Why did Arkane's multi-compatible vampire shooting 'Redfall' fail?



Arkane Austin's co-op FPS game Redfall has been given mostly poor reviews by critics. Bloomberg explains why this game, which was expected to be a new work from the studio that produced masterpiece games such as ``

Dishonored '', failed to start.

Arcane's Redfall Misfire for Xbox Panned After $7.5 Billion Microsoft Deal - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-01/arcane-s-redfall-misfire-for-xbox-panned-after-7-5-billion-microsoft-deal

Redfall is a multiplayer FPS game set on a fictional Massachusetts island inhabited by vampires. It was just released on May 2nd, 2023, but has received complaints from users and critics. At the time of Redfall's article creation, the Steam rating was ``somewhat unpopular'', and Metacritic, a review aggregation site, gave it a score of 54 out of 100, and was counted as one of the ``lowest-rated games of the year''. increase.

However, according to officials interviewed by Bloomberg, this evaluation was not a surprise to the creators of Redfall. The story goes that Redfall's project was ill-defined, with frequent layoffs and constant staff shortages.



Development of Redfall began in 2018, but the parent company Zenimax urged the studio to develop ``a game that can earn revenues other than initial sales''. There are many hit games that introduce so-called in-game billing, such as Fortnite and Overwatch, and officials said that they strongly requested that this model be introduced to Redfall.

However, since its establishment in 1999, Arkane has been working on single-player games that have players overcome various obstacles in a fighting style that introduces stealth action. It was unknown whether it would be able to respond to 'games'.

Contrary to the director's excitement about the game plot, each department's creation was disjointed, the fundamental problem between single-player and multiplayer designs was not resolved, and multiplayer games were supported. Problems arose, such as the lack of manpower. As a result, the atmosphere in the studio deteriorated, and it seems that a large number of veteran employees who are not interested in developing multiplayer games have retired. According to Bloomberg's analysis of LinkedIn and past work credits, by the time Redfall's development was complete, only about 30% of the staff who had gathered at the beginning of development remained in the company.



During this time, an event occurred on September 21, 2020, when ZeniMax was acquired by Microsoft. With this acquisition, some of Arkane's staff seemed to expect that ``Redfall will be canceled or restarted as a single-player game,'' but in reality, Microsoft is Redfall's PlayStation. I just stopped responding.

Still, Microsoft has high expectations for Redfall, positioning it as 'one of the upcoming major releases' at the 2021 press conference, and dramatically unveiling it at the finale of the event. However, with just a few months to go before release, Arkane's staff became increasingly scarce, and the release was pushed from Halloween 2022 to early 2023, before finally opening on May 2, 2023.



Ultimately, Redfall was released in a haphazard fashion, leading some critics to criticize it as 'feeling like a compromise between single-player and multiplayer, failing to satisfy fans of either type of game.' was received and was criticized by users.

The accusations also spilled over to Microsoft, with some critics saying, 'Microsoft is pursuing acquisitions of other game companies such as Activision Blizzard, but Redfall's failure marks a huge gap between Microsoft's aspirations and the actual product. It also highlights Microsoft's ability to establish long-term franchises on its own and question Microsoft's ability to do so.'

After all, Redfall's billing model was abolished in response to user opposition, and Microsoft issued a statement that it would continue to make efforts to improve. Bloomberg said: 'The raging Redfall has only increased the pressure on ZeniMax's upcoming Starfield release, and the industry will be watching to see what lessons Microsoft learned in the meantime. ' said.

in Game, Posted by log1p_kr