Redfall isn't Arkane's Left 4 Dead – it's the studio's spin on Far Cry

Big in 2023: We speak with Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare to dive deep into Redfall, one of the most anticipated Xbox Series X exclusives of the year.

[Asplundh]

Looking better and better.

[lelo2play]

Wasn't interested in the game at first. From the videos, it looked similar to Left 4 Dead.

If it's spin on Far Cry, then I'm interested in the game. Need more gameplay videos to make up my mind...

[Leeroyw]

I don't have an xbox or pc but this description sounds pretty good. I love both arkane and the older school far cry games.

[Lightning77]

Meaty interview. Here some new Redfall info:

- Redfall offers an unfathomably larger open-world space than Prey's Talos I
- home base where you can talk to NPCs, get side-quests. Or you can "haul ass" and do things on your own and discover the dynamic world. The director describe the game as "big ass open world"
- story-driven missions & freeroam
- gunplay crucial, hired FPS specialists, id Software helped.

- two distinct districts: a sprawling urban area, rural designed area
- Many of these aspects of Redfall aren't predefined activities, but part of the simulated space
- Day/night changes the feel of the game radically
- dynamic dialogue system of players talking to each other. There's heavy dialogue between the players characters and even have a buff called the "trust buff" the more they play each other the more your characters get to know each other.

The teams inspiration came from playing Diablo, Borderlands, left 4 Dead and Far Cry. In fact the game is heavily inspired by Far Cry in the open world sense.

[Sonic1881]

So basically it's a Far Cry and left 4 Dead clone 🤔

[Crows90]

I'm actually thinking it'll be closer to destiny in design. Hub area with npc missions etc and big open world to do those things in. Screams destiny to me.

[onisama]

Let me guess... Your a PS fanboy?

[Sonic1881]

What does PS have to do with my comment 🤔 I'll answer your question. I'm a PC gamer first

[Lightning77]

What? No How can you have a clone of different 2 different genres that are inspired in the game. The game is uniquely it's own. That's like saying Destiny is a Borderlands and Halo clone? The inspiration is there but it's own game entirely. Same with this game.

@crows Screams any open world game to me. You don't here people saying The Division is like Destiny when they first announced it.

[Gaming4Life1981]

That all sounds good and I hope this game turns out to be great.

[porkChop]

Seems more like Borderlands but in a Far Cry style open world. I didn't care for Redfall at first but every time they talk about it or show it I get more interested.

[banger88]

I still can't find any info on whether this game has an offline mode or not. The last thing I want to see is articles saying "Redfall requires a constant connection even for single player".

[SurgicalMenace]

Don't see what everyone's issue is with being "always" online.

[senorfartcushion]

Power cuts and stuff

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Your connection has one hiccup during single-player campaign and "You've been kicked out of the game. Please check your Internet connection."

[CrimsonWing69]

I do hear ya, I feel like when I game I’m “always online”, but I think what rubs people the wrong way is the possibility if they don’t have a network connection then they can’t play. In all my life of playing on a console that connects to the internet I have never had a network issue, but that doesn’t mean there’s not someone out there that it hasn’t happened to.

[SurgicalMenace]

I mean, it's happened to me before but I just went to do something else until the network came back up. I love gaming but there are several alternatives that can be enjoyed as well.

[MadLad]

That's what I got from it the more I saw.
But of course, you have those still claiming all Gamepass is going to offer is linear, repetitive GaaS titles.

Still waiting on that after a good few years now.

[onisama]

I m very happy with announced day1 and gamepass games coming this year... But xbox got lot of haters
Athomic heart day 1
Personas 3 & 4 day 1 (on xbox perspective )
Monstrr hunter arise day 1
Starfield day 1
Redfall day 1
Wo long day 1
Silksong day 1
Lies p day 1
Age of empire games on xbox
Forza motpsport day 1
Stalker 2 day 1
Minecraft legends day 1
And many other games like replaced ark2.....

What not to like?

[Gaming4Life1981]

Good point and their will be way more games than that, Gamepass will be crazy this year. I just hope all of the exclusives are too notch.

[Flawlessmic]

2022 was trash bro, Ms deserved every bit of criticism it's gets until not only it has a good year but multiple good years in a row and shows some goddam consistency!!!

You know exactly why xbox gets the hate it does.

2023 is hopefully the start of non stop good games every year.

But yea stop playing dumb 2022 from Ms was hands down one of the worst years iv ever seen from a console dev, my xsx was a dust collector all last year.

Anyways bring on 2023

[SurgicalMenace]

Aren't most of those games day one on PS, too?

[MadLad]

@surgical

Half their list won't be, actually. The other half will still be day one for those with the service. Unless the same can be said for some tier of PlayStation Plus, not sure what the point of your comment is. He just listed Gamepass games he was excited for.

[SurgicalMenace]

No, he said "day one" after them, I was just asserting the same point that most of those games will be day one for PS supporters as well. We just don't need a service to get them day one. That's the only difference.

[onisama]

@surgicalmenace
I said day1 on gamepass... Which ones did you see of tese announced on ps plus?

[OneLove]

Arkane hasn't disappointed yet. We'll see.

[jznrpg]

They definitely disappointed this time

[S2Killinit]

So its a far cry game.

[MadLad]

Not really. The article is more trying to inform people that it's less a Left 4 Dead clone that people keep saying it is, and more an open sandbox from one of the few developers who still know how to make great immersive sims.

[onisama]

with the way you look at things...god of war is a devil my cry game and horizon is a zelda game and unchearted is a tomb raider game

[sadraiden]

I dunno. Kinda looks like Dark Souls to me.

Is everyone tired of the constant elevator pitching of games like "It's like Mario meets Quake" yet?

[Huey_My_D_Long]

Arkane is the only studio owned by Bethesda Imma miss on PS.
Their best developers more so than even the internal Bethesda team that made Skyrim...I said it.

[FlavorLav01]

Arkane has been pretty awesome and I’d add Machine Games and IDsoftware too titles too, the rest of Bethesda teams I don’t care for either though

[SinisterKieran]

isn't it linear and not open world?

[Destiny1080]

the levels are cool enough but a bit generic, gun action & enemies are cool but i didn't see any environmental damage and not a lot of enemies on screen at once but that can change with the next trailer, the chit chat is definitely aimed at your average xbox gamer, the game overall looks solid enough and who knows the 4 player might be a lot of fun if they get the difficulty and atmosphere right

[LoveSpuds]

Quite why a studio with the pedigree of Arcane would want to suggest their games is similar to Far Cry is beyond me.

As someone who adored the Dishonoured titles and loved Prey, I must confess that I didn't like Deathloop much at all and I couldn't be less interested in Redfall if I tried. There are plenty of studios making these kinds of games, I personally wish Arcane was sticking with titles like Dishonoured and Prey.

[TheColbertinator]

Keep it then. Far Cry bores me to death.

[Demetrius]

Definitely time to get a ps5/series X this year the games are finally rollin in mane :)

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I keep forgetting about this game, it looks pretty cool from the previous trailers, so I hope they do a PC demo in the future so that I can try it out.

[jznrpg]

I don’t care for Far Cry personally . This game just doesn’t do anything for me but I could be wrong but I’m usually right with what I like .

[onisama]

on this comment section :
_Arkane is an xbox studio now lets hate on them for no reason

[CBaoth]

nope. Looking forward to trying Redfall. It's free right? But let's not kid ourselves. Deathloop was straight trash, worst money I spent on a game the year it launched. Reviews were agenda driven and definitely not merit based. Same with Tokyo and Psychonauts 2, although at least those were decent

[LoveSpuds]

Or it might be that fans liked Arcane because they focused on single player titles that were awesome and are sorry to see the move in the direction of multi-player titles. That's my personal feelings on Redfall, I hope Redfall turns out great, hopefully better than Deathloop for sure, but I just don't feel as hyped for thus as I would if it were akin to Dishonoured or the criminally under appreciated Prey.

[GhostScholar]

A lot of people scoff at that comparison but it sort of made me more excited for it. I had no interest in a left 4 dead clone.

[jznrpg]

This game is pure garbage

[SimpleSlave]

More like the studio's spin of Death. Oof! How the mighty has fallen...