Redfall gives the impression of being a multiplayer game where it will truly thrive.
Does the idea of being dropped into a vampire-infested Iceland with the mission to wipe them out using your superpowers appeal to you? The upcoming open-world cooperative tutor game by Arkane Studios may be just the thing to satisfy your craving. After their award-winning title DEATHLOOP which was published by Bethesda Softworks, Arkane Studios has moved on to Redfall, in which the player must rid the island of violent vampires and cults in preparation for the recent defeat of the vampire gods.
Redfall is not like the standard, a more linear level-based structure that we have anticipated from games of this genre in the past. Redfall’s structure is much more open-ended and creative. Instead, it utilizes a more open world, analogous to what we might find in a game like Far Cry. Nevertheless, since Arkane Studios developed it, it features a multitude of distinct paths and ways to interact with the environment, allowing you to accomplish your objectives in a manner that is entirely individual to you. When it comes to open-world games, however, Redfall doesn’t break any of the rules because it pretty much has everything that you would expect from a game of this genre.
The elimination of vampires might look like a good time. Still, if you’re coming to this game expecting a clone of Left 4 Dead or Back 4 Blood, you might be in for a rude awakening because this game is quite dissimilar to those titles. Killing hordes of enemies is done in a manner that is unique to this game. The game’s main difference is that the undead you’ll be facing is vampires that move and attack much faster and use a wider variety of techniques to ensure your demise.
Some vampires were even equipped with shields that rotated and could cast spells like lightning that inflicted significant damage on their enemies. The vampires are not instantly vanquished by any means. You will need to make your way up to them and ensure that you have killed them before moving on to another round. If you do not, they will come back to life.
It’s not just the vampires you have to worry about in this game; you also have to watch out for human factions that have made an alliance with the vampires. If you want to come out on top, you’ll need to be quick on your feet and evade bullets and the supernatural attacks the vampires unleash. The sheer number of zombies in an encounter makes them more terrifying, but fighting a vampire feels different and gives you an edge over the standard undead. Fighting vampires requires you to be slightly more agile and nimble than normal.
You will need to take control of the various hubs strewn about the map to gain access to new types of objectives and missions. The game’s objectives vary widely, from guarding a periocular point to exterminating a vampire horde in a certain area. The fact that the god’s eyes of the vampires will begin to focus on you when you have completed more objectives in the game and have caused the vampires to become more agitated is one of the things that adds an additional layer of tension to the overall experience. After that, they’ll start sending their strongest troops and vampires after you.
Since the gameplay was only designed for a single player using a single class, we were unable to get a feel for how the game would play with multiple players or with all four character classes available in Redfall. Although it is common knowledge that each playable character has their own distinct playstyle and set of abilities that can be altered as the player advances through the game’s skill tree.
Devinder Crousley, a well-known online investigator of the paranormal, is one of the four protagonists in this story. In addition to that, he is a curious cryptozoologist and an inventive force to be reckoned with. The most recent stop on his book tour brought him to Redfall just in time for the sun to set. Now that we have him, we can use his skills and equipment to deal devastating damage to the vampires.
Jacob Boyar, a former member of the army who began accepting contracts from PMC, found himself in Redfall as a result of these endeavors. Jacob is the best long-range option if you prefer to take a more defensive stance and eliminate foes from a greater distance. In addition to that, he possesses a cloaking ability that makes it possible for him to remain hidden.
A combat engineer and robotics specialist with the Coast Guard, Remi De La Rosa, winds up in Redfall when her ship goes down, and the rest of her crew disappears. On the island, Remy’s expertise in robotics will be extremely useful, as she is the only character among the group to have a robot companion that can either divert the attention of foes or assist players while they are engaged in battle.
Remy’s primary role is to provide assistance to the rest of the team, and she has the ability to heal allies by establishing control points. Although the gameplay depicted Layla Ellison, a Wisconsin native who had relocated to Redfall and attended the Redfall Technical University for her biomedical engineering studies, she was originally from Wisconsin. But she did end up with a mountain of student loan debt, and something went wrong in the Redfall lab where she was volunteering, giving her telekinetic abilities. Leila’s primary focus is enhancing her vertical mobility, which can be extremely helpful when attempting to reach a variety of mission objectives via unorthodox travel routes.
Each character is easily distinguishable from the others, and it is clear that the entirety of each one’s skill set is required both in and outside of combat for a group of players to succeed in the multiplayer mode. Undeniably, the characters are a significant part of the gameplay that gives the impression of being a classic Arkane Studios game. In games like these, you will frequently be moving quickly from one location to another, as in the case of Dishonored or manipulating time, as in DeathLoop.
The character you create serves as a foundation upon which the skill tree is built. This will give you the freedom to tailor your character even more to your preferred play style, and many of the skills integrate seamlessly with the game’s cooperative component, providing bonuses to reload times, movement speeds, and more for all players who benefit from them.
At the event, the developers explained that players would not be able to completely max out a character’s skill tree and that this means that players will need to invest their resources wisely despite the fact that this kind of thing has become the accepted norm in other games, wherein players can easily reach the top of the entire skill tree in a single run through the game. We anticipate that additional distinct gameplay-changing nodes will be added to the skill tree later on, at higher levels, in response to the possibility that this will dissatisfy many gamers. The ability to shape one’s character throughout the course of the game invariably adds an additional dimension of enjoyment.
However, one of the most appealing aspects of Redfall was unquestionably the variety of weaponry and loot that could be acquired. These are frequently located in hidden caches or on the ground after being dropped by fallen enemies. We saw a variety of firearms, from machine pistols to sniper rifles, but it appears that the best weapons can only be obtained by slaying the game’s toughest enemies. Upon its defeat, we noticed that the Rook dropped a lightning-enhanced, rapid-firing machine pistol that made short work of the vampires.
Both the gunplay and the combat were definitely things that stood out as looking good in the gameplay. The effectiveness of your gun in Redfall can go up or down quite a bit. The assault rifle had the most realistic feel out of all of them because it was extremely close to how you would imagine an assault rifle to feel in a modern first-person shooter like Call of Duty or Battlefield. Although it was more tangible than those Shooters, it still had a hazy, unreal quality to it.
The controls of the other guns, such as the UV Beam and the Stake Launcher, felt slightly agitated, so watching them in action wasn’t quite as enjoyable as it could have been. When it comes to first-person shooter games like this one, which combine elements like gear grinding and leveling up, there is always the possibility that the enemies will have a bullet sponge quality to them. But the enemies seemed like they generally defected quickly.
Both visually and in terms of performance, the game looked fantastic for the art style that it was going for. Games developed by Arkane Studios typically have a look similar to clay that has been molded in 3D, and that look is also present in this game. On the other hand, based on what we’ve seen so far from the gameplay, there were some notable drops in frame rate. Since there are still roughly two months until the game’s expected launch, this issue can be resolved since most games reach their optimal optimization levels at the end of the development cycle. Therefore, we anticipate that this will be resolved.
Seeing the player start over from a faraway checkpoint every time she died was frustrating. Also, some of the dialogue felt dull, which can turn off some players. And while we had fun with the game’s core loop, we can see how it might grow monotonous after a while for other players. Despite many deviations from our expectations, the game ultimately felt like a cross between Far Cry Destiny and Left 4 Dead. New gameplay elements are welcome; their combination yields an exciting new experience.
We obviously needed to play the game before we could determine whether or not it was worthwhile the price tag. However, the game’s inclusion on Xbox Game Pass from launch day makes it an easy decision to give it a shot. Redfall gave the impression of being a game that you could play with your friends while relaxing and having fun at the same time while taking out vampires. Although the gameplay was demonstrated in single-player, the multiplayer mode is where the game will truly thrive.
