General Gaming News

[Lenny Solidus]

Looks like low GPU utilisation once again, played on a 4070...

[Sly Boots]

Apparently Bethesda is copyright striking any Redfall YT videos so hard they even took themselves down

[Lenny Solidus]

The internet is already preparing for huge disappointment...



I feel really bad for Arkane at this point, they clearly are a top notch extremely creative and gifted developer but being sided with Bethesda has done them so few favours these last few years - I think it's time for them to take a different path.

[Wrathbone]

I’ve no interest in Redfall, but it’s yet another game with terrible performance across the board. Jedi Survivor looks not much different from the first game and runs like a dog on all systems, whereas Redfall looks AND runs like a dog. I don’t understand the reasoning for pushing things like ray tracing or other minor graphical improvements at a severe cost to performance when colloquially it seems like there’s a near universal desire for at least 60fps in games where framerate matters. Personally I’d rather have a game look like Quake 3 and run at 120fps than have ray tracing and run at 30fps.

[Hatredsheart]

[DjchunKfunK]

I feel really bad for Arkane at this point, they clearly are a top notch extremely creative and gifted developer but being sided with Bethesda has done them so few favours these last few years - I think it's time for them to take a different path.

That first picture is clearly a different artistic style.

What do you mean Dave? This is the first proper miss they have had since Dishonored, everything else they have put out has been well received. Just seems Redfall was caught between a number of ports in terms of the game it is trying to be. If anyone is doing Arkane dirty it's the games buying public who mostly ignore their games.

[Wrathbone]

Deathloop was fawned over by journalists but I think the public reception was mediocre at best. And suggesting that the public are to blame for Redfall's problems is a curious take.

[Animalmother]

Arkane make extremely well made games. This looks like a half baked mess and it isn't any of the game playing publics fault. I presume Microsoft went into panic mode as there are utterly fuck all Xbox exclusive AAA games and this got shoved out the gate.

Deathloop looked great but I bounced off it really hard, just didn't appeal to me at all.

[DjchunKfunK]

Deathloop was fawned over by journalists but I think the public reception was mediocre at best. And suggesting that the public are to blame for Redfall's problems is a curious take.

That's not what I was saying. Nowhere do I say gamers are at fault for Redfall. In general the public has not bought Arkane's games despite them all reviewing well, up to now. If the games you keep making are not finding a home with the public at some point there is going to be pressure to try something different. It's on Arkane though if they make a poor game.

[Wrathbone]

I mean... it sounds like you're blaming the public for it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning?

[DjchunKfunK]

I mean... it sounds like you're blaming the public for it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning?

I'm blaming the public for not buying their brilliant games and not making them more successful that is all.

[Lenny Solidus]

https://www.pcgamer.com/redfall-review-in-progress/

A co-op FPS, like Left 4 Dead: There aren't enough enemies or enemy types and the world is big and empty
A singleplayer Fallout-style RPG: Every gun feels the same and half of the skill tree is useless for singleplayer
A survival horror FPS: Redfall's vampires aren't all that scary or dangerous, just loud and annoying
A hero-based FPS: Abilities have long cooldowns and don't meaningfully interact with the world or enemies
A story-focused FPS: The science-gone-wrong narrative is presented like an audiobook because Redfall's characters are barely characters
Redfall is exactly what I worried it would be: a lifeless multiplayer shooter without any of the playful, systemic creativity of a singleplayer Arkane game.

I honestly think that Bethesda/Microsoft have no clue how to properly utilise Arkane as a studio and have not done since Raphael Colantonio who was a huge creative force for them left around the same time Prey released.

[Animalmother]

Played for 2 hours on the Xbox and I'm already done with it. So utterly bland and instantly forgettable in pretty much every aspect. I was taking to my mate about it and he said it's been compared to Fallout 76 and that immediately felt like the perfect description. I very much doubt that Arkane where anywhere near finished with this before it was shoveled out the door.

[Snowy]

I mean... it sounds like you're blaming the public for it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning?

I blaming the public for not buying their brilliant games and not making them more successful that is all.

Bit of a dichotomy with this response, as I have bought a lot of their games. But...I am not sure I would call any of them brilliant. I have liked aspects of them all, but have completed none of them. Dishonoured 1 & 2, Prey and the time-loop one (name escapes me), bought them all and found each diverting but none have really hooked me. Dishonoured got stealth wrong, I got annoyed with trying to creep around but being spotted despite being in the shadows. Took me away from a stealth game (which I generally enjoy) and forced me into melee (which wasn't very enjoyable). I didn't like the baddies in Prey, plus the horror element has never been my bag and tends to drive me away from games - I hate jump-scares. Deathloop (I remembered!) was just dull - I could see how to put it together to achieve the goal but couldn't be bothered, as the gameplay was so lacklustre.

Good games, often very clever games, but not brilliant for this particular customer's taste.

[Lenny Solidus]

As Snowy and I were discussing on Discord just now our own unified problem with Deathloop was the games core structure was so off putting, no doubt it sounded much better on paper but it sure as hell didn't take into account if everyone who would pick it up would actively enjoy having to do things over and over and fucking over to make any kind of discernable progress. Try as I might to get some enjoyment out of said premise I felt forced to abandon it into the seven or eight hour mark for good, I guess it just didn't play out all too well for either of us.

Snowy also just previewed the game for me for a few minutes and honestly there was nothing at all that stood out as particularly underwhelming or in fact not to Arkanes typical approach or standard, not early impressions wise anyhow. It looked and played exactly how I expected it would and if I can get actually get any enjoyment out of it I will certainly try. I have a sneaky suspicion that will manifest itself regardless of the reception because well - its not Deathloop for a start.

edit: I will note that the games graphical settings and shadows even on Epic are both downright abysmal. Reserving total judgement for a few updates and it no doubt dropping in price just as Deathloop did like a brick off a cliff in just a few weeks time.

Addition - Redfall peaked at 6k players on Steam and dropped down to just 2k. Fucking ouch.