No one knew how such a disaster could have happened. Arkane Studios, one of the industry’s most beloved and beloved developers, launched Redfall earlier this May with the promise of being one of this year’s big exclusives for Xbox, but the surprise was great when we discovered the nonsense behind the launch. I myself had the opportunity to analyze it, and although I could see some of its advantages, it did not explain the series of resounding failures that the title committed in most of its fields .
Now it seems like Jason Schreier via Bloomberg, clarifies the situation regarding Arkane a lot. Redfall’s development began in 2018, but it seems to have faced a series of particularly difficult complications, such as the one after the setback that Prey didn’t get as many sales (despite its excellent quality), it has pushed Zenimax to offer arkane multiplayer. The original idea was simple: that users fight vampires together and that the game accept cosmetic micropayments, in order to make it profitable for a long time as a game as a service. But some in development found it confusing, given the studio’s specialty in games of other types.
Redfall lost 70% of original Prey developers
In this way, Arkane Austin, with just over 100 employees, could not cope with a game of this size, so many studio veterans who worked on Prey did not want to continue with a multiplayer title and left until reach 70. % team, based on Bloomberg analysis of LinkedIn movements. Many new devs wanted to sign up for this new adventure, but they were disappointed to see that it wasn’t an immersive solo like the studio had accustomed us to.
Between one issue and another, they reached September 21, 2020, when Microsoft bought Zenimax
Phil Spencer himself admitted in the surprising interview that followed on the Kinda funnywho should have foreseen it or been more attentive, either by helping them in their other studies, or even by considering a significant delay in these. The conclusion is obvious to all parties, Redfall shouldn’t have gone as it turned out. But it is clear that Microsoft is under pressure with its next releases. And next from Zenimax is the big Starfield.
