'Redfall' review: Good enough for Game Pass | Engadget

Redfall is not fit for public consumption. It may not give you salmonella, but Arkane Austin’s vampire-infused world is unpolished, underpopulated and littered with glitches.

[SullysCigar]

"Good enough for GamePass"

That immortal line that seems to be shaping the future of xbox, looking at it's current trajectory. Gamers, it's so close to 'too late' right now, it's not even funny. PUSH BACK. Let them know this is NOT okay and you will eventually be rewarded with proper, quality games, just like the old days.

They're charging $70-100 for this game at retail. Let that sink in...

[RpgSama]

They'll downplay it, say it's fun with friends, that they have not seen that many bugs themselves and that once they are ironed out 3 years from now when nobody cares about this game anymore, that it will be a good game.

Forgot!, Wait for Starfield is their new wait for E3

[VenomUK]

"Good enough for Game Pass" That headline is what you call damning with faint praise. But it underlines the idea that games released on Game Pass have a lower quality threshold but it is acceptable to subscribers because they are all included 'free' in the subscription. This is something that Microsoft can combat by ensuring it only releases its first-party games when they are at 'retail quality'.

[sinspirit]

Don't forget, releasing the unfinished bad quality product and then constantly saying that they are "listening" to customers with updates like they're so good for doing so, despite letting them down repeatedly in the first place.

[IamTylerDurden1]

Like Crackdown 3 which was dog water.

[WelkinCole]

Remember sea of theives? Feel like ages ago.

MS always had issues with managing studios and partnerships.Seems like nothing has changed

Now likely they will manage Bilzz-Acti studios as well which is nuts

[Umb]

I have a feeling some companies spends more money on marketing and advertising than actually on the product/service itself. Sounds crazy right?!

[The Wood]

Basically, junk food gaming. Tastes and looks good but lacks nutrition

[StarkR3ality]

Yeah I enjoy game pass don't get me wrong, it's incredible value for the 3rd party content it offers. However for people to say that the 1st party stuff hasn't suffered as a result is lying to themselves.

3 years in nearly and they've only had ONE good 1st party game in Forza horizon 5. That shit is unacceptable and at this point they don't justify existing as a platform. If they don't have a miracle of a second half of a generation, because that's where we are, nearly at the halfway point of this console generation! I don't think we will see another Xbox after this one.

[InUrFoxHole]

It's not a result of gamepass. Its piss poor devs and management

[EvertonFC]

To make matters worse not every gamer likes racing games so that's makes it zero really

[Vengeance1138]

Or they can just come on over to PlayStation, we got every top tier title they can shake a stick at. We got em covered ;)

[Aloymetal]

Nah, I ain't jumping ship just yet, Phil said the games are coming and I trust him...

[neutralgamer1992]

Aloy

They been saying say since the last few years of Xbox 360. Wait game is what they sell best and it’s sad because this game should have been delayed indefinitely

Why rush any games is beyond me especially since we as gamers don’t mind waiting. I will not even waste my fiber internet on this game even though I have unlimited data. This game needed at least 9-12 more months of development

[jznrpg]

@Aloymetal
I played my 360 a good amount because it came out a year earlier than PS3.
I got the PS3 and it had some decent games early but not a lot so I kept playing my 360 more.

By the time the Kinect came out my Xbox was collecting dust and I had so many PS3 games to play that I only turned on my Xbox to play Halo with my son.

We did buy Fable 3 it was co-op too, but was so boring that we quit. We made ourselves keep playing after we wanted to quit after the first couple hours to see if it got better but it didn’t.

How do you make me and my son who is 11 or 12 not have fun playing games together? That was almost impossible

That was the last game we bought together on 360 and I have never bought an Xbox again .
I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything in over 10 years.
But I continued to play PS3 until the very end with Last of Us and Puppeteer.
PS4 had a very good generation of games. PS5 started out good and has a lot in the pipeline as always. With PS I know they will deliver.

I really thought they didn’t make any games for the Xbox One generation because they were building up the library to try and make a huge comeback for this generation and saved all the games they were making.
Instead the “big” games they have released is Halo and Redfall in similar states.
Do yourself a favor and buy a used PS5 and play all of the PS4 and PS5 games that you can that aren’t on Xbox and compare them to Xbox games (there is a lot)
You will see why I never went back to Xbox and many haven’t either if you are honest with yourself.

[Vengeance1138]

lol ummm if people really couldn't tell, Aloymetal was being sarcastic...

[meanmallard]

All I'm going to say is that the games Sony commissioned from Bethesda were both really good, finished and polished.

[EazyC]

Yes -- the most frustrating one to me is the "well I'm having a blast!" and "quit having fun!" memes on the likes of Reddit.

It's that kind of attitude that almost makes you want to side with the major corporations serving up this slop. People should set better standards for themselves.

[-Foxtrot]

It really is

I’ve already seen people use it as an excuse

Sea of Thieves, Halo, Grounded, Redfall…it’s all about releasing shit and updating it later

Then you have the “come back” stories about the “under dog” how the game is great now when really it’s still average it’s just better than release because it was such a low f***** bar. It’s an illusion that people really fall for.

Do people really want them to think they can get away with it. Come on guys be better.

[crazyCoconuts]

I think you nailed it. Release whatever you got and spend years refining it. They probably want to turn this into Destiny for vampires. They know they won't sell this for $70 right now.

[neutralgamer1992]

Sully

It all started with sea of thieves and than came halo infinite. The big blockbuster games are suffering with game pass and that has to be fixed. Starfield better not launch like this. Microsoft shouldn’t be allowed to buy any more studios until they prove they can manage their talent

Where is the crowd of fellow Xbox cult fans who were saying this game will be GOTY

[Elda]

They are somewhere crying but at the same time in denial praising the game to themselves.

[Chevalier]

Hopefully Avowed and Fable are good. Also hope Everwild isn't some vaporware

[Viljong]

Thats harsh theres plenty of good recent games in the gamepass like atomic hearth, wolong, hifi rush and such.

[StarkR3ality]

Its great for 3rd party and yes HiFi rush was a breath of fresh air, but it ain't selling consoles. I don't think Xbox will exist as a hardware platform next generation and will purely focus on game pass on PC and getting it on other platforms eg. Nintendo's new platform and the next steam deck etc.

[SullysCigar]

Nowhere in my comment did I imply there are no good games on GamePass. You just missed the point entirely. HiFi Rush is a great afternoon, but it also wasn't priced at $70. The others were multiplatform and NOT made for GamePass, nor were they first party.

The point is, if people are happy to waste their time on games like Redfall that flop out of the oven half-baked and give you salmonella, they're sending a message that's acceptable. Then the cycle continues and we all suffer.

[ChasterMies]

IGN does us all a disservice with this headline. If a game is not good, then it is not “good enough” for anything. What IGN should say is “Redfall is one of the Game Pass games” or “Game Pass subscribers can fill up their hard drives with Redfall”.

[dumahim]

"They're charging $70-100 for this game at retail."

Doesn't matter to Game Pass fanatics.

[IamTylerDurden1]

Terrible mindset. Gamepass has been used to excuse bad games for years. Even in some reviews over the years you hear the same bs "it's not great but hey it ain't bad for being free on Gamepass" or some semblance of that.

No. Each game should be reviewed and considered as the independent software it is and the judging should be purely merit based.

Enough Gamepass pass. Do ppl say "good enough for PS+" ? No.

[WelkinCole]

Exactly what I have been saying as well and my biggest fear. Its the netflix effect. Filler shit just for the sake of having somehting

If this is the furture of gaming instead of games like TLOU or Witcher 3 then I do not want any part of it

[EvertonFC]

It's literally last place again for Xbox this gen they've gone with there strategy and it's gonna bite them in the ass.
Playstation hasn't even got going yet with there 1st party mid to late gen swan songs.

[HyperMoused]

i was informed on the internet its free, as in gamepass which is not free when i pointed this out, i was told i didnt have any money.

[italiangamer]

Another masterpiece from the green camp 💀

[shammgod]

This is not good. This was supposed to be a great game for the Xbox. Shame, cause I usually like what this studio does. What’s going on over there at MS

[Ninver]

Too much money, not enough creative talent.

[WelkinCole]

Nah they have the talent. They just don't have proper managers/business leaders that know when to step in to help and when to stay the fuck away and let the talent do their jobs.

[frostypants]

They can't help but interfere and undermine the efforts of the studios they acquire. Nobody will ever fess up to it, but it's a pattern at this point: MS buys promising studio, and studio's quality either goes down the toilet or the studio itself does. It can't just be coincidence. The only constant is MS.

They need to learn to facilitate these studios, not screw up their inner workings.

[ChasterMies]

I never expected Redfall to be a great game. I figured it would be a forgettable co-op game that might catch fire for a couple of months before folks got bored and moved onto the next Game Pass or f2p game. But I didn’t think Redfall would be such a dumpster fire. Microsoft Studios shouldn’t be the next EA, where franchises go to die.

[Lightning77]

That's just it MS granted them a year delay and Arkane still couldn't deliver on a good experience. I guess MS could of delayed it and another few 3 or 4 months but Starfield releases around that time.

I remember they had posts last year doing more and more hires im talking scrambling to fill spots in order to make faster progress to the game. Also not a good sign.

If the game doesn't hit engagement, sales gamepass growth MS will shake up the studio. Maybe not as a bad as 343 buy they will make some negative changes and that could will impact the studios future output.

[EvertonFC]

They put a single egg into a basket but unfortunately it hatched prematurely

[porkChop]

From what I've played I believe there genuinely is a good game there but it's totally covered by a serious lack of polish. There are a lot of weird bugs and design quirks, features and animations that aren't there but should be, etc. This could have been avoided with another 6-8 months of development, though they already had an extra year and support from another studio. Arkane needs to just hunker down and get to work on fixing the game. Don't worry about DLC or any of that shit, just make the game work as intended.

[Chocoburger]

Microsoft has 'infinite money', but can't afford to properly polish their own games. This is self-sabotage, and I don't understand why.

No actually I do understand. The executives at Xbox are not gamers, and don't care about gaming.

[RpgSama]

They do not care because they know that Xbox players with GP will take any 5/10 game and make it an 8/10 because free, the low expectations of constant handouts.

[EazyC]

Cheap and easy revenue model, so long as you have morons out there that eat this up without a second thought. I think every art medium has a flavour of this going on nowadays.

[jjb1981]

I really have enjoyed Arkanes games. I feel totally let down by this. I'm still going to give this a try but somewhere down the line when it is on some 80% Off Sale on Steam or Epic games. Hopefully by then they'll have matchmaking and most of the bugs ironed out.

[frostypants]

The saving grace here is you can probably trust Arkane to stay on this until it's right. Still sucks that it released like this though, but also unlikely to be entirely their fault.

[LoveSpuds]

It's not Arkane's decision as to whether to 'make it right' any longer, that will be down to MS as its their money. I am not sure that NS will continue to throw money at this for much longer personally.

[talocaca]

That headline is exactly what's wrong with Microsoft right now.

GamePass has become a dumpster. This game will take years of updates before being anything worth playing but it's "free".

[Vengeance1138]

GamePass, force feeding you shovelware since 2017.

[anast]

Game Pass demands cheap janky games. No big studio will put much effort in games for this service. They will all look like mobile ports soon.

[artgamer]

"Good enough for Game Pass" coin it.

[jjb1981]

You're onto something here. This will be a new gaming term.

[jznrpg]

Ugh. Hate that title.

Good enough for gamepass means quality doesn’t matter.

I want games that are worth buying at full price and I’m willing to pay for the best games.

It’s my hobby not a welfare service.

They are saying take what we give you and like it.

This is what I figured would happen because you get what you pay for.
That how the world works.

[Ninver]

Someone told me this was a goty contender. Trying to track that person down and advise them to lay off the pipe.

[frostypants]

Probably one of a couple usual suspects.

[Futureshark]

"Good enough for Gamepass"

The new tagline for every Xbox exclusive going forward.

Do I sense a new meme forming?

[Destiny1080]

its all about the no's, except for review no's

[Sonic1881]

This review and title is comical 😂😂😂

[Hofstaderman]

XBOX owners should not put up with this. Vote with your wallet guys, even if you have to boycott them until they get the picture. A console is FOR games not services and TV content. Sony better be taking note of this, we do not accept complacency otherwise we will move on to where the games are currently at. On that note, we need a state of play showcasing unannounced titles.

[S2Killinit]

Damn that savage

[Father__Merrin]

Keep gamepass for revolving indies and older AAA games. Why can't they go back to being Xbox. Spencer needs firing immediately

[garos82]

now thats the kind of endorsements microsoft want to get people to sign up to gamepass :)

[neomahi]

That's gotta hurt. Maybe PlayStation is lucky they didn't get this one. They've had a really solid lineup without any lemons. As an exclusive, this may not have looked good, but then maybe Sony wouldn't have rushed Arkane to get it out. Maybe they would have allowed for more time to polish. But, coming from an Xbox studio in the midst of everything looking bleak and Microsoft wondering what's going on with their Xbox division, well, it just doesn't look good. Xbox Game Pass Subscribers will download and play it, because there's nothing else to play, but they may not get very far into it, and Microsoft's not gonna sell very many copies, but what do you expect from an exclusive game where the service you push is to play games for "free" and nobody buys it. That's essentially what you get.

This is the future of Call of Duty, but they don't just list Call of Duty, they list World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. Whoopity do, to that I could care less. However, what does concern me is they're getting Blizzards content which means they'll own and will destroy: Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. That's not good. They're also gonna take PlayStation's mascot Crash Bandicoot. It's bad enough Crash was the defining character that stood outside "Nintendo's" HQ and announced their worst nightmare had arrived only to eventually end up, like Sonic, on Nintendo, but what's worse is that Microsoft will own it and do nothing with it.

If you thought StarCraft Ghost was a possibility, it's definitely gone now. Microsoft wants all Nintendo's stuff too. They got Perfect Dark, which they're doing nothing with (it's in development hell that can't lockdown a game director) and now they want 007 Goldeneye. Seriously. Microsoft can't do it themself, they want what everyone else has. PlayStation didn't even do that. While Insomniac ended up eventually coming back, PlayStation has left Sunset Overdrive on the back burner to, instead, focus on Marvel properties, though they've still kept Ratchet and Clank (thankfully) going.

But, yeah, this still doesn't go well for Microsoft, so far anyway, we'll see what IGN, Gamespot, and Digital Foundry say as reporting in so far are all small-fry review users so, we'll see, but if this is a sign of things to come, you blew it Microsoft, this taints your record, seeing as have you have so few exclusives anyway, AND, it really should make Xbots all the more nervous for Starfield

[GoodGuy09]

Man...MS just can't get a W with Xbox and it's sad. Welp, will Starfield suffer the same fate?

[Sonic1881]

Maybe. Starfield and Redfall was supposed to come out last year and they both got delayed. Starfield last gameplay didn't look so good at least the shooting mechanic looked a bit off

[isarai]

And that's why you'll never get games at the same caliber as PS or Nintendo

[SoulWarrior]

Good enough for gamepass... sigh.

Awful mindset.

[GamingSinceForever]

Some of my favorite XBOX advocates have been M.I.A this morning.

[Traecy]

Haven't seen any of those advocates on any Redfall review articles posted on this site.

[TheEnigma313]

"Good enough for Game Pass" lets you know what kind of game this is.

[ModsDoBetter]

“Good enough for Game Pass“

Based on the reviews and footage I’ve seen today, I absolutely don’t even think this is the case. It should not have been released in this state.

This shows that Microsoft Xbox division clearly don’t care for their first party titles now that the games are going straight to GamePass.

I genuinely think we are witnessing the beginning of the end for Xbox. After an above average yet multi-platform Minecraft: Legends, the travesty that is Redfall and its launch state, they have Starfield and Forza for 2023, which may end up being delayed yet again. One good game in Hi-Fi Rush is not enough to excuse disappointment after disappointment.

Just waiting to hear the news of how the game sold poorly, a pre-prepared statement talking about the state of the game with promises of fixes with a roadmap to boot, followed by eventual cutbacks at Arkane.

[SeTTriP]

"Good enough for gamepass"

Oofff!!!! That stings.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Microsoft is looking more and more like the guy who plays with the infinite money glitch but dies over and over because he doesn't actually know what he's doing. The worst part is all the work that the otherwise talented developers put in is going to waste.

[Ristul]

"Good enough for gamepass"

Let this meme be semented from this day forth. It's funny because it's true 😂

[tombfan]

AAAAAAND this will be the line that MS probably will search for, not a great game, but an OK game for GamePass.

[YourMommySpoils]

Ha, this heading made me laugh. Never rely on Xbox as usual.

[jjb1981]

I wish Phil would just bring us a new Fable game.

[sadraiden]

E3 2021. Redfall is announced with a cinematic trailer. The trailer is underwhelming, bland, and devoid of personality. Everyone is excited for Redfall. May 2023. Redfall is released. Reviewers are calling it bland, underwhelming and devoid of personality. Also bugs. Everyone is dogpiling on Redfall.

[jjb1981]

I remember they made an announcement in May 2022 that they were going to delay Redfail. I can't imagine what it must have been like if they had released it a year ago.