REVIEW: Redfall is a mediocre and disappointing game

It's hard to imagine that a game in which bloodthirsty vampires take over a city could be so disappointing, but that's exactly what happened with the new release from Arkane Studios. But what makes redfall be such a mediocre game? Check it out in our review:

Redfall's story starts well, but...

The history of redfall It had the potential to be interesting, but it was executed poorly. In a city in the interior of in Massachusetts – USA, a group of billionaires find a way to extend their lives through the special blood of a sick girl. Using a pharmaceutical company as a front, five people finance experiments on the town's citizens, who turn them into bloodthirsty creatures (yes, vampires).

Seeing that their experiment was successful, these billionaires decided to use the special blood in their own bodies. Thus, they transformed themselves into the Vampiric Gods, gigantic and grotesque creatures with absolute power. Using their powers, they take over the city of redfall, creating a fence to prevent anyone from entering, or fleeing, the place.

In a desperate attempt to escape, you board the last available ship in the city's harbor. Unfortunately, the Vampiric Gods couldn't allow anyone to escape, so they planned a coordinated attack on their vessel. The sea was split in half, creating a gigantic wall around the city, and everyone on board died... except for you.

After choosing your character, you wake up next to vampires feeding on the vessel's dead. Beside them was Black Sun, a powerful vampire who tries to feed on her body, but is stopped by the sunlight that shines through the ship's windows. She lets you escape, but it's not long before you find yourself surrounded by cultists and vampires.

You escape to a fire station, turned into a base of operations by survivors planning an armed resistance. With that, you start your crusade against the vampires, but that's where things start to go downhill.

The first 30 minutes of redfall are good, but show a totally different game than what was released. Once you arrive at the firehouse, the game begins to tell the story through repetitive missions, notes lost in the world, and cutscenes static images, which are just as much fun as watching PowerPoint presentations.

Yes, the game does not have any kind of animated cutscene. All sequences in the game are done in two ways: static 2D images with a background narration, or the model of the characters standing on a dark blue background with the main character narrating what is happening. It's impossible for you to stay interested in the game's story when it looks like you're watching some school presentation, and that remains until the last scene.

style and art

The look and art of redfall, despite having good screens at times, can be quite generic when compared to other titles on the Arcane Studios. Once again, the studio decided to prioritize a less realistic art style, which has worked very well in the past, but could have been better with the new game.

The scenarios of redfall they are beautiful, but they are constantly repeated because it is a small town in the interior of the United States. You'll see the same architectural style and the same trees scattered in different locations on the map, without making much distinction between the different regions in the game.

At least, the main characters are quite distinct from each other, with each one's design reflecting the personality presented during gameplay. They comment on everything that's happening in the game, even during combat, and I thought that was a really cool addition. The same cannot be said about the secondary characters, who are caricatures of American stereotypes present in other media and do nothing of importance in the entire game.

Vicious and repetitive cycle

redfall there are 24 main quests, and I wish I could say that they are all different from each other, but that would be a big lie…

You can only select one mission at a time, and they can only be chosen within the base of operations, i.e. you need to return to the fire station or the marine club in the second map every time you want to start a new quest. They, for the most part, boil down to going to point X, finding item Y, and returning it to location Z, and this is repeated until the end of the game.

But it doesn't end there! On the map, you can find hidden shelters that provide side quests. However, these missions are not so secondary, since the game forces on three different times for you to do if you want to advance the story.

These missions are extremely tedious and repeat over and over again, and are only there to artificially extend the total playing time, which would be easily reduced if you didn't have to waste time hunting these hidden shelters around the map.

The types of enemies available in the game are also constantly repeated. In just two hours of gameplay, you'll already have encountered all the threats you redfall can offer, and it gets boring very fast. In addition to the cultists who shoot you with firearms, you'll be fighting the same five or six different species of vampires, and the only variation available is a rotating shield that appears occasionally.

Combat neither stinks nor smells

If you've played other first-person shooters with an open-world focus, then you might already have an idea of ​​what redfall offers. The combat is nothing special, but that's not exactly a negative point for the gameplay.

You can choose from four characters, and each one has a list of special powers to use in combat. Leveling up offers skill points that can be used to improve the character, and also unlock passive skills that are automatically activated during gameplay.

The arsenal consists of being able to carry up to three different weapons, but the variety is quite average. You can find pistols, shotguns, rifles and snipers, as well as different weapons such as a UV Ray launcher, a “Stake Launcher” that kills vampires with a single shot, and flares that lighten the location and set fire to nearby enemies.

During combat, you'll be in constant motion while trying to eliminate “bullet sponge” enemies, that is, with gigantic life bars that love to absorb the damage done. Therefore, the game has a weapon rarity system, common in other looter shooter, in which the weapon receives special attributes depending on its level and color.

Like I said, there's nothing special about combat redfall, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I would say that the combat is the best thing about the game, as it was the only time I could really enjoy it, that is, until the bugs start...

Bugs, crashes and performance

redfall there are many bugs, some of them that can even break the current game. During combat, it was common to see enemies trapped underground, immortal or even invisible enemies. Also, during exploration, I was forced to restart the game three times due to a specific bug that prevented me from progressing through the story, and I found myself starting the same mission from scratch.

The game would also close itself at several random points, including times when nothing chaotic was happening on screen. Worst of all, the game didn't give me any kind of error message or report, so I was unable to know if the problem was with my machine or the game, but I think we already know the answer to this question.

And of course, I can't stop talking about the performance. shameful de redfall in my computer. I have a relatively good machine, with a RTX 3070 and a 7th generation i12, and I can play any type of game without a problem. But, apparently, redfall decided that “30 FPS” was just fine. Also, it was normal to have dips that reached the 20s. frames, particularly in more chaotic downtown battles.

We are living in an era where many PC games are being released with performance issues, and the new release of Xbox Game Pass it was no different. redfall it offers nothing in its graphical quality to justify such poor performance, and the only plausible answer to this is that the developers didn't have enough time to finish the optimization. Now, the game launched at a flat 30 FPS on the mighty Xbox Series X, so it's obvious the problem is at the root.

Technical specifications

Minimum	Recommended
Operational system: 10 64-bit Windows	Operational system: 10 64-bit Windows
Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 @ 2.80GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1600	Processor: Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
Memory: 16 GB of RAM	Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Video card: AMD RX 580 / NV GTX 1070 / 6GB VRAM	Video card: AMD 5700 / NVIDIA RTX 2080 / Intel ARC / 8GB VRAM
DirectX: 12 Version	DirectX: 12 Version
Storage: 100 GB	Storage: 100 GB

Conclusion

Redfall is the worst game on Arkane Studios, and it's a blow to the catalog of Xbox Game Pass. It's hard to accept that a studio that created one of my favorite games (Dishonored) managed to create something so mediocre and soulless, but that could have had potential if they had changed the direction of some existing things in the core of the game.

Bugs, performance issues and a shallow story are part of the game's main problems, and easily stand out when we try to see the positive part of it. redfall. I don't know what to expect from the future of Arkane, but I hope they use redfall as learning to move forward and avoid the same mistakes.

See also: REVIEW: Minecraft Legends, an RTS made to last

REVIEW: Minecraft Legends, an RTS made to last

Text proofread by: Pedro Bomfim (08 / 05 / 23)