Redfall: The Spiritual Successor of 'Left 4 Dead'?

Ashley_Buckwell

Redfall is a new co-op, open-world, FPS game from developer Arkane Studios, the team behind Prey and Dishonored, and publisher Bethesda Softworks. Arkane Studios is well known for building rich, deliberate worlds and for weaving intricate stories around their fascinating creations. This time, instead of the space station of Prey or the industrial city of Dunwall of Dishonored, Arkane has focused its world-building efforts on a small tourist island in the eastern United States.

The story of Redfall game

The game is set in Redfall, Massachusetts, an island town that has been under siege for some time. Vampires have cut the citizens off from the outside world and blocked out the sun. Players must unite with the few remaining survivors on the island to explore the town and learn the mystery behind the vampires’ appearance.

The narrative revolves around Aevum, a corporation obsessed with immortality that has inadvertently unleashed a vampiric plague upon the town. You will pick up story missions from survivors in safe havens around town. While out and about in the open world, side mission opportunities will emerge. As players explore the open world, they must unravel the secrets behind Aevum’s actions and find a way to save Redfall from its dreadful fate.

Arkane Studios is known for its rich single-player experiences, with their games offering deep stories and intricately designed settings. With Redfall, the developers have taken on the task of creating an immersive environment and bringing it to a multiplayer format.

Redfall trailer

An 11-minute Redfall gameplay footage trailer was released at the ​​Xbox Developer Showcase in January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR8GVePOdpY

Initial announcements around Redfall leaned heavily on its multiplayer cooperative mode, in which up to four players can team up to play together; however, the game also includes the option to play solo. Players can choose to play as one of four characters who each have distinct combat abilities, attitudes, and ways of interacting with the world:

• Remi de la Rosa: tank, support, territorial. A naval combat engineer with a robot companion who is useful for distracting enemies.
• Devinder Crousley: controller, disruptor. A cryptozoologist and trapper who invents his own equipment.
• Layla Ellison: agile, shielder, skirmisher. A biomedical science student who developed telekinetic powers during a medical trial and can use them to form a powerful deflecting shield. 
• Jacob Boyer: recon, pusher, stealth. An ex-military sniper with a supernatural secret and a pet raven who can perform reconnaissance.

In multiplayer, players will not be tethered together, meaning that all four characters can explore different parts of the town independently if they wish to. Unfortunately, only the host’s progress is tracked in multiplayer; the rest of the team do not gain completion from finishing story missions. They do get to keep their loot, upgrades, and experience points, though, which means there is still an incentive to assist friends hosting multiplayer games.

As you explore the island, you will find novels’ worth of literature scattered around and sundry random objects to pick up. Redfall has streamlined the process somewhat by having items converted automatically into either money or food. Money is used to purchase consumables back at your safe houses, which also provide you with localized side missions that provide you with loot and experience upon completion. We have not yet been able to determine how food is used in-game. Our best guess is that food offers health benefits; however, it may simply be a cosmetic addition to the game.

The side missions are fairly small, predictable objectives to accomplish near each safe house. They range from clearing out a specific house to flipping switches on a few scattered transmitters and defending a point on the map for a set length of time.

Across the island you will encounter supernatural vampire lairs, known as nests. Vampire nests are extra-dimensional, psychically twisted spaces with vampires scattered liberally about. Nests operate like a smash-and-grab heist, in which you and your party smash through on your way to the nest’s core. Destroying the core opens up several areas filled with shiny loot but also causes the nest to start collapsing, giving you a limited window of time to escape with whatever loot you are able to grab. 

Mechanics

As a story-driven shooter that blends FPS and RPG elements and that features vampires and related supernatural nastiness, Redfall has been likened to the zombie apocalypse FPS Left 4 Dead; however, Arkane was quick to downplay any such association, instead pointing to the game’s open world as evidence that Redfall will have more in common with titles like Far Cry than the popular zombie FPS.

Redfall looks to be more like an action-packed urban fantasy game than a survival horror. Each character is armed with a variety of conventional weapons, unconventional powers, nonlethal crowd-control abilities, and two unique skills that can be combined in co-op for even more creative carnage. Each character also has their own unique ultimate ability that recharges by killing bad guys. A stealth mode is available as part of your tactical arsenal, although the game emphasizes your powerful vampire-slaying abilities over your ability to hide in the shadows.

The armory provides characters with some interesting solutions for solving the town’s vampire problem. In addition to your standard arsenal of shotguns and assault rifles, Redfall features numerous makeshift weapons, like the flare gun, which can start fires or set enemies ablaze, or the UV projector, which operates like a freeze ray against vampires. Another special weapon is the stake launcher, a triple-barreled monstrosity that uses scavenged ammunition from various environmental objects like pool cues or guitars.

Whether solo or with a squad, the main characters are more than prepared to deal with what gets thrown at them.

Redfall release date

Redfall launches May 2, 2023, for PC and Xbox Series X|S and will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one. The game will be playable cross-platform, so players will be able to team up whether their friends are on PC or Xbox.

Redfall is shaping up to be one of the best PC and Xbox games this year, and we are looking forward to its imminent release. We will also be looking out for other highly-anticipated releases coming from Bethesda later this year.