Redfall reportedly dealt with unclear direction and staffing issues

Some staff apparently hoped Microsoft would cancel or reboot it

Redfall has been a pretty notable stumble out of the gate for Xbox and Arkane. Today, a new report sheds some light on some of the behind-the-scenes tension that led to Redfall‘s troubled release.

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has published a new report diving into the development of Redfall, which began in 2018. As the article outlines, it came from a goal of chasing “games as a service”, as ZeniMax reportedly urged developers to implement microtransactions.

At Arkane Austin, the team set out to create a multiplayer vampire shooter—Redfall—under co-directors Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare. But as the story outlines, things got muddy.

Staff members told Bloomberg they found the pitch of “multiplayer Arkane game” confusing. This was compounded by shifting references to games like Borderlands and Far Cry, which apparently left departments with varying ideas of what they were creating. As Schreier writes, the tension between single-player and multiplayer design went unresolved.

The studio was also understaffed. Arkane Austin was already small for a live-service production, at less than 100 people. Sources tell Bloomberg that even with additional support from ZeniMax’s Roundhouse Studios and other outsourcing, the gaps couldn’t be filled.

Turnover kicked up. The report states about 70% of the staff that worked on Arkane’s prior project Prey left during Redfall‘s development. And a mixture of lower-than-average salaries and the prospect of moving to Texas reportedly made staffing up difficult.

Things that go bump in the night

Via Bloomberg, some Arkane staff hoped that following the acquisition of ZeniMax and Bethesda, Microsoft might cancel Redfall or allow the studio to reboot it as a single-player game. Instead, Microsoft took a hands-off approach. Xbox head Phil Spencer would later say in an interview following Redfall’s launch that the company “didn’t do a good job early” in engaging with Arkane Austin.

Redfall absolutely fell short of expectations. While I still found a few slivers of things to enjoy in its world, I can’t say I’m really eager to go back anytime soon. For Arkane, I hope this specter doesn’t hang overhead too long.

Eric Van Allen

Senior News Reporter – While Eric’s been writing about games since 2014, he’s been playing them for a lot longer. Usually found grinding RPG battles, digging into an indie gem, or hanging out around the Limsa Aethryte.

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