IGN has disclosed that before Microsoft halted all development and shut down its creator, there was an ongoing plan for supporting the now abandoned game Redfall.
IGN has learned that Arkane Austin was developing DLC and updates for the game, expecting to release them until recently.
This indicates that Microsoft’s recent decision to shut down the developer and Tango Gameworks, the studio behind Hi-Fi Rush, was unexpected and surprising to the employees.
IGN has been informed that the now canceled Hero Pass, which would have introduced two new characters to the vampire co-op shooter, was planned to be released this Halloween. If it had been released, the Hero Pass would have come out a year-and-a-half after Redfall’s problematic launch, at a time when fewer people were playing the game.
IGN contacted representatives for Xbox and Bethesda, who chose not to comment. In an email to staff on May 7, Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, attributed the reductions to a “reshuffling of titles and resources.” IGN confirmed that the email also stated Redfall’s servers would stay online.
There are now new worries that the always-online game Redfall might become unplayable if Microsoft decides to turn off its servers. Last March, before the release of Redfall, Arkane Austin announced they were fixing the game’s always-online requirement, which had initially received negative feedback.
In an interview with Eurogamer, game director Harvey Smith said: “We listen. And we have already started work to address this in the future.
We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into — I’m not supposed to promise anything — but we’re looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future.”
However, the offline mode never came to be. IGN reports that the planned May update for Redfall was supposed to introduce offline play, which would have helped keep the game viable in the future. Sadly, this update will never be released.
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— Arkane Studios (@ArkaneStudios) May 7, 2024
Last year, Pete Hines, who was then the head of publishing at Bethesda Softworks, told players that Arkane would continue supporting Redfall. He expressed his belief that it would become a popular game on Game Pass, even 10 years in the future.
Despite criticism at launch for dull missions, uninteresting combat, weak enemy AI, poor performance, numerous bugs, and the always-online requirement, it took Arkane more than a month to release the first major patch for Redfall.
Then, it took five months for the Xbox Series X version of Redfall to support 60 frames per second. The following month, Arkane disappointed fans again when the third patch focused on adding a new sniper rifle rather than the much-requested offline mode. After this, there were no further updates.
In the 4/10 review, IGN said: “Redfall is a bafflingly bad time across the board. Plagued with bland missions, boneheaded enemies, and repeated technical problems, Redfall simply wasn’t ready for daylight in this state.”
Microsoft has not yet publicly commented on its recent layoffs, which reportedly surprised many Bethesda employees. The email Matt Booty sent to staff contained several mistakes, such as wrong names for studios and DLC.
Additionally, a blog post by Xbox today about the new Fire Vapor Special Edition Controller originally featured the slogan “Feel the Burn Today,” which was later removed. There has also been criticism about Microsoft announcing the shutdown of the Japanese studio Tango Gameworks late at night in Japan.
In a series of tweets, the head of Arkane Lyon, Dinga Bakaba, criticized the layoffs, describing them as “absolutely terrible.” He also reminded executives, “Video games are part of the entertainment and cultural industry. Your role as a corporation is to support your artists and entertainers and help them create value for you.”
Redfall’s game director, Harvey Smith, also spoke out, saying, “I just want to express how much I love everyone at Arkane Austin. We’ve experienced both great and tough times together. Today’s news is devastating for all of us. Your skills will see you through, and I will do whatever I can to assist.”
What we think?
I think Redfall will disappear quietly. Few players were interested even with planned updates and new characters. The game had many problems from the start, like boring missions and technical issues.
Now, with no new updates and the studio closed, it seems unlikely that Redfall will recover. Players might move on to other games. It’s sad, but sometimes games don’t work out, and Redfall looks like one of those.
