Redfall is not my cup of Tea
It’s mainly because of certain technical reasons and not personal reasons
So if you know that I’m doing a review, you know that I never write on subjective stuff like story or personality but more on the technical aspects of the game
In terms of Redfall, there’s a lot of technical issues but the biggest one has to be the fact that it launched without a 60fps performance mode on Xbox Series consoles.
As usual, we are going to rate the game based on Game World, Gameplay, Characters (Abilities in this case), Quests and Combat
This game is being reviewed on Xbox Series X
Welcome to Redfall, Massachusetts
The game revolves around a fictional town in Massachusetts called Redfall and it is overrun by Vampires. The town also has cultists running around killing people but they also kill vampires….more like take them down because I’ve never seen them kill one but they could
The problem with Redfall? It feels like there’s as much or lesser people compared to Sanctuary Hills in Fallout 4, which is saying quite a lot considering a Fallout fell on, believe it or not, Massachusetts!
And I’m talking just about the civilians but also cultist and vampires. For every 4 cultist you find, you will find 1 vampire and for every one 1 vampire, you will find 0 civilians because they are dead.
Ok yea, I get it that the town is overrun with vampires killing people and cultist doing their thing but if the lack of humanity reminds you of Fallout 76, I would not blame you
The only place I saw civilians that will actually talk to you was in the Fire Station, which is basically your base of operations.
For the love of me, I do not understand why they would not have people just hiding out in random places or houses, hiding and taking shelter.
The world feels devoid of life but I know Arkane will fix it as time goes on but for now, the world gets 0 points from me
Shooting and stabbing Vampires is fun with friends
When it comes to the gameplay, it has a ton of fun bits. Mainly, the shooting is VERY satisfying. It’s very fast paced and stabbing a Vampire in the heart to kill it is very very fun. There’s a lot of weapons but they mainly don’t matter cause having a shotgun basically means you are going to kill stuff fast.
There are other weapons that’s fun to use like the stake gun and UV Light Gun (Yes, there’s a gun that shoots UV light) but while I appreciate the variety, there’s no real difference to how you kill a vampire or cultist.
Fast Travel is very present, which is perfect for a map like Redfall. It’s small but when you can only walk, it’s giant and huge.
It would be nice to have vehicles for an open world game but for some reason, Arkane has decided against it. It could be they have decided to not include it for various reasons, maybe they just don’t know how to make a proper driving experience in-game? Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t feel right for an open world game.
Finally, the enemy AIs are absolutely terrible at everything. They at horrible at aiming and getting a shot off properly on you, they are terrible at pulling the trigger on you when they have their aim on you and my god, does any enemy at all give a crap about you when you in front or behind them.
The biggest downer for the game? The lack of assassination animations. They have this entire thing about going behind enemies quietly and killing them but when you do it? You hit them with an elbow or punch them straight and they just die. It’s very anti-climactic to say the least.
For all the fun that I’ve had with the game, the stupid AI has really made it boring. For that, gameplay gets half a point
Characters are…….weird?
It’s not the way they talk or interact with each other but the characters of Redfall are very disproportionate in a very weird way.
Let’s split the characters into 4 classes for the sake of this review ok?
Vampires
Cultist
Redfall Residents
Main Characters
The vampires look very much like the typical Vampires with long necks, long faces and are VERY tall but also a very monster looking things
For the cultist, you can barely see their faces (because you kill them so fast) but they look rather normal looking, like proper human enemies that would exist in the world
For the Redfall Residents……ummm…..I want to try be nice here. I’ve never been to Massachusetts, but I have to imagine that people there look like normal people and considering that they have made some characters that look like normal human people, they just look like uncanny and very much like a toy that’s very disproportionate. Talking about normal people
The main characters look incredibly human and it’s honestly very weird considering that everyone else looks like melted action figures. Seeing Devinder (That’s the character I chose) look so human when the citizens of Redfall looking weird and Devinder or other characters not commenting on their appearance was confusing
While all of this is most likely artistic choice, it’s hard to actually comment too much on it but when it comes to the designs, the vampires and main characters are interesting and very Bethesda. They also look like they fit together in the world around them
Because of the weird proportions of the characters but vampires and main characters looking like they fit perfectly in Redfall, I give this another half a point
This is Bethesda’s Far Cry
You know how Far Cry works right? You got mission markers on the map at any given time, and you can go to them at any order to finish them.
Bethesda games kinda give you a linear set of missions but you can go anywhere to explore.
Redfall is a nice combination of both, the missions aren’t super complicated, and they are fast. The problem with the missions? Too fast. Each mission feels like it’s shorter than 15 minutes, which is good and bad, depending on how you look at it.
Do you have a lot of time on your hands and really want a game that you can get lost in the story and gameplay? This really isn’t the game for you
Do you work all day and just want to spend 1 or 2 hours into a game a night and relive stress? This game is perfect for you.
Based on HowLongToBeat, Redfall takes 12 hours to finish but the repetitive missions might bore you but that again depends on what type of gamer you are
Because of the simplified missions, this gets half a point
Call of Duty + Back 4 Blood = Redfall
I’ve already spoken about the weapons so let’s get to the actual combat, which is very fast paced when you need to be and it can be slick as Call of Duty and the guns feel like Back 4 Blood, solely based on the weight and sound of the weapons
Because of the broken AI, every firefight feels one-sided and you can easily overpower any and every enemy in Redfall.
The other problem? After doing a bunch of missions, getting a bunch of safehouses and a Vampire nest, I can safely say that it’s just the game being very broken with enemy AI.
Abilities are there but I barely used them because they didn’t feel as fun or impactful as other games, like say, Destiny 2 or Skyrim
Sadly, that broken AI has set this game’s combat up for failure from the very start. Will Arkane fix this game? Let’s just say that Bethesda studios tend to fix their game’s problems, so I have faith in this game being fixed as well.
But as of today, the game’s combat is extremely bad and with that, I give combat no points
Conclusion
After all that, Redfall has some redeeming qualities but when it comes to the entire package, the game is just not as fun. It feels like Arkane Texas just felt like they wanted to do something different but just had no idea how to execute it.
Bethesda being the publishing studio (It being owned by Xbox Game Studios), it is a very scary thought as Starfield schedule for release in September 6th but HiFi-Rush was one of the most fun game’s I’ve played so I’m split.
For now, Redfall is sadly another game that’s came out being either boring or broken
