Salvaging Redfall may require a little undead magic from developer Arkane Austin at this point, as the Bethesda-published co-op vampire game sees its player count collapse on Steam just days after launch. Released on May 2, the latest game from the team behind Dishonored and Prey has already dropped to a staggering low amid numerous launch troubles, with the Xbox and PC Game Pass version of Redfall also suffering.
After reaching a peak at launch of just 6,124 concurrent players, the Redfall player count on Steam has continued to diminish, falling below the 1,000 player mark on May 4. For some context, Arkane Austin’s previous game Prey peaked at 24,594 concurrent players, while the original Dishonored managed 19,938 at release back in 2012 and sister studio Arkane Lyon hit a respectable 20,094 when Deathloop launched. Even fellow co-op game Borderlands 2, now eleven years old, consistently pulls over 1,500 players.
There is one caveat here – the fact that the game was also released on Microsoft’s PC Game Pass service at launch. However, it’s nowhere to be seen among the “most popular” category on the PC Xbox app, and you have to scroll down all the way to spot number 270 on the Microsoft Store’s “most popular games on PC” list to spot it.
As a comparison point, alien FPS game High on Life also released on Steam and Game Pass simultaneously in 2022, yet managed to pull in 11,608 peak players on Steam and topped Minecraft to become the most popular game on the subscription service for a while. The game was also generally well received, while Redfall currently sits at just 30% positive Steam reviews.
I’ve been playing Redfall, and I can’t honestly recommend you do the same right now. There are things about it I like, from its colourful world and characters to the feel of the shooting; but as our Redfall review notes it’s plagued with too many problems. Enemies feel too sparse, and they’re too fragile to justify that decision, while animation glitches have a tendency to turn fights into unintentionally comedic encounters.
Perhaps worst of all, our time in co-op was sprinkled with multiple disconnects – some of which cost us character progress. After being randomly booted out 90 minutes into first playing, my character was reset to level one with all gear lost; I basically had to restart the whole game from scratch. I wouldn’t blame anyone for stepping away after that.
Hopefully Arkane Austin is able to address these issues and get Redfall back on track, because I can see a game I like in there. But right now it’s just too far out of reach, and it appears that many other players feel the same way. It’ll be quite the uphill climb to recovery, but I wish everyone working on it the best of luck.
For those of you pressing on regardless, we’ve got everything you need to know – from the best Redfall weapons to how to unlock all Redfall fast travel locations. If you’re trying to get some friends to join, you can now share PC Game Pass with friends for a while, although you might want to hold off for now.