A recent report revealed that the red drop In its state of launch, it sure doesn’t sound like it’s going to be smooth sailing.
Arkane Studios has long been known as a studio that makes games, has a loyal following, but has generally been commercially unsuccessful. Unfortunately, however, Redfall’s launch was in such bad shape that Xbox head Phil Spencer had to comment on the matter. Now, a recent Bloomberg report has provided some behind-the-scenes details as to why Redfall ended the way it did, and it sounds like there were issues from the beginning of development.
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According to Bloomberg, development on Redfall began in 2018 when ZeniMax (which owns Bethesda and later Arkane Studios) was looking to be acquired by another company. Around the same time, it was also apparently encouraging the studios it owned to develop live service games, a trend that has recently started to emerge thanks to the popularity of titles like Fortnite and Overwatch.
While it wasn’t mandatory, after Arkane Austin’s 2017 release, Prey, was particularly commercially unsuccessful, the team wanted to make something more compelling, resulting in the concept of Redfall (a game where players face off against vampires). multiplayer game).
The biggest problem the staff immediately faced was that Arkane has historically been a single-player developer, while Redfall was being positioned as a “multiplayer Arkane game,” which confused some staff. There’s also no clear sense of direction, with various departments having different ideas about what kind of games they intend to make.
On top of that, Arkane was also severely understaffed, with the Austin studio employing fewer than 100 people, not enough to make a multiplayer game. Recruiting new staff was an issue at the time, as the game hadn’t been revealed and most applicants would have assumed they were making a more classic Arkane-style game. Even more frustrating, ZeniMax is also known for paying below average wages.
Due to the general low morale, many employees began to leave, and according to Bloomberg, by the time Redfall’s development ended, about 70% of Arkane Austin’s employees who had worked on Prey had left the company. Things were apparently so bad that when Microsoft finally bought ZeniMax, the staff hoped that the former would cancel Redfall entirely, or at least let them reboot it as a single-player game – but Microsoft apparently took a hands-off approach (other than saying that Redfall wouldn’t and then on PS5).
Eventually Redfall did launch as a multiplayer game, though there will be improvements in the game. So for the upcoming Xbox showcase, it’s clear the company needs a win.
