Microsoft Redfall (Xbox Series/PC) - Open World Co-Op Shooter from Arkane, update: Doritos/Mountain Dew/Rockstar Energy Drink cosmetic DLC now available!

[Keyser_Soze]

10 minutes ago, stepee said:

That is great to see, yes! Though ray tracing is promised at a later date and that always annoys me when it’s not known about when that will be.

 

Yeah, in a game about vampires seeing no reflections in mirrors is kinda sad.

[Spork3245]

10 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

That is great to see, yes! Though ray tracing is promised at a later date and that always annoys me when it’s not known about when that will be.

 

So, basically Atomic Heart

[Keyser_Soze]

I haven't read the reviews but I wonder what character they chose.

 

Dev seemed like he had the best abilities to me. I'm only level 4 so far but he's pretty fun. You can throw this electric javelin into enemies but his most appealing ability is his personal teleporter. You can throw it behind enemies and go in for a stealth kill or throw it over walls or on top of buildings to get, on top of the building or over the wall of course.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Someone on ResetERA made a really insightful (but speculative) post that could potentially explain why the AI is so very...non-existent:

 

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Some games use the server/cloud to manage enemy AI and behavior. Some MMOs do things this way to guard against hacking. MAYBE that's how Redfall does it. It explains two things: Why does this game need to stay online even when playing solo, and why is the AI problem not visible during in-studio testing but acting erratically after being pushed into the mass market. The servers are clearly unstable, which may have an impact on the AI.

 

You can't simply remove the online feature from a game like this and expect it to become a playable offline game. They must create a new AI system that can be run on your local machine first.

 

[best3444]

What in God's name happened to this game? It showed so much promise and I was really looking forward to it. I'm actually kinda shocked at how this turned out coming from Arkane and how well the videos looked. 

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Someone on ResetERA made a really insightful (but speculative) post that could potentially explain why the AI is so very...non-existent:

 

I came across a Vampire during a mission last night that literally did nothing. It just floated in a corner until I shot it to death. Didn't even respond. I really dig thee atmosphere and premise of this game and the looting aspect seems solid. I don't get how they could release a game in this state. So crazy.

[JPDunks4]

4 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Someone on ResetERA made a really insightful (but speculative) post that could potentially explain why the AI is so very...non-existent:

 

 

Wonder if that could be what happened, because I don't understand how the AI behaving like this made it through any QA checks at all.  As soon as you see how bad the AI is, it'd become priority number 1 to fix it before you even worry about any other aspect of the game.

[TheLeon]

I got the drop on a couple soldiers, but didn’t notice that there were three more around the corner who got the drop on me. They took this opportunity to walk backwards, in sync, all the way down the block, where they started to shoot at me with shotguns which were totally out of range. 
 

This game sucks. It’s hilarious. 

[Xbob42]

I started up this dumpster fire yesterday, got out of the boat and into my first combat encounter where some cultists come and attack you. 

 

My wife walks in and starts discussing something with me about our daughter's upcoming field trip and about 4 minutes later I realize I've been holding my controller with one hand aimed in the exact same spot, firing every 20 seconds or so as the next cultist takes the place of the previous in the exact same spot. I never moved either stick, just pulled the trigger twice whenever they showed up. None ever fired back. 

 

Phenomenal. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 5/1/2023 at 8:51 PM, Bacon said:

I've seen IGN take a big ol dump on a game and still give it an 8/10.

 

IGN just posted its review: 4/10

 

Redfall Review - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Plagued with bland missions, boneheaded enemies, and repeated technical problems, Redfall is a bafflingly bad time across the board.

 

[Bacon]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

IGN just posted its review: 4/10

[Keyser_Soze]

One of the more positive reviews

 

Review | Redfall - XboxEra

XBOXERA.COM

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Redfall is finally here, and I loved it.  Trapped on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, you and up to three of your friends will shoot, loot,

 

[nublood]

Wow. Gamepass is basically the the video game equivalent of "straight to DVD".

[AbsolutSurgen]

Xbox Studios -- where good game developers go to die

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Phil Spencer apologises for ‘disappointing’ Redfall and claims Xbox was expecting better reviews | VGC

WWW.VIDEOGAMESCHRONICLE.COM

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Developer Arkane will continue to work on the game, following poor launch reception…

 

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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has apologised for the launch state of its latest big first-party release, Redfall, and claimed that developer Arkane Austin will work on improvements for the game.

 

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Addressing Redfall’s disappointing reception in a new interview with Kinda Funny Games, Microsoft‘s head of gaming claimed the platform holder did not expect such a negative reception to the game, citing internal mock reviews which allegedly suggested it could have received much higher scores.

 

He also suggested that delaying the game further – it was originally due out in 2022 – would not have solved its biggest issues.

 

 

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“There’s nothing that’s more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community,” Spencer said. “I’ve been a part of it for a long time. I obviously work on Xbox, I’m head of the business, I have a lot of friends and get a lot of feedback, and just to kind of watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I’m disappointed, I’m upset with myself.”

 

He added: “We do mock reviews for every game that we launch, and this is double digits lower than where we thought we would be with this game through [those]. That’s one of the disappointing things: we would never strive to launch a game that we thought was going to review in the low 60s – it’s not part of our goals.

 

“If you look at our review scores over the past year – and this is not a defence at all – I think the teams have done a much better job in upping the level of quality of the games that we’ve shipped… and this game was significantly below our internal metrics compared to where it actually reviewed. But that’s not on anybody but us – we have to own that.”

 

 

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Spencer was asked generally about how it decides whether a game should be delayed, and the exec said Xbox wouldn’t push a project back if it didn’t believe it could realise its creative vision as a result.

 

“There are quality issues and we’re working on those, but a fundamental piece of feedback I get [from Redfall reviews] is that the game isn’t realising the creative vision that it had for its players. That doesn’t fell like a, ‘hey, just delay it’, that feels like the game had a goal to do one thing and when players are actually playing they’re not feeling that,” he said.

 

“When a game needs to be delayed, like what we did with Starfield, Halo and Redfall, because the production timeline is saying, ‘we have this vision, and our production timeline don’t get us to the completion of that vision’, we do delay games.”

 

The exec went on to play down the number of technical issues in Redfall, instead claiming that the game’s poor reception was mostly because the development team didn’t hit its goals.

 

“Learning about the quality – and I know there are bugs, I’ve seen them in Redfall – when I look at the crash rates with the game, because we get all the telemetry for everything – it’s not out of proportion for a game that has just launched, it’s kind of in the pocket of what we’d expect. That’s not to deny any of the animation, streaming of texture bugs, or AI bugs – we will go and work on those.

 

 

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“But when I look at the review scores of this game it’s [about] did we have enough creative differentiation in our core idea and did we realise that creative ambition? I’m a huge supporter of Arkane Austin: their track record is awesome, I love a lot of the great games that they’ve built. This is one where the team didn’t hit their own internal goals.

 

“I think it’s maybe a bit simplistic to say, ‘hey, maybe if you just delayed it three months, the core creative of the game would’ve delivered on something than what it was’.

 

“So I look at them in different camps. If there’s a production timeline issue, we’ve been open to delaying. If we just have more bugs than we should have at the end of a game, we’re open to delaying. At some point we do need to have a creative vision and put the game out and reviewers and players will tell us what they think

 

 

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“In terms of our commitment to the game… absolutely, the team at Arkane is taking the near-term feedback. We’re still working on the 60fps update. We have a good timeline for that… and we’re going to continue to work [on] the game. We’ve shown a commitment to games like Sea of Thieves and [Obsidian‘s] Grounded, to continue to go and build games.

 

“But I also know that these games are $70, and I’m going to take full responsibility for launching a game that needs to be great,” he said. “We let a lot of people down this week with the launch of the game, but we will continue to strive on. You have to – that’s what creativity is about.”

 

 

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Spencer said he believes the platform holder “did a better job” with Bethesda’s other 2023 release, the upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield, in terms of assisting development, because the game was earlier in production when Xbox acquired it.

 

“We should’ve been there for [Redfall co-creative director] Harvey [Smith] and the team earlier – I think that’s on us,” he continued. “And then through the process, it’s an Unreal [Engine] game: we have a bunch of studios that have done some really great work on Unreal over the years, and I think we were too late to help in that when they had certain issues”.

 

 

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“I think back to the announcement of 60 frames per second, and then we weren’t shipping 60 frames per second… That was kind of our punch in the chin, rightfully, a couple of weeks ago.

 

“And then seeing the game come out, the critical response was not what we wanted. And it’s disappointing. So, I kind of picked myself up [and asked] what can we learn? How can we get better?

 

“One thing I’ll fight in what went wrong… There’s clearly quality and execution things that we can do, but one thing I won’t do is push against the creative aspirations of our teams. I know a lot of people will say, ‘hey, you’ve got teams, teams know how to do one kind of game, just force them to go do the one kind of game that they have a proven track record’.

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Redfall is this Gen's Alpha Protocol... game with great ideas and potential but buried under unforgivable technical shortcomings.

[Brian]

Haven’t seen AI this bad since Alien Colonial Marines and that game was a grift. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Brian said:

Haven’t seen AI this bad since Alien Colonial Marines and that game was a grift. 

 

Perhaps the problem with Redfall's AI also involves a typo as was the case with Aliens: Colonial Marines!

 

Aliens: Colonial Marines’ xenos get a lot smarter by fixing one misspelling

WWW.POLYGON.COM

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Others confirm some improvement seen in 2013 stinker

 

[stepee]

21 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Redfall is this Gen's Alpha Protocol... game with great ideas and potential but buried under unforgivable technical shortcomings.

 

Don’t tempt me, I lovvvvvvee Alpha Protocol! 

[Firewithin]

mock reviews?  i didnt know companies will treat reviews like the NFL draft 

[crispy4000]

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“Learning about the quality – and I know there are bugs, I’ve seen them in Redfall – when I look at the crash rates with the game, because we get all the telemetry for everything – it’s not out of proportion for a game that has just launched, it’s kind of in the pocket of what we’d expect.

 

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But I also know that these games are $70, and I’m going to take full responsibility for launching a game that needs to be great,” he said.

Shipping a $70 game with this many ‘expected’ issues at launch should be unacceptable.   There’s no reason to even bring up crash reports as ‘not too bad comparatively for launch’ when so much else is broken.

 

Other than that, what Phil said is fine. 

[crispy4000]

6 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

IGN just posted its review: 4/10

 

Redfall Review - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Plagued with bland missions, boneheaded enemies, and repeated technical problems, Redfall is a bafflingly bad time across the board.

 

The video review for this is absolutely brutal.

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, Firewithin said:

mock reviews?  i didnt know companies will treat reviews like the NFL draft 

They pay ex reviewers thousands for mock reviews. All of them do it, Colin Moriarty has talked about how he’s done them for multiple devs.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Redfall is this Gen's Alpha Protocol... game with great ideas and potential but buried under unforgivable technical shortcomings.

 

I personally think there is some sort of vendetta against this game. People were against it from the very first reveal, the no 60 fps thing just rallied the haters and you see tons of people reveling in the twitter threads of low review scores or even when there is a redfall social media post.

 

I've only played around 8 hours but there is no way this game is less than a 5. I think it deserves at least a six or above. I think the map / city has a lot of attention of detail in it. The layouts are pretty cool. I like the multiple points of entry for many of the encounters. Heck I just did the record store mission and thought how unique it looked.

 

I've mentioned the funky animations on stealth kills before. Sure the AI is kinda not great at times but it doesn't ruin the game for me. The way I see it, this was never meant to be a challenging game, it was more of a playground to use your powers in. Now when the AI acts so funky you can't do your weird powers that is a bit of a bummer but for the most part, for me, they behave enough for me to slaughter them. I remember everyone thinking "this is gonna be left 4 dead / back for blood co-op shooter" and the AI in those games are nothing special either so why get disappointed when this game doesn't live up to those expectations?

 

Mostly this is an open world game that is centered around set pieces and you can choose to go stealth or not, and if the AI is actually working, the damage is pretty high and the enemies take smart angles to shoot you. Also, the vampire nests are a pretty cool idea. I dunno, I never really had high expectations for the game, the previews seemed mostly positive so I can't say I'm disappointed or this game is terrible or anything like it. It's mostly average with some technical shortcomings.

 

I also find it interesting that Arkane is taking most of the blame for this, it was co developed by Roundhouse Studios surely they can take some of the blame as well. Personally it feels like, this is maybe like a training game or a side game they decided to make because they wanted to do something different from Dishonored but still have that kind of feel to the game. All I can say is I hope whatever they make next pleases the masses.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 hour ago, Firewithin said:

mock reviews?  i didnt know companies will treat reviews like the NFL draft 

I read that “mock” differently. lol I was like well that’s kind of dickish to make fun of reviews. I mean I think we all assume they do it to some, but to say it out loud. Ouch. 
 

but yeah, that makes more sense. lol 

 

I can’t believe if they did mock reviews correctly they let this go out the door and are acting blindsided. This just seems like insincere damage control, because they wanted the game out and hoped we mostly wouldn’t care the state it was in. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

Redfall on Xbox tested: a sad tale of unfulfilled potential and profound technical issues

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Redfall is an open world first-person shooter that combines mechanics-driven, immersive sim-style design with optional …

 

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Alas, while the aesthetic can be appealing, Redfall exhibits a multitude of visual flaws which we need to address. The first and most egregious issue with Redfall involves textures. Now, texture pop-in goes hand-in-hand with Unreal Engine if not managed properly, so I wasn't too surprised to encounter it. What did surprise me, however, is the severity of the issue both in terms of frequency and persistence with 10 to 20 second delays until textures fully resolve. It's astonishing to see how badly flawed this key system is. It's basically the worst texture pop-in I've seen since id Software's Rage.

 

The thing is - it's not just an issue with loading. Some texture assets are simply low resolution no matter what. The game's tree trunks, for instance, exhibit a shockingly low resolution asset slathered across their surface and this never changes no matter how long you wait. That said, there are some sharp textures in the game that do display correctly but far too often during normal gameplay, you'll spot low resolution assets around every corner. It detracts enormously from the presentation and needs to be patched.

 

There are many other issues. Shadow quality is unacceptable throughout. The game updates its shadow map position on a per-frame basis according to the angle of the sun, which is nice, but the poor resolve produces severe visual artefacts. Lighting is also questionable at points - the lack of proper dynamic indirect lighting is painfully obvious when interacting with characters throughout the world.

 

 

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There are good things and bad things to say about image quality and performance on Xbox Series consoles. With the release version capped at 30 frames per second on Xbox, it should come as little surprise that image quality is, at least, pristine. As promised, Redfall delivers a native 4K image combined with TAA on Series X while Series S opts for 1440p instead. Honestly, while shimmering can rear its head in spots, overall image quality is very good and I have little complaints in this regard. When the textures are properly loaded and everything is in motion, the game can look quite attractive even.

 

Beyond resolution, however, there are a handful of visual differences between Xbox Series X and Series S. Firstly, screen-space reflections are disabled on Series S during gameplay. Puddles, reflective floors and pools of blood alike all lack that additional sheen you get on Xbox Series X. Given how lightweight Unreal Engine 4's SSR can be, I'm surprised it has been disabled on Series S in its 30fps quality mode. Shadows also differ - shadow map resolution is further reduced on Series S resulting in even more egregious visual artefacts when shadows are projected. Both versions have the same draw distance for shadow casting lights, however, with equally poor pop-in.

 

Series S also seems to feature a reduction to LOD pop-in distance, along with generally lower textures across the board - no doubt down to the reduction in available memory. The weird thing about the textures is that in some cases, Series S loads textures faster than Series X but the texture itself will be lower resolution than the final asset on X. So, basically, owners of the junior Xbox can expect reduced fidelity on top of the already lower resolution.

 

 

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In terms of performance, while 60fps is off the table, at least the 30fps you get is properly frame-paced. I tested in both single-player and multiplayer modes, though owing to the lack of matching, the latter was limited to two players only. The average level of performance seems consistent between single and multiplayer mode but it's possible you could encounter additional dips when four players are active. I've seen reports of massive slowdown and huge dips, and I don't doubt that it can occur, but after hours of gameplay, I encountered a few specific issues.

 

Firstly, traversal stutter occurs when moving between different sections of a map. This is a side-effect of how Unreal Engine 4 handles open world environments and it occurs on every platform including PC. Secondly, in scenes filled with transparency effects, such as smoke and fire, the frame-rate can dip significantly as long as these effects remain on-screen. This includes the volumetric red mist that can emerge in battle - engaging the enemy in or around this mist instantly tanks the performance. Xbox Series S fares slightly better, perhaps as a result of its lower resolution.

 

It's clear that while there are aspects of the visuals that are successful, Redfall is plagued with technical issues that lead to a less than polished experience. Unfortunately, the controls also fall short. The default settings feature a huge dead zone and poorly adjusted aim acceleration which, combined with the lower frame-rate, leads to a distinctly unresponsive experience. I did manage to improve the experience by setting the input response preset to the 'low' setting while keeping aim sensitivity at 2.5. This is still suboptimal but at least it becomes tolerable.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

The video review for this is absolutely brutal.

 

For those who wish to see it:

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

20 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

I can’t believe if they did mock reviews correctly they let this go out the door and are acting blindsided. 

 

According to Phil, the difference between the scores projected from the mock reviews and the actuals is in the "double digits".

[best3444]

I'll be completely honest that I'm really upset this turned out like shit. I was really looking forward to it so I'll scratch this off my list now.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I personally think there is some sort of vendetta against this game. People were against it from the very first reveal…

 

To be fair on that point, it was modern game revealed with a CG trailer and nothing else.  With Microsoft especially, that’s become something of a red flag over the years.

 

Other people took issue with it being a multiplayer team-up shooter by a single player studio.  Maybe there’s some console bias speaking there. But looking at Kill the Justice League’s reception, it’s probably more than just that. 

[crispy4000]

49 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

According to Phil, the difference between the scores projected from the mock reviews and the actuals is in the "double digits".

Once a game gets into that ~75 range, a 6 doesn’t feel like much of a stretch IMO.  At least by modern video game reviewer scales.

 

I’d imagine there’s some unintended bias from the mock reviews about bugs they’d think would be squashed by release.

[Brian]

If I am Satya watching that Phil interview taking no responsibility, I got to be thinking if the right guy is charge especially if the Activision deal goes through. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

5 minutes ago, Brian said:

If I am Satya watching that Phil interview taking no responsibility, I got to be thinking if the right guy is charge especially if the Activision deal goes through. 

 

Beyond the Redfall discussion, Phil's tone during the interview is somewhat puzzling, especially regarding how he perceives the Xbox's overall position in the industry.  A few posters on ResetERA characterized it as "defeatist" and while I certainly wouldn't go that far, it's not exactly confidence-inducing for Xbox enthusiasts.

[Brian]

12 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Beyond the Redfall discussion, Phil's tone during the interview is somewhat puzzling, especially regarding how he perceives the Xbox's overall position in the industry.  A few posters on ResetERA characterized it as "defeatist" and while I certainly wouldn't go that far, it's not exactly confidence-inducing for Xbox enthusiasts.

A man who knows his time is up.  

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

According to Phil, the difference between the scores projected from the mock reviews and the actuals is in the "double digits".

 

28 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Once a game gets into that ~75 range, a 6 doesn’t feel like much of a stretch IMO.  At least by modern video game reviewer scales.

 

I’d imagine there’s some unintended bias from the mock reviews about bugs they’d think would be squashed by release.

that’s why I said “correctly” mock reviewed. If people too close to the game review it they’re going to see it differently than people who have only seen a couple trailers. It’s like when a game releases with a horrible control scheme or mechanics it’s often because it was designed and tested seemingly in a vacuum.