This is the first Arkane game that I don't enjoy.

Despite the difference in genre from most Arkane titles, I was excited. The trailers made this game look fun. Despite the difference in genre, I'd like to point to how good Prey 2017 was (despite the low sales and poor ending) and what could have been for Arkane Austin's Redfall...

Redfall's open world is empty, and the enemies that populate it are hilariously dumb. Let me touch on both:

I think a good way to describe the open world is with an example. On the north-east side of town, there's a house you can actually enter. It's a normal house, furnished although a large amount of empty space in it. In the backyard, there's a large shed that you can also enter. For about 50 meters around the shed, there is nothing but flat, freshly cut grass. No bushes, flowers, nothing. And inside this large shed? Nothing. An empty, fully textured shed with a pool leaning up against the wall.
The world feels like it's too big for itself, and yet in 3 hours I had been around half of the whole town. I noticed that a truck with cultists had spawned and the disappeared later on, meaning that the empty space is supposed to be filled with things that can change. Which would be neat, if it happened more than once...

Now, I had seen the pre-release footage. I knew enemies ran towards you instead of shooting in an open space. I was hoping that the harder difficulty would make them less dumb, but all the difficulty seems to do is boost the damage done. Now I was also thinking "oh it's an Arkane game, they're meant to be dumb so that I can find fun ways to kill them!" There are so few ways to go about doing that: guns, and your abilities that do pitiful amounts of damage. No throwable props, no stealth take-downs/back-stabs, and environmental damage props maybe every 200 meters.
I also came to notice that groups of enemies would spawn behind me quite often. Anywhere I wasn't looking, in the heat of battle, enemies would spawn in a room I had just cleared. I actually saw them spawn at one point. Maybe I had whipped around too fast or something?

Despite being a different Arkane studio, it's worth making the comparison. DEATHLOOP, despite it's arguably worse optimisation, is a better game. It even shares some of the same RPG gimmicks as Redfall. I wanted to love Redfall, and I want Arkane to prove me wrong and make me buy this again in the future once they do something with it. Given Bethesda's track record of dropping things that don't sell well (they did it to Prey 2017 and DEATHLOOP), I don't see that happening.

Sitting at $101.69 CAD, I cannot in good faith recommend Redfall at all, and during writing this I have been given a refund.

:(

This is the first Arkane game that I don't enjoy. Despite the difference in genre from most Arkane titles, I was excited. The trailers made this game look fun. Despite the difference in genre, I'd like to point to how good Prey 2017 was (despite the low sales and poor ending) and what [i]could have been[/i] for Arkane Austin's Redfall... [b]Redfall's open world is empty, and the enemies that populate it are hilariously dumb.[/b] Let me touch on both: I think a good way to describe the open world is with an example. On the north-east side of town, there's a house you can actually enter. It's a normal house, furnished although a large amount of empty space in it. In the backyard, there's a large shed that you can also enter. For about 50 meters around the shed, there is nothing but flat, freshly cut grass. No bushes, flowers, nothing. And inside this large shed? Nothing. An empty, fully textured shed with a pool leaning up against the wall. [b]The world feels like it's too big for itself, and yet in 3 hours I had been around half of the whole town.[/b] I noticed that a truck with cultists had spawned and the disappeared later on, meaning that the empty space is supposed to be filled with things that can change. Which would be neat, if it happened more than once... Now, I had seen the pre-release footage. I knew enemies ran towards you instead of shooting in an open space. I was hoping that the harder difficulty would make them less dumb, but all the difficulty seems to do is boost the damage done. Now I was also thinking "oh it's an Arkane game, they're meant to be dumb so that I can find fun ways to kill them!" There are so few ways to go about doing that: guns, and your abilities that do pitiful amounts of damage. No throwable props, no stealth take-downs/back-stabs, and environmental damage props maybe every 200 meters. I also came to notice that groups of enemies would spawn behind me quite often. Anywhere I wasn't looking, in the heat of battle, enemies would spawn in a room I had just cleared. I actually saw them spawn at one point. Maybe I had whipped around too fast or something? Despite being a different Arkane studio, it's worth making the comparison. DEATHLOOP, despite it's arguably worse optimisation, is a better game. It even shares some of the same RPG gimmicks as Redfall. I wanted to love Redfall, and I want Arkane to prove me wrong and make me buy this again in the future once they do something with it. Given Bethesda's track record of dropping things that don't sell well (they did it to Prey 2017 and DEATHLOOP), I don't see that happening. Sitting at $101.69 CAD, I cannot in good faith recommend Redfall at all, and during writing this I have been given a refund. :(