Redfall Analysis Why do they call it Arkane when they mean Ubisoft?

when you think of arcane A very specific style of play comes to mind. Immersive simulation comes to you, carefully designed scenarios, multiple possibilities for each challenge and playing with different elements to create a domino effect that is as effective as it is spectacular. Redfall, for better or for worse, is something else.

In a sense, all that is still there, from the combination of systems to the possibility of adapting the game to your style, but where titles like Dishonored or Prey gave shape to a masterfully orchestrated puzzle, Redfall it becomes a fun hodgepodge of ideas in the typical open world that anyone could have signed.

When Arkane dresses as something else

With a city besieged by vampires and cut off from the outside world with a wall of waves quite spectacular to see, Redfall It proposes us to control four characters who, after a failed experiment, have developed special psychic abilities.

There is the one focused on healing, the one that distracts, the one that provides mobility and my chosen one, a sniper capable of launching a crow with which to mark enemies, become invisible to sneak in without being seen, and a spectral sniper rifle that will allow you to ventilate humans and vampires with a remote-controlled shot to the head.

I have not had a bad time with it, but due to the verticality of the vast majority of challenges and the exploration of the world of Redfall, from the beginning I would have wanted to go for the girl with the psychic elevator that sends you through the air. Don’t make the same mistake because, once the adventure starts, you won’t be able to change your character.

And right there is where the edges begin. Elements that do not break the experience or make Redfall a worse game, but they are terribly uncomfortable and seem to be made on purpose to lengthen the experience artificially. Something that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me either, considering that the game lasted just over 10 hours.

Same spirit, opposite result

With a purely Ubisoft formula, the structure of Redfall It goes through giving you a huge world with a central base and the need to complete missions to advance the story. In a mixture of go and kill that one together with the classic go and pick me up this, none of his ideas when it comes to posing challenges have seemed particularly noteworthy to me.

Yes, it is true that the opportunity to face the challenge in one way or another is there, from choosing to enter through the door or climb to a window (catch the girl in the elevator) to dialogue with the enemies to follow a completely different path that you lead to the same end.

It is, in any case, a somewhat tricky fan. First, because in the vast majority of cases everything is going to be limited to the door or window, and second, because the funniest part of Redfall it’s shooting and taking advantage of your special abilities, not listening to tremendous badges, and despite being a mixture that prides itself on giving freedom of action, the game seems willing to shove that last one down your throat time after time.

Are you about to fight the final boss? Wait, there are some ghosts around here who are going to tell you four things about the story that you have probably already deduced. You can move all you want, but until it’s over you won’t be able to open that door. Do you want to activate a new side mission? Calmly, I was just having a very important conversation and until I finish I’m not going to listen to you.

An exclusive who knows the procedure

Far from coming across a want and I can’t, knowing that behind Redfall there is Arkane and that his hand is not only good, it is excellent, in fact what I have found is actually a can and I do not want.

The systemic is left out, the environmental narrative runs out of ideas very quickly, the design of the maps (two, to be exact, and you won’t be able to jump between them at will) does nothing that we haven’t already seen in dozens of open worlds, and even weapons and powers stop growing and adding variety much sooner than anyone could hope for in a game of this style.

In fact, that may well be the next question to answer. What exactly Redfall? At times it is a campaign without much pretension, at others it seems to want to be a Destiny-style game as a service, and almost always it is so aware of its limitations that, in order to extend the adventure without getting too dirty on its hands, it insists on being a repetitive and simple video game.

That hackneyed and anticlimactic thing about going in search of three objects to be able to continue with what you were doing? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to do it, turning his missions not into a new way to exploit the possibilities of my character and invite me to explore carefully created environments, but into a mere procedure designed to stretch a piece of gum that was halfway through. from the adventure and the change of map it was already seen that he did not give much more of himself.

iGamesNews’s opinion

Due to the classic errors of getting stuck somewhere, seeing floating glasses or textures with holes, added to how flat it ends up being at a playable level, Redfall It looks like one of those projects that have choked too much and, in the end, they have chosen to finish in the best possible way to be able to jump to the next thing as soon as possible.

The cooperative experience improves everything, of course, it does it here as it did in the last Ghost Recon, but the mere fact that we can establish that comparison despite being talking about an Arkane game already makes it quite clear that something is wrong here. I had a good time? Well, despite the edges, yes. Have I ever had the feeling that behind him were the creators of Dishonored, Prey or Deathloop? Well, the truth is that no.

redfall price

Redfall It is available for Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PC from May 2, 2023 with a price starting at 64.99 dollars. Of course, the great trick here is to hold on to the possibility of playing it on Xbox Game Pass.

Redfall

Redfall Duration

Going through several secondaries and even stopping to clear out vampire nests, a completely optional activity, the Steam counter shows 13 hours in which you also have to include having started a game with a second character to test their skills, so it’s easy to say what to finish Redfall It will take you about 10 hours and, completing it 100% together with the challenges of higher difficulty levels, it can double that number.