Redfall Review: A Lifeless Disappointment

Redfall is an unfortunate highlight of a current issue in gaming where developers seem to be interested in chasing trends, but are unable to fully commit to that vision. Unfortunately, the result is something half-baked and fairly broken. It's deeply frustrating and often compromises a game that could be incredibly cool if there wasn't a need for every major studio to want its own live-service RPG. That's the thing, though – Redfall isn't a live-service game, but all of the pieces within it make it feel like that was planned at one point and the direction changed, but it changed too late into the process resulting in an uneven experience. It's a bit annoying that this keeps happening, and sadly, Redfall is taking a beating from a lot of people in order to make an example out of this ongoing problem.

Redfall is a new co-op FPS from Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey) that sees you trying to cleanse a quaint, vampire-ridden town on the East Coast of the United States appropriately known as… Redfall. The sun has been blocked out, vampire cultists are everywhere, special-ops soldiers are trying to get a hold on the situation to cover up the chaos, and it's really just a total nightmare in an otherwise scenic little town.

When the game was revealed, many thought this was going to be more along the lines of Left 4 Dead where you play as one of four characters and work with your friends through a linear level to shoot up hordes of vampires. It's really nothing like that at all, but in hindsight, that may have gone over better than what we got. Instead, this is more along the lines of Far Cry. The town of Redfall is yours to explore, though it's not as large as it may seem, and you'll be doing all of that exploring on foot. There are safe houses to capture, neighborhoods to clear vampires out of, and no shortage of things to loot. However, even with all that, this world feels painfully empty. 

In between the mission objectives and safe houses, there's nothing to see or do outside of maybe running into a patrol or group of lingering blood suckers. I ran into one of those coin-operated horses that you can rock back and forth on and was given a prompt to interact with it. All it did was rock back and forth, but it just felt so odd. It was one of the few ordinary objects in the game you could interact with and only emphasized how hollow this world feels. 

Aesthetically, the town of Redfall is really beautiful. You feel the cozy, fall vibes and get a sense that before the undead consumed this place, this was a peaceful town where everyone knew everyone. The kind of place that has a police station with only a handful of cops, and maybe they're not that good at their job because there's a lack of notable crime. This is a town that was ill-equipped for the chaos these vampires would bring, which then creates an incredibly eerie atmosphere. 

Warm homes are ravaged and covered in blood while TV screens feature a broadcast from the game's main antagonist known as the Hollow Man. As you loot homes, you hear his voice calling to you and anyone else who happens to be listening. It's incredibly unnerving and is reminiscent of General Zod's invasion broadcast in Man of Steel. All of this helps create a really powerful feeling of dread in an otherwise empty, but welcoming town.

Outside of that, there's really not much else going for Redfall. The gameplay itself is quite bad on just about every level. I'm not a huge stickler for frame rate, but making this game run at 30FPS (or less, at times) hurts it tremendously. Gunplay feels sluggish and sticky, lacking the fluidity and smoothness of something like Deathloop or even Dishonored. Given Arkane has made great first-person shooters before and is also under the umbrella of two different companies – Xbox and ZeniMax – with genre-defining shooters like Doom, Halo, Wolfenstein, and so on, it leaves you scratching your head.

I figured if the gunplay isn't punchy or satisfying, maybe the powers your character has will be better. I primarily played as a character with various supernatural abilities such as one that allows you to block bullets with a purple shield and then redirect the energy back at the targets. It never felt like it really had the oomph that one would hope for when you use it offensively, so I largely stopped using it. Similarly, I never felt challenged enough to use the ultimate ability which summons your vampire ex-boyfriend. He'll appear when called upon and then proceed to kill anyone in your general proximity until he decides to leave. It's certainly one of the better abilities, but the game didn't do enough to make it feel like a valuable tool in my toolbox. The powers really didn't stand out enough and felt like an extension of the bland, uninspired weapons.

The weapons themselves range from your standard pistols/shotguns/assault rifles to more creative weaponry like stake launchers, flare guns, and UV lights to damage the vampires. However, this is a game that is all about stats, colors, and numbers so don't get too attached to your weapons. You're going to have to swap them out for rarer weapons that have bigger numbers and cooler colors on a frequent basis in order to feel efficient. Unfortunately, these weapons don't feel like they themselves are getting any more exciting as you progress. It's all artificial and just makes you wonder why Arkane didn't opt to feature a standard arsenal of weapons that you can upgrade in a more traditional way. 

Instead, it just feels like Redfall is chasing trends of colored loot to be closer to something like Destiny. In reality, sticking to something like Far Cry 4 or Far Cry 5 and letting you take more ownership over a smaller set of weapons would be more enjoyable and less of a nuisance.

Unfortunately, the problems don't stop there. Combat itself is a slog, despite having great ideas. The two main types of enemies you'll be fighting are vampires and humans with guns. One would assume the vampires would be the more difficult enemies, but somehow, they were really easy. Vampires have to be stabbed with a stake to properly kill them, but it's really easy to get them into a downed state if you just shoot at them for a few seconds or light them on fire before driving the stake into their chest. Rarely did I ever feel challenged by them and all of my battles with them felt anti-climactic.

Fighting humans with guns, on the other hand, was shockingly difficult. Their aim was incredibly accurate, their weapons dealt lots of damage, and it became really easy to die if you were fighting more than a few of these types of enemies. Given vampires have overrun this town, it feels really weird that normal, everyday gun wielding citizens are the bigger challenge.

Aside from their accuracy, the AI is horrendous. You can walk up right behind them and smack them in the back to kill them mid-combat, you can snipe someone from a distance and their partners won't react whatsoever, and sometimes they can spot you through barriers that should block their line of sight. Stealth generally does not feel like an option as a result, meaning you should stay far away from enemies unless you want to get into a fight.

One of the few examples of feeling like the combat was showing any kind of promise was early on in the game when you have to fight your way up a mountain. After battling my way through numerous enemies, there was a balcony that looked out over Redfall and allowed me to observe reinforcements who were coming up the mountain behind me. I was able to pull my sniper out and expertly take them out with headshots, one after another. It was really satisfying, but it was one of the only times I really felt myself having any kind of fun with the combat.

Other combat encounters only shined a harsh light on how bad the level design actually is. One of the side quests I was on required me to go into a boarded up house with only one entrance and kill a powerful vampire hiding inside of it. I found him in the basement, standing in a corner Blair Witch-style, with shields rotating around him. After I attacked him, I realized this basement was far too small for any kind of meaningful combat. Perhaps if it was just a regular vampire it would've been fine, but the rotating shields meant I had to be constantly moving and looking for ways to shoot through the gaps. Instead, I ended up getting backed into a corner where the vampire beat me down until I was dead with no way for me to get out of it. 

Pardon the pun, but playing Redfall really sucked the life out of me. It's a game that so desperately feels like it wants to be more than what it is, which is understandable. It's dreadfully dull, buggy, frustrating, and feels shackled to a genre that it doesn't really want to be part of. Far Cry with vampires sounds like a great idea, but ultimately, what we got feels like a shell of a prototype for such a concept. The vibes the game radiates are great and there are glimmers of a better game when all of the game's elements are working together in harmony, but that so rarely happens.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Redfall is out now on Xbox Series X|S and PC. A review code for Xbox Series X was provided by the publisher.