Arkane sure knows how to make an immersive sim; with the pedigree of the Dishonored series, Prey, and Deathloop under the studio’s belt, the idea of a rural American town filled with vampires dressed up as a four-player multiplayer game definitely paints an interesting picture. With very little concrete information on the shooter out there, it’s always good to hear more straight from the source, and multiple developers have spoken about Arkane in a new interview.
With no Redfall release date nailed down, apart from the news that Redfall will release before Starfield, which was recently reconfirmed for the first half of 2023, any new information about the co-op vampire-killing simulator is absolutely welcome.
Luckily for us, Arkane creative director Ricardo Bare and studio director Harvey Smith spoke with GamesRadar about Redfall’s aspirational mixing with Arkane’s immersive sim experience, and it’s very interesting.
There have been a lot of comparisons to Valve’s Left 4 Dead, but as Bare explains, the open-world game approach makes Redfall more like Ubisoft’s Far Cry. “It’s totally understandable for somebody to come to that conclusion. There are four playable characters, you can play together cooperatively, and you’re going against the undead. But, in terms of the way that you play and experience Redfall, it’s not like those games at all. Redfall is more like loading into Far Cry.”
I completely understand why hearing the words Far Cry might have some of you running for the hills, but Arkane seems to be pulling on that thread in an effort to explain how it can use its experience of building big open-ended levels, and transplant that into a slightly different player experience.
“What if we took all of our experience – and our creative values – and put it into an open world?” Smith adds. Redfall will also have no cars, so the open-world shouldn’t just see you running over vampires in open fields, as you’ll instead be going at a slower, more deliberate pace.
“In terms of freedom, there’s what you would expect from other open worlds, but Redfall is an on-foot game,” Bae explains to GamesRadar. “The scale and the pace is a little slowed down in that respect. We want you creeping through a cornfield at night in the fog, hearing vampires whisper in the dark. Maybe you’ll spot a farmhouse in the distance and sneak over to it, only to find that it’s full of cultists and a few trapped survivors who you can save. That’s the kind of vibe that Redfall has.”
So, you should think of Redfall as more of a Far Cry-styled open-world game minus the cars than Arkane’s version of Left 4 Dead. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t expect either, as just because a game pulls inspiration from others in its genre doesn’t mean it’ll turn out exactly like that. I’d go in expecting the signature Arkane touch, some FPS game shooting of vampires, and not too much else, let the game itself fill in those blanks.
Fellow Arkane game Dishonored 2 is free at the moment for Amazon Prime subscribers if you want one of the best immersive sims on the market. If you want to get back on the immersive sim train, we’ve put together a list of the best stealth games, which more often than not use a lot of the same elements when designing levels and mechanics.
