Redfall is an absolute catastrophe of a videogame (Review)

this video is brought to you by a friend of the channel steelseries makers of the best keyboards mice and headsets on the market steel series are a long time Channel partner that have hooked us up with a 12 discount on any purchase whenever you use offer code skill up a checkout click below to get in on it or stick around to the end of the video to learn more hello today we will discuss redfall I would like to start by talking about redfall's narrative characterization and storytelling redfall opens with a non-animated cut scene there's just those shifting Stills and a voiceover this is the first time you'll see this but it certainly won't be the last because redfall does not have a single animated cutscene in the entire game all of the cutscene budget clearly went to those trailers we saw when you load up missions you are treated to in-engine cutscenes that are just Stills with the color tint and a voiceover when you complete missions to unlock memory fragments of the villains you're hunting flashback sequences are not animated they have these blue stick figures that just stand there forcing you to just stand there and listen to their boring Exposition thank you for meeting with me I appreciate it at one point I was forced to hunt for a secret movie reel that would reveal the origins of one of the villains after I found it I had to schlep across town to a cinema in order to watch it when I turned it on I was greeted by yet another not an animated cut scene anything this is where it started Amelia I don't think it's too much to ask for some animated cutscenes and a bit of fanfare in a triple A video game from Arcane let's not forget the last time they welcomed you to a video game it looked and sounded like this story but it is threadbare and it is held together by duct tape and chicken wire these non-animated Mission cut scenes and flashbacks I mentioned earlier are the bulk of it I think they provide about as much setup as a strike loading screen from Destiny 1 whether we wanted it or not outside of these the town of redfall is Peppa with literally hundreds of small notes that you can read if you have patience enough to I tried to read some of them at the start but they were too numerous and too boring to continue as the Fallout 76 I do not consider Post-it notes stuck to fridges a substitute for proper storytelling even if Arcane intended for the in-world lore to carry the narrative nothing has been done to make that at all accessible when you discover audio logs on a literal handheld voice recorder the kind specifically designed to be picked up with your hand you cannot pick it up and listen to the audio log as you walk around and do other things you need to stand there and listen to it otherwise you will not get any sense of what is going on in this game redfall has four playable characters they don't have any powers or abilities when you start the game but they suddenly gain them as you level up none of this is explained then and there but brief mentions in cutscenes hint at how you got these abilities hint so all you get though it's fleetingly rare for your character to have two-way dialogue with another character the non-animated mission cinematics are just you talking when you approach an NPC for a side mission they will just talk at you and assume that you agree with their request without you saying anything if you can find it I'd like to have that book back if that's okay please [Music] that's all I have left of her that music there by the way it's a bug it's meant to end when the Cinematic ends but it doesn't it just keeps looping until you leave the base anyway because you don't really interact with any other characters no character you meet feels like an actual character and they are they're just vendors that Arcane has attached a bit of narrative dressing to you could replace each of these people with one of those self-service McDonald's kiosks and little of value would have been lost prey Dishonored and death Loop all had compelling narratives driven by strong characters and excellent AAA level presentation redfall has story ideas but absolutely no narrative no characters and I've played many Indie Games with significantly better presentation than this I would now like to show you how to explode a car in redfall foreign a car in redfall I would now like to talk about controlling red fault with an Xbox controller a little while ago there was some footage released on IGN of a person playing this game that footage was roundly criticized the suggestion being that clearly this IGN person was terrible at playing the game they struggled to aim they pulled out a sniper rifle indoors and generally spent a lot of time just running around and away so the lock ratio and comments on that video were brutal we all owe that person an apology because everything that person did in that video is explainable by redfall's horrendous controls redfall is one of the worst handling Shooters I've played on a console it is again that constantly has you track targets who move quickly and are juking you and teleporting so often and yet it provides almost nothing in the way of aim assist the way the games like Destiny do ah you may be looking at this footage thinking dude what are you doing just just [ __ ] hit it but when you aim down sights you lose a significant portion of your aim speed meaning that it's very difficult for you to stay on target you might say oh you should turn up your ads sensitivity but there is no ads sensitivity there's just overall sensitivity and something called input response preset which I really don't know what it does I tested it I couldn't figure it out but I really recommend against [ __ ] with overall sensitivity due to the major problem with using an Xbox controller and That's The Dead Zone my the dead zone is so bad you really need to press the stick to get it to do anything and by the time it does register it's already going too far making precise adjustments in this game is so hard owing to how controls have been implemented in redfall funnily enough that was a problem in death Loop and much like every other part of redfall the problem returns here only it's worse furthermore and I couldn't believe this you can carry three weapons with you let's say your pistols in slot one you've got an assault rifle and slot 2 and Slot 3 is your shotgun if you want to go from your pistol in slot 1 to your shotgun in slot 3 you always need to cycle through the assault rifle to get there there is no radial dial no dedicated button to switch back rather than forward no long press of the weapon change button to pull out your third weapon like Destiny figured out 10 years ago so remember that IGN person we're like oh they pulled out a sniper rifle indoors what a [ __ ] idiot no I've done exactly the same thing on many occasions because I've been bum rushed by teleporting vampires and I can't hit any of them and I want to pull out a shotgun but I forget which weapon I'm cycling through so I pull out a sniper rifle by mistake and I go [ __ ] it let's just shoot it that is why that IGN footage is so bad IGN person I'm sorry we made fun of you it is not you it was this garbage video game I would now like to show you how to deal with watches scattered throughout the world a watcher vampires who act as menacing searchlights that will alert others to your presence here is an advanced strategy I discovered to avoid the omnipresent gaze I would now like to talk about world design in redfall redfall is one of the most lifeless boring empty copy-pasted environments I've ever experienced in AAA game I did a tour of Universal Studios once and they took me to the back lot full of fake houses and empty streets that is how the town of redfall feels all over here is a parking lot I found with three identical trucks all of which seem to have the exact same oil spill problem underneath them here's a clip of me heading toward a mission objective suddenly realizing that I haven't seen any enemies in what feels like a few minutes here's a sped up clip of me heading towards another mission objective I run for over two minutes and cover nearly half the map of redfall without seeing a single enemy what's going on here is me exploring the docks District it is so empty that I stop and take out a sniper rifle to see if I can see anything at all and I can't if you'd have told me that this was bugged or some sort of alpha build where the enemies haven't been dropped onto the map yet I would have believed you but this is actually what redfall actually feels like most of the time I would now like to talk about immersive Sim elements in redfall the first this is marketing would have you believe that red Fort is an immersive Sim or at least has immersive Sim elements to quote the steam page continuing arcane's Legacy of carefully crafted worlds and immersive Sims redfall brings the Studio's signature gameplay to this story driven action shooter so I want to be really clear right off the top that is a total [ __ ] lie Warren Specter the creator of the Deus Ex series is the father of the immersive Sim as we know it today when he speaks about creating Deus Ex and he's done so on many occasions he tells the story of doors in video games and how back then doors always needed a key maybe one of them needed a red key and another needed a blue key but they all needed a key and the principal design philosophy underpinning Deus Ex and by extension the holomosystem genre is the key should not be the only path forward you should be able to kick that door down trick an NPC into opening it shooting it off its hinges hack it or just walks through it with some magic [ __ ] so it is so unbelievably ironic that basically the only type of puzzle that redfall relies on is find the key you need to find the key to progress main missions side missions unlock safe houses trigger flashbacks whatever it may not be a physical key every time but it is always some version of a key an item that you need to hunt around for and there is no other way to progress the objective other than to find that key this is a good example here I needed to find a key to open a door I could not find this [ __ ] key I looked everywhere I couldn't find it so I'm like all right this is an Arcane game got to be some other way to open that door right wrong I looked around for some sort of panel near the door that I could hack wasn't there I went outside and saw that there was a window and I'm like oh cool that could maybe work no there was no way up there I found a way onto the roof and thought maybe there's a roof access there was no roof access I managed to aggro the NPC hoping that they would open the door and go outside to see what's up they didn't do that eventually I did like 10 more laps of this building and I found the key but that was just the first of many many missions I would do where I was just walking in big groups around a place trying to find a thing what about immersive Sim elements in combat well I mean you can stealth and you can tell how important that is to the game because of the very high quality stealth kill animation that has been implemented here you could shoot things from really far or up close you can explode some canisters that's about it there's no other style of play available to you here that involves relying on interesting abilities or utilizing the environment or turning enemies against each other or anything it's just shoot the enemies with the guns or punch them in the back I'll put it this way I used my environment more creatively in Dead Island 2 than I used it here in redfall because Dead Island 2's enemy and environment design let me do that Dead Island 2 is not meant to be more sophisticated than an Arcane game the whole point of a Dead Island game is to not be sophisticated and the whole point of an Arcane game is to be sophisticated how the hell did we get here yeah I would now like to talk about missions in redfall the missions in redfall fall into three categories main missions side missions and Safe House missions that contribute towards you securing the neighborhood to their credit main missions can be quite varied in their presentation but they're never varied in their gameplay or set pieces without exception they always involve going to a location to find some answers that always involves finding some files or some flashbacks or more keys I'll give you one Mission as an example this mission is that film Real Mission I mentioned earlier my target was a medical facility I first had to go through a car park to kill a bunch of brain dead humans when I was inside I had to kill a bunch of vampires when I got to my destination I was faced with a really challenging puzzle the door was locked but I'm pretty proud of myself for this I saw that there was a hole in the roof so I moved slightly to the right climbed the box and then dropped down into the cage allowing me to unlock the door real and enemies suddenly spawn one of them seems to bug out and just kind of fly away for whatever reason another one gets stuck on some geometry I now need to head to the movie theater and on the way I spot this scene clearly this gentleman is making the most of the vampires ponchon for sucking but probably don't solicit that kind of service in front of a spot like my dude that's my advice I walked through the rest of the town it's basically empty I arrive at the cinema to find an enemy stuck on some geometry I kill him and two other goons outside and before I head in I ready myself this is the final objective in this Mission the cinema is sure to be teaming with bad guys so I make sure that I'm ready and then in I go after doing a bit of looking around I find one enemy just hanging out uh that is the only enemy in this entire movie theater I get to the projector ready to watch the film the projector is broken and I'm told I need to go downstairs to get a replacement bulb and I'm like okay this is it right I mean you know there were no enemies before but the basement is going to be really dangerous because vampires basement it just makes sense so I head down to the basement there's nothing there I grabbed the bulb nothing spawns I leave the basement I head back to the projector I watch the non-animated cut scene and I get the mission complete notification fast travel back to the base and I watch as various textures load in slowly while I stare at this wall I'm not joking when I say that at this point I'm sitting in front of my television at home mouth the gape staring in disbelief that what I just experienced was an actual Mission made by Arcane Studios that was a main mission by the way side missions are basically fetch quests I had one where I had to go to the movie theater again to get a part to repair the popcorn machine back at base similar to the light bulb I just walked in and I grabbed the part I needed and then I fast traveled home that was the whole mission the safe house missions are essentially open world filler they are repeated quests that you'll do on more than one occasion because safe houses will ask you to do the same thing more than once one of them for example is to destroy an effigy which is just a tower being guarded by some goons because enemy AI in this game is so laughable it's more fun to kind of play with the Enemy before you shoot them so that's what I do in these missions and basically in all missions to be honest I would totally skip all of these open world missions except you guessed it you gotta do it to progress the main quest at certain points throughout the campaign your progress is [ __ ] blocked by the need to capture three regions of the map and then later an additional six we've been making fun of this open World style progression gating since old school Far Cry and then Anthem and most recently Gotham Knights it's almost unbelievable that Arcane would do this but after a few hours of redfall nothing really shocked me anymore capturing these regions by the way involves doing one Regional side mission like the one I described earlier and then killing the regional boss the bosses are high-level Marquee challenges they are very hyped up by the voice on the radio here is a mission to kill a original boss from the time that I arrive at the location to the time that the mission ends oh looks up just in case you think I'm cherry picking this clip here are two other Regional bosses enjoy foreign I would now like to talk about enemy design in redfall there are effectively only two enemy types in redfall humans with guns and bulk standard vampires there are some other vampire types but you fight them so infrequently that they may as well not exist at all the bulk standard vampire is a threatening creature but luckily I managed to uncover its one weakness it's not garlic mind you it's walking backwards and to the left slightly if this fails I luckily discovered another anti-vampire technique which I like to call chair foreign now I would like to show you a thrilling combat sequence involving one of the game's human enemies I would now like to demonstrate to you some of the issues I've had with menus and UI in redfall first of all I should make clear that you cannot pause this game even when playing solo if you'd like to open your menu outside a safe house you're doing so risking the possibility that a vampire might suddenly jump out and attack you luckily the chance of that is low given that there are essentially no enemies on the map but hey it's still ridiculous nonetheless the map is useless it does not allow you to see topography whether things are above or below ground it does not provide more detailed maps for things like buildings or houses when you're inside them if this game didn't have a map at all it really wouldn't be that big a loss when you're in your menu sometimes you cannot highlight items in the shop or in your backpack the cursor just refuses to highlight that item sometimes the menu will not close and you will be stuck in there and you will be pressing the button trying to get out and it will make some weird sound until it eventually works finally and this is hard to believe you know how every game these days has that Destiny style cursor that you move around with a you know when using a controller it's kind of annoying but it gets the job done it works Arcane found a way to make it not work they combined the free cursor thing with the snap to menu thing such that the cursor is constantly being pulled to buttons you don't want it to get pulled to it is so unpleasant to use this that you are better off using the d-pad to navigate menus because Arcane found a way to [ __ ] up the cursor I will now talk about my character's skill tree there are two skill nodes that offer me more Health they're also two more that increase the amount of Health that a party member has when I revive them I'm not playing this game Co-op so these skills are useless to me there are a total of six skill nodes devoted to increasing the amount of ammo I can carry for certain weapon types I should note that in my 15 hours with the game I never felt ammo starved despite having put no points into these talents there is a talent that increases the amount of headshot damage that I do against humans typically when I hit a human in the head they die in one hit anyway maybe two if it's like a handgun or an assault rifle shot however I don't do much bonus damage to vampires when I shoot them in the head so I could see this skill note making a lot of sense if it was for vampires but it's totally useless as it is and of course there's two of these nodes one for myself and another that increases headshot damage for party members the smart thing to do with these skill nodes would have been to combine them into one so that it Buffs both my character and my party members plus make it apply to vampire so I can actually get some benefit out of it but yeah obviously that didn't happen there is a node that increases my melee damage it should be noted that the only time you deal melee damage in this game is when you are stealthing at which point you instantly KO any human target you hit so long as you hit them from behind with that very high quality takedown animation the remaining nodes are devoted to my three abilities now first of all you should know that I have nearly finished this game I refuse to finish it because if a developer can't be bothered to finish their game then why should I but still I'm most the way through it all I need to do is some open world [ __ ] and then the last three Final Bosses notice I'm level 12 which is barely enough to unlock a quarter of the available skills in the game there are plenty of upgrades that could have made this game more fun that I will never experience because the skill point economy is so stingy and I assume the game just wants me to keep replaying it or something I don't know the main ability that my character has is a crow or a raven that he summons my character is all about Stealth right and the Raven's primary function at least at the beginning is to Mark targets so that I can see them through walls allowing me to avoid them a bit of stealth here and there a cheeky snipe maybe it allows my character to fulfill the stealth fantasy better that is until you start putting some points into this bird at which point he will not only my Arc targets but attack them putting enemies on alerts so you can no longer stealth because your bird has told everyone that you're there most of the talents in this tree buff the offensive capabilities of the bird so if you want to play stealthily like this character is designed for you either don't use the bird or you make sure that you only point it in places where you know there are no enemies and the point of the bird is to find enemies I cannot fathom what might lead someone to design such an inherently contradictory upgrade pathway for a character and an ability focused on stealth but it speaks to a broader issue which is that character kits are so anemic I have two other abilities or one of them is I can just turn invisible and I have an ultimate which lets me pull out a big sniper rifle for you know a few shots that's it that's my whole kid that's all I've got redfall feels like it took the abilities we might have had on one character in a game like Dishonored or prey and then it just kind of split those across four different classes if you've from them together in Co-op play you might have something approaching a complete experience there is absolutely no way I would subject my friends to a second of this I guess I should briefly talk about weapons and the Rarity system in redfall uh look I'm genuinely tired of talking about this stuff I feel like I've been talking about it for a decade even though I've only been on YouTube for six years uh I'm genuinely tired of seeing games adopt a colored Loot and randomized Stat system for no discernible reason bringing nothing new to the table and without even having a basic understanding of what these systems are for and how they work I mean just as an example I've got a green level 11 pistol here what does it give me 25 more accuracy while moving oh cool nice what's accuracy I don't [ __ ] know is it reticle Bloom is it bullet magnetism is it aim assist is it bullet spread I don't know it's not explained anywhere in the game and it doesn't appear on any stat sheet but the good news is I get 25 more of it with this level 11 Green handgun this so yeah uh look this loot system is just the same as all the others it's totally phoned in it's total garbage it's like a parody at this point because of how Half Baked and phoned in it is and yeah look I I just can't talk about this anymore so look I know this has been a rough video but I don't want you to leave empty-handed I want you to leave with something useful so I would like to finish by providing you a detailed boss guide for the enemy known as The Rook The Rook is a very big deal as you do things in red fault you will anger the vampire gods and when the little bath fills up enough a lightning storm will begin and The Rook will come crashing down here's a formidable foe but if you follow these steps you might just Prevail step one summon the Rook step two stand on something slightly off the ground step 3 shoot The Rook until he dies step four I don't know game crashes or something that's usually what happens when it's time to collect your loot you will notice that I have not spoke state of this game things like frame rate visual glitches stability to be honest they're not great but they are the least of this game's problems Jedi Survivor will get patched and will end up being a very good video game no amount of patching can save redfall it is utterly unsalvageable and that is an important point I really want to make Arcane have said that they plan to make this their most supported game ever please God no just take the L just put up a JPEG on Twitter being like gamedev is hard this one didn't work out as we planned we're moving on to the next thing and devoting all our resources to that I promise you if you say that everyone will cheer but if you say like oh it didn't meet our high quality bar and we have an ambitious content roadmap that no no just walk away from this and focus on the next thing please there's no saving it taking a step back this is obviously a very sad day for Arcane no one but the people involved know how this game ended up the way that it did but obviously there is a story you don't go from prey Moon crash to this that is not explainable by just the pandemic or whatever obviously some serious [ __ ] went down that led to result and I hope that whatever it was is passed so that Arcane can get back to business hopefully making prey too as bad as this is for Arcane and Bethesda I think it's ultimately worse for Microsoft and Xbox this is on them they purchased Bethesda in 2020 that transaction was finalized in 2021 immediately whoever handles internal reviews at Microsoft should have been like we cannot release this game this should have been canceled or rebooted long ago using the existing assets to make a totally different type of game that actually plays to Arcane strengths it's good that Microsoft has a hands-off approach to their Studios but that's only good if those studios are making good things if they aren't then it's on Microsoft to step in and be like no we are shutting this down now redfall is the standard that we might expect from a Microsoft game this is where they have lowered the bar to and with zero AAA exclusives last year and with only two planned for this year redfall and Starfield and with the Activision Blizzard deal looking very wobbly I don't think Xbox has room to let the bar slip this low oh to be honest it's genuinely shaken my faith in the future I really thought they were on to a good thing but if you are willing to put out something this broken and this bad then how can anyone have confidence that you won't do it again I would remind you that the last first party exclusive that Sony released was God of War Ragnarok and the next first party exclusive that Nintendo will release is tears of the Kingdom Microsoft's answer to that this foreign technically redfall is busted from a design perspective it's amateurish it's clearly woefully unfinished it's sold for 70 US dollars or more if you buy the deluxe editions yet it has less polish and presentation than that of 20 Indie Games it was unscrupulously marketed by Bethesda and it's a stain on Microsoft's reputation as a publisher and platform holder it is just an absolute catastrophe of a video game by every single metric and it sits alongside the likes of Fallout 76 and Anthem as one of Gaming's biggest disappointments and cautionary tales funnily enough together with Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein Youngblood redfall completes a tragic Trilogy for Bethesda products of a time in which the publisher pivoted away from the single player experiences that made it great and toward these cynically motivated always online co-op live service experiences I'd hope that Microsoft's purchase of Bethesda would reorient them but yeah I just don't know now and I am definitely very very worried about what we can expect from Starfield think everybody else should be as well guys if you've been around the channel for a while now you'd know that my good friends steal series they've been supporting what we do around here and I'm always proud to have them as a partner because they consistently put out some of the best stuff in each of their chosen categories mice keyboards headsets and more all of it is industry leading and award-winning and if you don't believe me just go look up the reviews are you still a series of my own personal setup I was lucky enough to get my hands on the destiny 2 lightful themed aerox 5 Mouse absolutely love this thing whether it's wired or Wireless super light super comfortable and extremely accurate thanks to steelseries True move air Precision Optical gaming sensor with true one-to-one tracking what's this mouse gliding on why it's the destiny 2 lightfall themed qck prism XL a plus size soft mouse mat with a stylish RGB trim my keyboard is this bad boy the Apex 7 in addition to full RGB and mechanical switches this thing also Sports an OLED smart display and a very comfortable detachable Magnetic wrist it's a keyboard so good that Gamespot awarded it their best gaming keyboard award and yeah I fully agree with that endorsement my favorite PC kid though is undoubtedly this thing the arctis Nova Pro wireless headset this is basically steelseries Flagship product and it's racked up a ton of awards since its release last year the arctis Nova Pro Series headset comes in Playstation Xbox and PC variants but they support multi-system connect allowing you to connect a PC and multiple consoles at the same time so you can just switch between them that's done through this sexy looking dedicated audio controller which not only handles that but also lets you control volume chat mix levels switch audio modes tweak EQ and more it comes in both wired and wireless variants and if you're using the wireless version you can hot swap batteries since the headset comes with two batteries that support up to 22 hours of playback each I got the wireless version you know why because that is the version that has active noise canceling something that almost no other gaming headset on the market has and I absolutely love it putting them on and hearing that sound of silence is just so good every time there are other headsets within the still series range as well a huge variety to meet whatever your needs might be best of all still series are a channel partner which means that your boy can hook you up with a sweet discount sound use offer code skill up a checkout to get 12 off your purchase any item on the storefront 12 off no strings attached there's a link below give yourself the gift of industry-leading audio for the games that you love that skill up a checkout for 12 off anything thanks steelseries for sponsoring the video and thank you for watching it foreign [Music]

Channel: Skill Up

Views: 1,396,790

Keywords: skill up, skill, up, gameplay, games, guide, redfall gameplay, redfall gameplay 4k, redfall review, redfall 30 fps, video games, video games 2023, game review, redfall trailer gameplay, arkane studios, redfall impressions, bethesda softworks, redfall game review, redfall gameplay multiplayer, redfall 30 fps gameplay, redfall news, redfall gameplay pc, vampire games, redfall part 1, redfall walkthrough, redfall bugs, arkane, redfall glitches, redfall reaction

Id: YTpFvYbDuqA

Length: 32min 15sec (1935 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/skaboss217]

5 years in developement

[u/Sierra--117]

Damn. Looks like apologies are in order for the IGN First Look's player.

This game is a bloody mess.

[u/MoosePotato666]

I like listening to SkillUp talk about a game he hated. He always sounds so exasperated and incredulous.

Calling a game from a studio like Arkane "utterly unsalvageable" is pretty rough.

[u/dkb_wow]

"I've nearly finished this game. I refuse to finish it. Because if a developer can't be bothered to finish their game, why should I?"

Excellent quote from the video.

[u/UHOHSTINKY667]

$120 in australia btw

[u/HenryDorsetCase]

Not content with merely dropping the ball, it seems Arkane travelled to the ball factory and burnt it to the ground before the ball was manufactured.

[u/HollywoodAndDid]

This game deserves to be largely criticized, refused, and ultimately, abandoned. The quality of this game is a direct reflection of how these companies view their customers. They expect us to mindlessly buy and play the game while splitting hairs to see the redeemable factors in an unredeemable product. We cannot give them the impression we’re okay with the bar of quality for games lowering any further.

[u/MGAV89]

I thoroughly enjoyed this review and died of laughter a few times. He seemed so over it.

What a piece of shit AAA gaming has become.

[u/thuc753951]

great advice for the boss at the end