Redfall was supposed to be one of the really big exclusive titles on the Xbox alongside Starfield, but the game turned out to be a non-starter and caused a fiasco for developer Arkane Austin. Ultimately, the studio will now seem to be returning to its successful roots.
One of the biggest disappointments of the gaming year so far is probably the vampire shooter Redfall from Arkane Studios. The title started with high hopes, but ultimately turned out to be absolutely disappointing and quite a failure. The development studio now seems to be drawing conclusions from this and will probably want to return to its own roots in the future.
Leaker and insider Idle Sloth unearthed a new job posting from ZeniMax via Twitter. It is now looking for a new Lead Technical Engineer for Arkane Austin. The tender explicitly states as a requirement that the new employee should have experience with single-player action RPGs and immersive simulations – and that is more in line with Arkane Austin’s previous successful games compared to the recently released looter-shooter Redfall.
Arkane Austin seems to be taking lessons from the Redfall debacle in this respect and is reflecting back on the genres and titles that made the studio great. In the future you can probably expect titles in the style of Dishonored again. Maybe even Dishonored 3 will be tackled; other options would be a Prey 2 or a completely new IP.
The open-world looter shooter was a clearer departure from the studio’s previous games. The title was actually supposed to be released in the summer of 2022, but was then postponed to 2023. However, even this step did not lead to Redfall being able to convince in terms of game design and technology. The attempt to deliver a co-op looter shooter in the style of Borderlands can therefore be considered a failure – reason enough to return to the immersive single-player titles now.