, but yeah I'm glad it's free 😁

 

 

[phil bottle 9,847]

I would say, take away the bugs, shoddy AI and drama, this is an average game. On PC it's not bad, it's just not particularly good either. Not a game to pay full price for sure...but I'm continuing with it still to see where it goes.

On console I would avoid, the shooting with a controller is broken imo.

[Riff Machine 2,108]

Thank fuck it's on game pass.  🤪🤘🏻😂

[J4MES OX4D 10,064]

Sir Phillip of Spencer has broke cover and apologised 

Xbox boss Phil Spencer apologises for Redfall's disastrous launch: "We let a lot of people down this week"

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has personally apologised for the failure of Arkane's Redfall, which was widely panned this week…

 

This is also a really miserable period for Game Pass and Microsoft's support within its acquired studios will have to be called into question because the output quality has been far worse in all games across the board on games they've acquired either through ownership or exclusivity.  Not sure if they are so far up Starfield's arse that it's to hell with everything else or whether they've completely taken their foot off the gas and brickwalled because their business plan has stalled. 

 

I do find it a bit stupid that Jedi Survivor has escaped a lot of flak despite releasing in a technically abysmal state yet Redfall is being held to account on the matter despite its other woes. 

[phil bottle 9,847]

13 minutes ago, J4MES OX4D said:

Sir Phillip of Spencer has broke cover and apologised 

Xbox boss Phil Spencer apologises for Redfall's disastrous launch: "We let a lot of people down this week"

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

---

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has personally apologised for the failure of Arkane's Redfall, which was widely panned this week…

 

This is also a really miserable period for Game Pass and Microsoft's support within its acquired studios will have to be called into question because the output quality has been far worse in all games across the board on games they've acquired either through ownership or exclusivity.  Not sure if they are so far up Starfield's arse that it's to hell with everything else or whether they've completely taken their foot off the gas and brickwalled because their business plan has stalled. 

 

I do find it a bit stupid that Jedi Survivor has escaped a lot of flak despite releasing in a technically abysmal state yet Redfall is being held to account on the matter despite its other woes. 

 

The thing is, when Microsoft took over Bethesda there was an expectation that Microsoft's quality control would be of help to a publisher that often releases games buggy at launch. 

But no. I read Phil's response yesterday and it was just a load of fluff.

I'm now expecting Starfield to have issues at launch too...

[J4MES OX4D 10,064]

1 hour ago, phil bottle said:

 

The thing is, when Microsoft took over Bethesda there was an expectation that Microsoft's quality control would be of help to a publisher that often releases games buggy at launch. 

But no. I read Phil's response yesterday and it was just a load of fluff.

I'm now expecting Starfield to have issues at launch too...

It's all about the money and that's why Microsoft's prospective takeover of Activision would have no impact whatsoever other than where the profits are going.  I was hoping that Microsoft would make available their technologies including the Azure framework - Bethesda are probably the one developer in dire need of such things for quality and stability, and then we find out Starfield is running on an extended build of their ageing and clapped-out Creation Engine! Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for Microsoft - been a miserable period for them that will extend all the way into the summer and Q3 and with PS5's now available and soaring, they really need to engage better in their products. They can't live off the Game Pass forever and we can't be having having games of such a  dismal standard releasing. 

 

I'm already very worried about Starfield's delays and I just hope their big reveal next month puts some concerns to rest for the time being at least. 

[GazzaGarratt 11,079]

1 hour ago, phil bottle said:

I'm now expecting Starfield to have issues at launch too...

 

I do rate what SkillUp said about the overall impact this has on Xbox/Microsoft from a gaming POV. This is the latest AAA game from them compared to the last one on Playstation being God of War Ragnarok and Nintendo's Zelda. They have now unintentionally added so much pressure onto the launch of Starfield that Xbox could be in a continued downward spiral for the foreseeable. You never think one of the power giants could go one day....but then you look back at what happened to Sega when they were up against Nintendo and then new emergent Sony - it really can be a possibility.

 

Game Pass rental service just for me is not worth the pennies and Redfall doesn't do anything to give me reason to pay monthly for it.

[J4MES OX4D 10,064]

4/10 on IGN and 44% from PC Gamer in the last 24 hours taking the Metacritic score to below 60. There's a lot of almost-unheard of publications which are propping up the score and most of the recgonised critics and content creators have severely panned the game. It's really disappointing because you look how remarkable the Dishonored games are in terms of visual flair, gameplay and polish and then you get this tripe a decade later. 

 

An interesting take from Mack who makes some good points here and this can be said for a lot of these games in recent years which get very positive press and once everyone has paid their money, only then are the cracks exposed