After a very light offering in the way of first-party titles from Xbox in 2022, Hi-Fi Rush came out of nowhere at the start of this year in January and things were starting to look up for Team Xbox. With Redfall’s release date of May 2nd announced, hopeful fans have been looking forward to seeing what Arkane Austin (The team behind games like Prey and Dishonored) has cooked up. Redfall is an open-world, first-person shooter playable in single-player and co-op, breaking their usual single-player focused approach.

I went into Redfall not really expecting much/not knowing what to expect. People sing high praise around Arkane Austin for some of their previous work which I can’t speak on myself, having not played Prey or Dishonored so I’m not jumping into Redfall with an expectation like some fans might have had as I’m yet to experience what Arkane Austin has to offer. With that said, maybe I’d have been better off playing their previous titles first to get an idea of why some fans hold them in high regard. I’ve actually been managing to find some fun with Redfall during my 20 or so hours with it despite its many shortcomings, but overall it is quite a disappointment.

(Some very unique and interesting places in Redfall)

Bite Back

Redfall gives players the choice between four different heroes, each touting unique abilities that can be upgraded during your stay in Redfall. The problem with this however is that your stay at Redfall might not last very long at all.

The opening sequence sees our hero in a sticky situation, but luckily day breaks and we make our way to a local fire station, saving the people inside and using it as a main safe house. From here you can restock on supplies, pick up missions and talk to survivors, not that they have anything of substance to add to the story, as sometimes you’ll be lucky if you can even get one to grumble when you interact with them. That is if the game hasn’t bugged and the characters are stood where they’re supposed to be.

Along with the lack of interaction, the majority of the story is portrayed through PowerPoint presentation-like cutscenes and finding notes scattered around Redfall. This is a bummer for me, as the story seems bursting with mystery and potential, yet confined to notes and slapped together in a slide show, nowhere near the level of cool some of the teaser trailers looked might I add.

Not to worry, we’re about to venture outside the fire station into a detailed and intriguing open world, littered with enemies and things to see and do right? Right? Sigh. Stepping outside will have the player traversing Redfall with almost zero altercations, just streets littered with the same copy and pasted cars and trash piles and very rarely any enemies. It’s almost as if Arkane forgot to add enemies into the open world. Don’t get me wrong, some of the main missions are quite fun and there are plenty of enemies there, but there’s almost zero reason to go anywhere manually once you’ve unlocked some safe houses. Why run across an empty open world where nothing happens when I can just skip it all? The game doesn’t give you a reason to explore outside of the current objective and that’s a bummer because Redfall looks very interesting at a glance and is dying to be explored.

The gameplay loop can become a little tedious, especially when the missions themselves are. You essentially pick up a mission from a safe house, fast-travel as close as possible, and go and complete the mission, only to then fast-travel back to the safe house to grab another mission. Not only does this make the open-world feel pointless but it becomes tedious when you pick up a mission that is nothing more than just collecting cigars and whiskey for a gift. Even the missions I have enjoyed so far find themselves caught up with feeling tedious, which just dampens these moments. There’s nothing less fun than arriving at a location only to have to hunt high and low for a key just to open a door to finish a mission. There are times when I think a more level-based approach like Left 4 Dead might have been better suited.

(Redfall can look good when it wants to)

Combat and Overall Gameplay

Whilst Redfall can be experienced in both single-player and co-op, playing with friends is definitely the way to go here. My biggest gripe with this is the lack of saves across playthroughs. I jumped in with a friend after starting my own run so he didn’t miss anything, only to surpass where I was and had to replay missions back in my solo run that I’ve just done in co-op is a big turn-off.

You also can’t start a co-op session on your own and invite friends later for some reason. You have to invite at least one other player to kick off a multiplayer session. So I’ve had times where I’ve been waiting for a friend to jump on, so jumped into my solo play, only to have to back out to the menu and then start up a co-op session, because reasons? Drop-in out/drop-out would have been great here.

Co-op helps bring the combat to life a bit more, once you start getting into the swing of things and utilizing your abilities between your squad it really makes for some interesting encounters. The guns are mostly satisfying and have a nice kick to them. I found this particularly the case whilst using snipers as Jacob, my main. Playing with my friend who was using Layla for example was great because he would summon his lift allowing me to jump up to a high spot to pick off enemies with my ghostly rifle ability. You can also upgrade these within your skill tree which is nice but redundant when the game itself is far too easy.

Safe to say if it wasn’t for cooperative play, I think I would have dropped this game already and moved on. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I actually find enjoyment out of roaming around Redfall with friends as opposed to doing it on my own. It certainly takes the focus off of the glaring issues and distracts you from the emptiness of it all. Either solo or with friends though, the difficulty options are completely pointless and enemies are far too easy to kill, having turned up to a couple of underboss fights only to one-shot a vampire in the head and its mission complete. It just leaves you feeling underwhelmed when you have run across 500m of boring and empty terrain only to have a boss fight finish within the same second it started. Situations like this in co-op though are so bad they’re funny, I must admit. It makes for a good laugh.

Fighting vampires in general is thankfully somewhat fun though. The way they move fast and zip around you can make them challenging to pin down. Especially if you venture into one of Redfall’s better aspects, the vampire nests. These are side objectives that reward you with some pretty good loot should you manage to escape with your life. Sneak past or take out the large groups of vampires and destroy the heart, leaving you with one minute to grab some loot and get out. While there is some variety in the aesthetic within these nests, these too begin to feel as though they’ve been copied and pasted. Doing two back-to-back with the ending being exactly the same can grow tiresome. When you manage to lower ones health enough you can stake them which brings on a very cool finishing animation clearly inspired by DOOM.

(Redfall fairs better visually at night by a country mile)

Visuals

I love a 60 frames-per-second mode and Redfall lacks that sadly. Whilst it’s not a must-have for me to enjoy a game, it’s certainly nice to have and it does raise questions as to why Redfall is struggling to deliver a performance mode with this included on “The World’s Most Powerful Console.” Thankfully this is something that’s being worked on, but I digress. Visually it can be appealing and has a rather nice art style and even the opportunity for some pretty-looking screenshots in places but there’s no reason for it to look like an Xbox 360 title in others.

Nighttime is when Redfall shines thanks to the lighting and the overall atmosphere just feels better at night. Nighttime adds a lot for me personally with the way a cinema’s sign lights up the road or the few lights scattered around a creepy mansion shining down a hallway helping add to the creepiness of it all. Daytime however is a different story and only serves to highlight the weaker points in Redfall like the glaring pop-in issues or lack of textures. Daytime really brings out the roughness around the edges and just shows how square, flat, and boxy the environment is.

I wasn’t expecting a gorgeous view at the top of Redfall’s lighthouse but I certainly wasn’t expecting something that looked so flat and lifeless, but I suppose that’s on me as I’d already experienced how lifeless the town is trying to reach the lighthouse.

(High view point in Redfall shows a bland environment that’s horrible on the eye)

Conclusion

This is an awkward one because throughout this review I’ve spoken more negatively about Redfall than I have positively. I truly believe there’s a great game in here somewhere. There’s a decent story waiting to be portrayed properly and a Redfall that wants to be explored by interesting characters who aren’t given a proper chance in the limelight. Sure, they actually have some decent conversation when wandering the streets but that’s lost when you’re asked to watch them during PowerPoint cutscenes.

In its current state, I can’t recommend a purchase of Redfall. Hell, I can’t even recommend subscribing to Game Pass to try this as it’s most likely going to waste your time especially when recent additions like Ghostwire: Tokyo, Ravenlok, Benedict Fox, and Coffee Talk 2 have launched in the service. For me, co-op is probably the only chance this game has at the moment, and would only recommend this to people who are already subscribed to Game Pass and aren’t looking for this to be anything other than a mindless adventure with some pals. Mindless AI,

For every time I go “Oh, cool” I’ll say “Oh, really” the next five. Redfall has potential but stumbles at every hurdle. Whilst there’s fun to be had in co-op this certainly isn’t going to be enough for the majority of players. Overall, disappointing. There’s much more I could have talked about but to be honest with you, we’ll be here all day.

I can only hope that Xbox comes correct and smash this summer out of the park.

45/100

Pros: Game Pass, Fun to be had in co-op.

Cons: Lack of textures, Pop-in, Bad performance, stupid AI,