You know the name, you know the bugs, and you most definitely know the videos and reviews that have been dunking on Redfall. Released on May 2nd, Arkane’s latest game was meant to be the savior of both the Xbox Series X|S console and Xbox Game Pass. Redfall and the upcoming Starfield by Bethesda were meant to show that great exclusives existed on the console and the game service so that Microsoft could play catch up with Sony’s PlayStation 5.

Starfield may still have a chance to make up some of the consumer base that Redfall was supposed to bring in. However, it will be a matter of time to see whether or not that will come to fruition. In the meantime, let us turn our attention to Redfall.

When you look at the plot of Redfall, the game definitely shines. If you have ever played an Arkane Studios game, you know the caliber of writing that has come from the studio through Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop. Set in the now dark and desolate town of Redfall, Massachusetts, Redfall does a phenomenal job of quickly establishing a world consumed by darkness and vampires that only you can bring back into the light.

While the four playable characters have a tale behind each of them which can be gathered through co-op dialogue that occurs from time to time, they do not add as much to the tale compared to previous titles from Arkane Studios. This is most likely due to the nature of Redfall being a co-op game and the developers not wanting there to feel like there are holes in the plot if you don’t have a full four-player party.

The gameplay within Redfall has quite a few ideas that help to fill in the lore of the world that I quite enjoyed. However, there are a myriad of bugs that prevent players from either starting the game or enjoying the game for a long time. That is unless you are willing to grit your teeth or laugh endlessly.

When I started the game with a friend of mine, we had to redo the opening section that serves as a tutorial about three times due to synchronization issues, game assets being missing, frame stuttering, and cutscenes improperly playing or not playing at all. This caused us to end up spending about eighty minutes doing a section that should have taken about twenty minutes. That is a massive barrier to entry with Redfall and is something that I would not wish to experience had I played it alone. My friend was probably the only reason I got through that set of issues.

The world of Redfall is decently sized with not too much fluff compared to other open-world games that have come out in the last decade. The world contains a fast travel system, but it barely made much of a difference as most objectives could reached on foot in a decent amount of time. The one gripe that I do have with the world is the fact that there is an abundance of buildings (primarily houses) that cannot be explored.

While I could understand a few here and there not being explorable in a game of this attempted caliber, it seemed like eight out of ten houses that you run into are nothing more than roadblocks. I’m sure it would be nearly impossible to make every single house special. However, it would be neat to just have more places to find loot and fight enemies in.

The thing that I mentioned earlier that truly ends up making this game fun is the co-op element of it. If I was not able to play Redfall with a buddy of mine, I would have stopped playing and uninstalled the game after an hour. Instead, I have put in more hours than I thought I would so that my friend and I could mess around with the vampires and try to find various new exploits. While some of the animations did get rather janky when both of us would try to stake a vampire, for us it was par-for-the-course and didn’t mess with us any more than the rest of the bugs did.

We have played over the last month, so we were able to play Redfall before and after the current patch. Neither of us noticed much (if any) of a difference between the game through either version. Will my friend and I return to the game? Perhaps in the future. Should you buy the game yet? I would wait a little bit longer unless you already have Xbox Game Pass. Regardless, the choice is yours!

Do you have an interesting or funny tale about your adventures in Redfall? If so, make sure to leave them in the comments below. If you would like to know about new games being added to the Xbox Game Pass, check out Samuel Moreno’s article about June’s Wave 1 additions right here.

A PC Review Copy of Redfall was provided by Bethesda Softworks for this review.

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Redfall

69.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Simple, but Satisfying Story
• Co-op is the game's saving grace

Cons

• A lot of bugs
• Easily Fooled Enemies
• Assets Missing Occasionally
• Always Online Requirement