Revisiting Redfall after its final update reveals the ghost of the game it wanted to be

I never expected to love Redfall, given how different it was from the full-blooded immersive sims Arkane Studios had established its reputation building, but even I was taken aback by just how shoddy it was when it arrived. Arkane Austin's vampire looter shooter was patently unfinished when it launched in May 2023, riddled with bugs, dogged by terrible AI and poor shooting, and an open world that felt sparse and lifeless and lacking in impetus to explore.

In the wake of Redfall's disastrous launch, Arkane Austin tried to patch the gaping stake holes in its rapidly crumbling body. But it only got so far. A year after Redfall's launch, Microsoft announced it was shutting down Arkane Austin for good.

Microsoft didn't slam the coffin lid shut immediately, however. The publisher gave Arkane just enough time and support to finish Redfall's 1.4 patch. This was touted as a significant step forward for Redfall, introducing several new features, addressing some of the larger issues like enemy AI, and fixing bucketfuls of bugs. On the patch's debut, Redfall's creative director Harvey Smith claimed that, had Redfall originally released with 1.4's additions, it might have succeeded.

At the time, Redfall was too soon in the memory for me to considering returning to it. But now a few years had passed, I figured I'd head back for one last tour of Redfall to see if there's any new life in its toothy corpse. And there is, a little bit, though I think the patch mostly shows promise for what could have been had Microsoft kept Arkane Austin together.

Update 1.4 brings several major additions, but by far the most significant is its "Community Standing" system. This is essentially a second skill tree you progress through by performing community-focussed actions, like rescuing citizens, unlocking Safe Houses, and completing Safe House-related missions.

The bonuses you can gain from Community Standing can be pretty tasty. Early unlocks include improved safehouse defences and extra ammo storage at safehouses, which might sound boring but is very useful. The highest tier unlocks, meanwhile, include a temporary cloaking ability and even the power to revive after death.

But the impetus behind Community Standing is to push you to engage with Redfall's wider world, rather than blasting through the story like a giant Left 4 Dead mission. As all Community Standing bonuses are unlocked through side missions, it encourages you to explore your surroundings in greater detail.

Taken in isolation, this does kind of work. Motivated by the thought of extra goodies, I spent much more of my early hours with Redfall chasing safehouse bonuses. And not just the side missions either. While improving your community standing unlocks new tiers of upgrades, individual abilities are purchased through in-game currency. You can accrue big chunks of cash by tracking down locations hinted at in Sam's tour guide, with a new clue revealed with every safe house you secure.

Chasing these clues really encourage you to pay close attention to Redfall's world. And through this you do begin to appreciate its beauty. It captures the paradoxically idyllic nature of coastal New England perfectly. Redfall is cold and overcast and autumnal, yet this is precisely what makes it inviting. You can imagine wandering along its redbrick avenues and clapboard suburbs before the vampires arrived, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the tang of the sea on your tongue.

Its community is also at once clearly affluent, but that wealth is built on working class foundations. Its gentrified high streets are stone's throw away from the remnants of its historic fishing industry. Nowhere is this better encapsulated than Dead Catch Records, an old fishing warehouse converted into a hip vinyl store.

Redfall clearly wants you to understand and engage with the town and its (largely absent) people, as demonstrated by the voluminous notes, diaries, and event logs scattered about its world. It is, notionally, a game about restoring a community in the face of vampiric incursion, essentially Salem's Lot in reverse. The Community Standing system brings the concept more to the fore, and does, at least partially, succeed in investing you in Redfall as a place.

Unfortunately, the effect of this surgically grafted upgrade system can only go so far. While it helps you appreciate the world Arkane has built, it doesn't change the fact that Redfall is still busted as a shooter. Fighting the game's cultists and Bellweather mercenaries remains totally unsatisfying. The patch's AI fixes provide modest improvements at best, and don't change the fact that shooting basic enemies lacks any inherent satisfaction. Blasting vampires with stake launchers and UV cannons is better, and always was, but not to the point where it can sustain the entire game.

The other problem is that the community Redfall wants you to restore doesn't really exist in any meaningful way. None of the characters you meet in the game have any great depth of personality to them, and the nature of a looter shooter means the conditions are completely wrong for building relationships with NPCs. You can't have long, meaningful exchanges with characters while three of your friends are bouncing around in the background, and even the notes you find feel like the wrong way to deliver a story in this scenario.

This is why I think one of Redfall's biggest mistakes is framing all the playable characters as outsiders to the community. Three of Redfall's playable characters are visiting the town for the first time. Only Layla has some existing relationship with it, and even then, her memory has been partially wiped by the vampire takeover.

I understand why this decision was made. Having your characters learn information alongside the player makes exposition easier. And Redfall does try to build relationships between the four characters. If you play cooperatively, they'll periodically banter with each other, and there is even some mechanical significance to you working together long term. But they don't have any meaningful connection with Redfall itself, and as such they can't share that knowledge with the player. If they had long term memories of Redfall, recognised the places they visited, could relate to the characters they encountered, it would allow Arkane to let them tell the story in the moment rather than scattering notes around the environment like a giant conspiracy wall.

Redfall 1.4 is definitely better than Redfall 1.0, but it still isn't the game it needs to be, or the one Arkane Austin could have made. Nonetheless, I think the update shows that Arkane could have redeemed it in the long run. It wouldn't have taken world by storm, but it might have been good enough to sell a few more copies and spare the studio from Microsoft's stake through the heart.