Revisiting Redfall after its final update reveals the ghost of the game it wanted to be

I never expected to love Redfall, given how different it was from the full-blooded immersive sims Arkane Studios had established its reputation building, but even I was taken aback by just how shoddy it was when it arrived. Arkane Austin's vampire looter shooter was patently unfinished when it launched in May 2023, riddled with bugs, dogged by terrible AI and poor shooting, and an open world that felt sparse and lifeless and lacking in impetus to explore. In the wake of Redfall's disastrous launch, Arkane Austin tried to patch the gaping stake holes in its rapidly crumbling body, but it only got so far before Microsoft announced it was shutting down Arkane Austin for good a year after the game's release.

The Final Patch: A Look at What Could Have Been

Microsoft didn't slam the coffin lid shut immediately; they gave Arkane just enough time and support to finish Redfall's 1.4 patch, which was touted as a significant step forward introducing several new features and addressing larger issues like enemy AI. On the patch's debut, Redfall's creative director Harvey Smith claimed that, had Redfall originally released with 1.4's additions, it might have succeeded.

Update 1.4 brings several major additions, but by far the most significant is its "Community Standing" system, a second skill tree you progress through by performing community-focussed actions. The bonuses you can gain from Community Standing include:

  • Improved safehouse defences and extra ammo storage at safehouses for early unlocks.
  • A temporary cloaking ability and the power to revive after death as highest tier rewards.

The impetus behind Community Standing is to push you to engage with Redfall's wider world, rather than blasting through the story like a giant Left 4 Dead mission. As all Community Standing bonuses are unlocked through side missions, it encourages you to explore your surroundings in greater detail. Motivated by the thought of extra goodies, I spent much more of my early hours chasing safehouse bonuses, discovering that individual abilities are purchased through in-game currency acquired by tracking down locations hinted at in Sam's tour guide.

A Beautiful World with a Broken Core

Chasing these clues really encourages you to pay close attention to Redfall's world, and through this you begin to appreciate its beauty. It captures the paradoxically idyllic nature of coastal New England perfectly: redbrick avenues, clapboard suburbs, the crunch of leaves underfoot, and the tang of the sea on your tongue. Its community is also at once clearly affluent, but that wealth is built on working class foundations, with gentrified high streets stone's throw away from the remnants of its historic fishing industry, nowhere better encapsulated than Dead Catch Records, an old fishing warehouse converted into a hip vinyl store.

Redfall clearly wants you to understand and engage with the town and its largely absent people, as demonstrated by the voluminous notes, diaries, and event logs scattered about its world. It is, notionally, a game about restoring a community in the face of vampiric incursion, essentially Salem's Lot in reverse, and the Community Standing system brings this concept more to the fore. Unfortunately, the effect of this surgically grafted upgrade system can only go so far; while it helps you appreciate the world Arkane has built, it doesn't change the fact that Redfall is still busted as a shooter.

Fighting the game's cultists and Bellweather mercenaries remains totally unsatisfying, with AI fixes providing modest improvements at best. Blasting vampires with stake launchers and UV cannons is better, but not to the point where it can sustain the entire game. The other problem is that the community Redfall wants you to restore doesn't really exist in any meaningful way; none of the characters have great depth of personality, and the nature of a looter shooter means conditions are completely wrong for building relationships with NPCs. You can't have long, meaningful exchanges with characters while three of your friends are bouncing around in the background, and even the notes you find feel like the wrong way to deliver a story in this scenario. This is why one of Redfall's biggest mistakes remains framing all the playable characters as outsiders to the community, leaving the ghost of the game it wanted to be haunting the final update.