there are also some fairly difficult vamps to fight and much like Hunt Showdown many of them are simple when you are ready for them, but if you get aggro while fighting one it’s another story.
15 hours in I’ve reached the second map. From the achievements about 3% have made it that far. I think I might put it down for a while and see if anything gets patched, and just to keep it fresh. Maybe I’ll fire up some Jedi Survivor and see what the establishment is playing :)
Still having a mildly good time.
For those who have actually played a bit of this, how hard do you think it will be for Arcane to fix some of its larger gameplay issues? I can see them focusing on AI and other technical issues first, but I’m more concerned about complaints about a bland open world, boring combat, and poor multiplayer experience.
Would love to try it at some point since the concept of the game seems cool, but only after a bit more work has been put into it.
Ah, cool! I didn’t know there was a 2nd map. I’ve been collecting underboss skulls to unlock what I assume is the final mission on the 1st map.
Twitter is awash with Redfall rage and fury, lol its so stupid! Anyway, this game is awesome I love it! Seriously! People are way too hung up on certain things in modern gaming and completely deride games for it, so I’ll just say I LOVED Fallout 76 on release, it worked for me as a great space between minimalist MMO meets singleplayer openworld, but I knew why it got trashed and I know why Redfall game is getting trashed. Its almost the same thing when Fallout New Vegas was released… actually FNV was so bad with bugs it was the buggiest game I ever played on release previous to … lol Ultima IX?
My point is the games good, its not “omg turrible” just that if you know Arkanes games, or even Harvey Smiths Deus Ex and Thief games (all have been divisive on release), theres alot to chew on in the game. This is probably his most commercial oriented game, and its worth playing if you like his stuff. I’m hoping they at least make some DLC and add drop in / drop out coop.
My take, for what it’s worth, is it’s a mediocre game crippled by technical issues and expectations. If it wasn’t poorly optimized and buggy it would be a solid 7, but many would still be deeply disappointed seeing it from Arkane.
This trajectory isn’t uncommon, happened to bioware too. Best CRPG developer in the world, degraded with DA2 and of course forced into live service bullshit Anthem. Sometimes it works out like DA3. But usually not.
I definitely see this as fixable overall. Will take some time for sure though.
Harvey Smith was project director on Desu Ex: Invisible War while it was Randy Smith who was the project director on Thief: Deadly Shadows. (No relations! Smith is a common surname, etc) Warren Spector oversaw both. Hard to thread the needle…
Lolololol I was thinking the same thing. Hilarious!
Heh, I don’t mind a bit of joshing.
Just to cement my status, the second town keeps getting better, though more bugs are popping up. I didn’t realize the flocks of birds indicated intricate side missions that aren’t missions. I’ll spoiler the story.
In the first town I didn’t figure it out, because the game gives you almost nothing outside of the main missions to explain what you’re doing. But a house with vamp teeth as an icon, this time, turned out to be the interesting side story I’ve been wanting. Going into the house you find several locked doors of children, and a ritual space with photographs spread around. Grabbing the photos you get pictures of locations around the town.
So I went searching for those places. Quite refreshingly there were no map markers or compass icons to indicate where to go. You had to do the honest work of comparing the photos to the map and the world and find several lairs where the children had become vamps and established their area, kill them, and gain a key to each door. Going back to the house and opening the doors, you get the basement key that leads to the end of the story, they had sacrificed their sister by poison to the vamps to ascend.
Now that’s some good stuff. Took a solid hour to do, if not more because of several side things that happened during the trip.
Now that sounds fun. I’m not out of the first town yet, but I think I’m getting close…one or two more quests to do, I think. I just keep getting sidetracked by the nests.
Sorry to hear there’s a lot of bugs popping up there though. Hopefully we get a patch sooner rather than later.
The bugs are generally a chest I can’t open, and this one might not be a bug, an area that seems to have a story (world icon) that doesn’t. That latter one, I think it’s just the way the game is made that notable places have unique icons and I was expecting something beyond. The failed chests, I’ve run into two of them in 14~ hours.
Silver lining thoughts, it could just be that I’m discovering areas that are significant but I haven’t unlocked the mission that properly triggers them.
I’m still trying my best to like it, but the Arkane morsels I need are too small and too rare.
I (location spoiler?)
reached the second area, Burial Point. Tbh I did not even expect it to be there from the way the game played so far. That’s neat! But, not that I could bring myself to try and collect all the grave lockets, but not being able to travel back to the other map seems like a very odd choice to me
I’ll try to wrap it up before Zelda hits on friday, I think
e: oh I hit my first annoying technical issue (one or two vampires froze before, I don’t mind that): Bribón disappeared :(
Fast travel didn’t spawn him, quitting and reloading didn’t. It took me backing out to the main menu, switching heroes, hitting all of his (Jacob) skills for good measure, backing back out, switching back to Remi to get Bribón back. No idea which part of that sequence did it, but I was relieved, because I would have definitely stopped playing otherwise. I like how he goes beep beep boop
I’m sure y’all are probably discussing this elsewhere, but I haven’t been following any videogaming news, so I was surprised to see a Microsoft “mea culpa” on the main page of the Washington Post. (<— gift link)
During a podcast appearance, the Microsoft guy running their Xbox brand, Phil Spencer, unceremoniously threw Redfall under a bus by saying “well, uh, it was a mess when we found it”.
I’ve uninstalled this after plinking away at the first town. If this were the work of some overambitious indie studio, I might be inclined to stick with it, much like the Homefront sequel. But as an Arkane game, as a creation of the folks with their bona fides, I find it utterly baffling. And now that Microsoft is all but disowning it, and reading some of your issues deeper in the game than I got, I can’t help but think this is simply what might happen when Microsoft acquires something.
I’m finishing it, two boss fights to go. If I had to guess, Arkane had this half finished and the acquisition somehow forced it out the door. There are plenty of touches that are AAA, the finished quests, the boss fights, the physical detail of the world, all of those are fine. There’s just clearly 1/2 or 1/3 the content that was meant to be.
For instance, second town there an abandoned amusement park. There’s a gorgeous ferris wheel, and I mean it’s fantastic. Hundreds of lights on this, it glows on the horizon. A bunch of midway shops, a very large restaurant, dozens of little flavor letters, paintings, books, etc.
And there’s nothing to do there. Nothing at all. No missions that go there, no enemies, no loot. If this was Fallout, the area would be hours of content but . . . nothing. Like I said before, it’s very clear the world team did their job and the content team quit or was cut or whatever.
It’s a shame, there’s an incredible skeleton here, but after pushing this out, asking 70$ for it, and now pretty clearly disowning it there’s no chance they’ll keep working on it and finishing it.
One other obvious oddness, it has run perfectly on my PC, and I don’t doubt the console version is as buggy as reviewed. Again, clearly one team finished and another was forced to drop.
One weird thing is the $70 asking price, if you’re not on Gamepass. If they’d asked $20 seems like it might have garnered a bit more sympathy.
I started a thread about the interview. People didn’t really engage because I don’t think a lot of people on this forum want to have that discussion about Microsoft first party games and how often they fail to impress.
Given that it’s been a topic of discussion for over a decade now, I suspect we might all be tapped out. : )
Sixteen responses is more than a lot of threads about actual games get, let alone threads about single video interviews!
That seems like a pretty uncharitable reading. He didn’t throw the Arkane team under the bus, but repeatedly made it clear the fault was with their central organization. And he only threw the game under the bus in that he didn’t insist that the critics and fans were wrong. (Even if apparently their mock reviews had been substantially more favorable than the real ones.)