Grit your teeth: The town once known for its quaint streets, breezy boardwalks and charming neighborhoods has been taken over. A new denomination has moved in. vampire. They ruin everything. They have eclipsed the sun. They use the population of the town like they use their own personal feed bags. They are keen to take more.
This is the premise red fall – A now-delayed title for Xbox Series X/S and PC from Arkane Austin. You’ll travel to the quaint island town of Redfall, Massachusetts, of the same name, in an attempt to sidestep these misguided science experiments and bring a touch of sanity to the area. It sounds a bit like a cross between From Dusk ’til Dawn and The Lost Boys. This sounds great.
Although the first trailer we got from the game at E3 2021 painted the title as something akin to Left 4 Dead/Back 4 Blood, the little bit of information we’re left scraped from the press material and leaked sides seems to suggest We’re actually going to get a more Borderlands-like experience. Like that sound? Well, here’s what we know so far.
A few leaked images have given us an early (and potentially very unreliable) look at how the gameplay will come together. Unsurprisingly for a four-player co-op first-person shooter, you’ll be able to take full advantage of customizable loadouts and special abilities, while level requirements will keep you from equipping certain items too early. It looks like you can hold up to three weapons, some armor, a souvenir, a med kit, and remnants (whatever they are).
You will be able to play four roles:
- Leila Ellison, a medical research doctor at the world company Aevum Therapeutics, who was the victim of some sort of adverse event in the lab that seemed to give her psychic powers. She is basically your mage.
- Devender Crossley, weapon-making occult zoologist and paranormal investigator. He recorded and streamed paranormal events for his followers in Redfall and got more than he bargained for. Think of him as your hunter/ranger.
- Remy of Roses, a combat engineer and special rescuer from the U.S. Navy, de la Rosa is an electronics expert and even created her own small combat drone – the Bribón – to help keep the streets of Redfall safe from vampires. She is actually your engineer.
- Jacob Boyerafter something happened when he first arrived in Redfall, he was equipped with a mysterious “eye of the vampire”, and a ghost crow companion who can help him investigate the battlefield, Jacob Boyer is your sharpshooter/sniper, Probably works best when working from a distance from the battle front.
But if all you’re expecting is to meet Left 4 Dead and Borderlands somewhere in the middle, you might be surprised; Redfall comes from Arkane — you know, the people behind Dishonored, Deathloop and Prey — so it’s also in its DNA Lots of “immersive simulation games”. Bethesda’s own Pete Hines has said that the Redfall is “very similar” to Arkane’s previous output in terms of its design pillars, so you can expect this level of mechanical freedom here too. Given that your vampire enemies will also “continue to evolve” as the game progresses, I think this sounds like a pretty exciting package.
For an open-world game, Hines also said that “every time you play it, you get something different” because “since the last time you played it, the world is making sense in a way that makes sense from the game’s point of view. The way it changes.” Granted, this may only be lip service, but one of the most stable and exciting developers in gaming is working on it – and knowing that it needs to be a cornerstone of Xbox Game Pass immediately leaves people behind Impressive – I think Redfall deserves at least one vampire eye.
If this all sounds like it’s on your street, you’ll need to wait a bit longer before checking it out. Bethesda has announced that it is delaying the game until May 2022, pushing Redfall out of its planned “Summer 2022” slot and into somewhere in the “first half of 2023.”
“The teams at Arkane Austin (Redfall) and Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) have incredible ambitions for their games, and we want to make sure you receive the best, most polished version,” the developers said at the time . Following this, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said he understood fans’ frustration with the delays in Redfall and Starfield, noting that “[Xbox] Efforts will continue to better meet these expectations. “
Hopefully the delay pays off. We need a decent co-op game to get us into. Expect to finally see some actual gameplay from Arkane Austin’s experimental game at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Show on June 12. In the meantime, at least, we have some other good vampire games to enjoy.
