Redfall - Hands-On Preview

Recently, I was given the opportunity to go hands-on with a pre-release build of Arkane Austin’s upcoming game, Redfall. Redfall is an open-world, co-op FPS featuring four different hero characters, each with their own special abilities. And don’t worry, I’ll talk more about my hands-on time on this week’s upcoming episode of DLC.

I was dropped into the world already a little leveled up (past the game’s introduction and all that), and plopped into a Firehouse safehouse area, where I could talk to other NPCs on my team, upgrade gear, etc, and also go explore the game’s open world and take on vampires and cultists as I saw fit. There was a larger “big bad” I could go attempt to kill, but I didn’t. I didn’t even try to, because that isn’t what interested me. I was more interested in exploring the map, seeing what fun and exciting moments I could stumble into, and trying to get a feel for how the game’s open-world missions and objectives would play out.

And mostly, they played out in a pretty dang fun way! In the build we were playing, we could only play as one character, Jacob, a sniper type with powers to mark enemies and cloak himself, along with a super sniper “ultimate” power. And while snipers aren’t usually my go-to character, the good news was I could use any gun I wanted. Guns aren’t limited to character types, just abilities. We were also only allowed to play solo. No co-op in the demo, despite the game supporting full crossplay between Xbox, Steam, and Epic Games Store when it launches.

Even in the open-world moments (taking down a sub-boss, clearing out a safe house, destroying a vampire nest), Arkane’s “play your way” approach and interesting level design was evident. Furthermore, there seemed to be places on the map that would be more or less accessible depending on which character I was playing as, potentially adding some nice variety for groups and when replaying areas of the game later.

And speaking of groups, I think that is where Redfall will likely shine the brightest. Four players poking and exploring an Arkane map, while battling vampires along the way seems like it could bring out the best in the levels. Creativity + some unpredictability should = lots of fun. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun playing solo, buuuuuut I think I would’ve had more fun in a group.

For the average run-of-the-mill enemy encounters, the game features vampires and cultists. From what I played, the cultists were just regular humans that could be shot and killed, while the vampires couldn’t be killed with bullets, but instead required a stake to the heart. You’d shoot a vampire, get them to a stun state and then rush in for the staking. Very fun. It’d pull you in close to encounters and change how you might otherwise take on a group of enemies.

Not everything was perfect, however. There were some noticeable frame rate drops and stutters during my time with the game, and some light pop in too. Granted, I was playing a pre-release build of the game, so hopefully that stuff gets ironed out before release. And while the main characters and many of the vampire enemies looked great, several of the human NPCs I encountered looked less than fantastic, even in the game’s stylized approach.

I’ve really enjoyed many of Arkane’s games and I think Redfall will be another good time, now I just need to find my co-op crew!