A perfectly fine format, but not one that convinces as a living world. Perhaps, eight iterations down the line, a Redfall open world could be comparably lively as it stands, the act of moving through the town more readily recalls Outbreak, the freeroaming Call of Duty Zombies mode in which you and three pals turn houses upside down for loot before converging on a combat objective. But there’s nothing as substantial as Far Cry’s outposts hidden between Redfall’s seaside homes and cornfields, nor any of Ubisoft’s wildlife or road traffic. Yes, Redfall is structured around hubs and safehouses from which you accept missions and plot a course across the map, taking in side activities and picking off patrols as you go. It’s a baffling omission, depriving both stealth and shootouts of the punctuation you’ll find in Dishonored and Deathloop, or in Far Cry - one of Redfall’s primary inspirations.įar Cry might have been the logical comparison for Arkane to draw, but perhaps not a favourable one. While you can insta-kill a human enemy by thwacking them in the small of the back, the resulting thud is less than satisfying - and you won’t be plunging onto an unaware guard from a great height, nor sinking a blade into the throat of a staggered opponent. Yet a key piece is missing from Arkane’s combat puzzle: the takedown. As the undead flit about - vanishing from between your crosshairs and reappearing somewhere over your shoulder - you’re never allowed to forget the unique form of threat you’re facing. Stakes can be attached to certain classes of gun as bayonets, or propelled at high velocity from launchers, and double as silenced weapons to take out cultists in one hit. Thankfully, the shooting is just as chunky and impactful as it was in Deathloop, and Arkane turns its vampires into a engaging problem to be solved in the chaos - either by exposing them to UV rays before shattering them with a playful punch, or by puncturing their hearts with a sharp piece of wood. Far more often, you’ll be engaged in straightforward bust-ups with mobs and minibosses in the Borderlands mode.Ĭan the pomp complement the circumstance? Some offer moral dilemmas and hostage situations with consequences. It’s true that Redfall’s central story quests tend to offer options you wouldn’t find in, say, a Dead Island: combining traversal powers to scale the roof of a cinema from an alleyway divining the location of an old smuggling tunnel which grants access to a farmhouse basement. A typical Redfall mission is much less malleable. Developers don’t like to let you see them sweat, but here the strain - of learning new things while pulling together something polished and playable - is barely concealed.Ī typical Dishonored level is riddled with potential pathways towards targets that can be tackled in multiple ways - with a knife in the back, a supernatural sword fight, or something more elaborate and authored. Redfall is the studio’s first-ever attempt at constantly online multiplayer, as well as its inaugural move away from dense, self-contained levels to create a continuous, large-scale space. The reasons for that are, I suspect, embedded in the previous paragraph: ‘co-op’ and ‘open world’. It’s the first missable Arkane game in an age. But it’s a noticeable step down from the high perch occupied by Corvo and Colt. Don’t get me wrong: Redfall is a good open world FPS you can enjoy for dozens of hours with friends. While it resembles its predecessors - osciliating between stealth and shooting, its domestic spaces filled with scattered stories to piece together - the results are soggier than usual. You may not want a Fabergé egg in your house, but you have to admire the artistry. They’ve sometimes been divisive, asking a lot of their players and nudging them towards unfamiliar playstyles, but even the studio’s detractors would concede these games were exquisitely designed and beautifully presented. Here's what you can expect in Redfall, less than its Arkane siblings.įor many years now, Arkane has delivered an unbroken series of brave and inspired first-person action games, from 2012’s Dishonored to 2021’s Deathloop.
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