Inside the Making of Redfall, Xbox’s Latest Misfire (Bloomberg)

[daze23]

Inside the Making of Redfall, Xbox’s Latest Misfire - BNN Bloomberg

After Microsoft paid $7.5 billion for its parent company, Arkane Studios’ Redfall has been blasted by critics and players

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

Since its founding in 1999, Arkane had become known for games called “immersive sims,” single-player experiences in which players strive to overcome obstacles in multiple ways, from combat to stealth maneuvers. Yet from the start, Redfall was pitched to staff as a “multiplayer Arkane game,” which some team members said they found confusing. Whether the sort of gameplay that the studio specialized in would be technically possible in a multiplayer environment was an open question.

Morale at Arkane suffered. Veteran workers who weren’t interested in developing a multiplayer game left in droves. By the end of Redfall’s development, roughly 70% of the Austin staff who had worked on Prey would no longer be at the company, according to people familiar as well as a Bloomberg analysis of LinkedIn and Prey’s credits.

Filling vacancies became a challenge. Within the industry, ZeniMax had a reputation for paying lower than average salaries, and convincing some progressive or moderate video game developers to move to Texas could be difficult due to the state’s conservative social policies. Since Redfall wasn’t yet announced, the studio couldn’t describe its details to prospective employees — a predicament that exacerbated the staffing issues, sources familiar with the process said. Arkane wanted to hire recruits with experience on multiplayer shooters, but the people who applied were by and large looking to work on single-player immersive sims.

Yet during the final frantic months, the remaining Arkane staff found themselves stretched thin and the debut date was pushed back from Halloween of 2022 to early 2023 and then eventually to May 2, 2023. Along the way, Smith and other leaders assured the staff that the game would get exponentially better once the final art was implemented and the bugs were fixed, promising that “Arkane magic” would manifest at the last minute as it had with previous games. (Other developers, such as Electronic Arts Inc.’s BioWare, have been widely criticized for using similar language.)

In the end, Redfall never coalesced. Several people who played the game in 2021 were shocked to see how little ultimately changed. The final glitchy product felt to some critics like a poor compromise between single-player and multiplayer ideas that failed to please fans of either type of game.

should've just made a sequel to Prey

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Before microsoft bought them it was either make a multiplayer game work or they probably would have gotten closed down.

Once microsoft bought them, they didn’t need it to be a multiplayer hit anymore, but by that point the game was too far gone.

Probably good they just released it and got it out of the way, now they can make a game that’s not so desperately influenced by trying to stay afloat.

 

[levitate]

Microsoft.

That is all.

 

[Kingshango]

From the look of it, Redfall should have just been either scrapped/restarted or cancelled outright.

 

[DaSk8D00D]

Before microsoft bought them it was either make a multiplayer game work or they probably would have gotten closed down.

Once microsoft bought them, they didn’t need it to be a multiplayer hit anymore, but by that point the game was too far gone.

Probably good they just released it and got it out of the way, now they can make a game that’s not so desperately influenced by trying to stay afloat.

Don’t know if I’d call it “good” seeing how 70% of staff left during development. Game pretty much tanked that whole branch of Arkane

 

[ALonelyDad]

Microsoft knew that 70% of the team was gone but were still advertising it as a major release should have been honest with the fans and cancelled it rather than trying to get a quick buck

 

[Da King]

shyt was trash from the jump, you tell from the first trailer

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Don’t know if I’d call it “good” seeing how 70% of staff left during development. Game pretty much tanked that whole branch of Arkane

naw lots of the dishonored and prey team still there and worked on deathloop.

Remember this is the perspective of an employee that left, so obviously they’d feel “everybody” wanted to leave.

But the creative leadership is still there and if they were to make prey 2, the people that want to work on it would come work on it.

 

[Mike809]

Morale at Arkane suffered. Veteran workers who weren't interested in developing a multiplayer game left in droves. By the end of Redfall's development, roughly 70% of the Austin staff who had worked on Prey would no longer be at the company, according to people familiar as well as a Bloomberg analysis of LinkedIn and Prey's credits.

70% of prey's original staff gone.

This is pretty much a whole new studio.

 

[ORDER_66]

It's like phil didn't even play the game before signing off on it... jesus christ like aint that your job???!

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

god damn, prey team is basically gone. RIP Arkane Austin

 

[MeachTheMonster]

It's like phil didn't even play the game before signing off on it... jesus christ like aint that your job???!

He said they play tested it and it reviewed much higher.

 

[ORDER_66]

He said they play tested it and it reviewed much higher.

man he was on crack when he did it....

 

[MeachTheMonster]

man he was on crack when he did it....

He didn’t review it.

They have some independent way of doing mock reviews.

 

[Pressure]

This is what the game always was. Should have been scrapped and not attempted to be saved.