I just hope Redfall gets good to great reviews. The online discours will be horrible if this land in the 70’s or lower
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Whatever the case may be, I just hope the wait for the 60fps update isn’t super long.
You would think it will get good reviews, since the previews were very positive with only one or two outliers. I guess it will depend on how it plays on PC and Xbox, we’ve seen PC footage, nothing from Xbox. Hopefully that’s not a red flag. Hopefully the 30fps is locked, and no real glaring issues.
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It’s not DOA , and Arkane games usually have a slow start in getting people to play their games. At least with gamepass it will give many access to their games.
No game can be DOA if you’re debuting day 1 on Gamepass.
It may not have the impact outside of the Xbox community like a traditional AAA exclusive would but it’s certainly going to be the most played Arkane game of all time. Which isn’t hard to do to be fair but still a feat lol.
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Yeah, that’s the beauty of a service like gamepass. Ghostwire version on Xbox is the worst performing version, but it still landed in the top 25 in most played in launch week, and still in the most popular section in gamepass. For better or for worse gamepass gives players the access to games and if there are issues you may look past them since it doesn’t hurt to test out the game. I feel studios like Arkane and others benefit from services like gamepass since many don’t buy their games at launch and usually buy them on deep discount after word of mouth
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Do we know when Redfall reviews drop? Or when codes went out?
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AFAIK codes didn’t go out yet, at least yesterday there were a few reviewers saying this.
For reviews i guess there won’t be a specific embargo like normally, but just the game’s release? and most reviews released by then will be without having completed the game, so we might be getting reviews slowly during the whole week
The thing is, I can actually see a more concerted effort from Xbox with Redfall marketing. There are TV, cinema ads, real-life marketing in subways and partnering with IGN (while hasnt gone well), is a way to boost numbers dramatically. Im not worried about player counts or sales, nobody is expecting an Arkane game to suddenly become the best-selling game, and clearly, Xbox feels the same, launching it between Jedi Survivor and fucking Zelda.
All of the PR blunders have just made the chance of commercial success worse, but again, i dont think Xbox cares about that. Arkane is one of the perfect targets for Game Pass because it should be a slam dunk critical success that combats the “Xbox cant make first party AAA games” narrative and people can play it whenever because Arkane games age like fine wine.
To me, a critical success is 80 aggregate plus. If Redfall doesnt hit that, I will be frustrated that Xbox somehow cant get a W from even Arkane, but ill also be personally upset as ive loved all Arkane’s game and it would be disappointing that their first one under Xbox happens to be their first mediocre game.
80+ for redfall or i cri
Microsoft needs to build new teams like they’ve done with The Initiative. Microsoft has a ton of money and there are jobs needed in the game industry in new locations, work to get some good businesses in new locations. A studio in Boston, a studio in New York, a studio in Philadelphia, a studio in North Carolina.
When you look at the amount of IP that Microsoft owns it’s insane. They need to utilize their preexisting IP and have new studios to take advantage of it. The process will be long, but organic growth is needed if you want to see GOTY contenders.
And Microsoft should build at least one fully remote studio just like Moon Studios. There are people in the game industry who will probably want to exclusively work remote, start up a remote studio to fill in the gaps.
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I hate to bash on Redfall yet again but man you gotta fuck up big time if you can´t guarantee a mode will be in before printing covers.
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They pivoted away from building teams towards acquisitions because of how things with The Initiative. It is much more challenging to build a studio and culture than to absorb one that is already functional.
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I think issue with building studios from scratch it takes 5+ years to get things going, and we know how impatient people can be. However, I think with 23+ studios it won’t hurt to take risks and build a couple of studios in locations that are emerging or have huge potential.
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I think how Playground expanded is a pretty good model to go by, rather than building from the ground up. Start a new ‘studio’, split off a bunch of people from existing established studio and hire to fill gaps in both.
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I reckon Redfall will land around the 84/85 mark. It’s easy to forget that as lauded and highly regarded as Prey is, it’s current average on Opencritic is “only” 81. By no means a bad average review score obviously, but i don’t think it’s an impossible task for Redfall to top that. Minecraft aside, a lot of Microsoft’s recent games have reviewed around the mid 80’s. Pentiment, Age, Hi-Fi Rush, etc.
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Yeah, I feel it’s better to expand existing studios and go from there. We’ve also seen InExile and Undead Labs do something similar by opening up a studio in a new location. I feel there’s too many moving parts when building from the ground up.
Now that I think about are there any publishers building from the ground up these days? I could be wrong, but The Initiative might be the last major studio from a publisher that was built from the ground up.
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NetEase just did it, and a bunch of independent studios. EA recently did it with Ridgeline Games to work on Battlefield campaigns.
I don’t think any first parties have done it recently besides TI. There’s a reason why, too; it’s very expensive and takes a long time, as we’re seeing with TI.
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There are a lot of indepdent folks leaving to build their own studios, but I think the devil is kinda in the details here. I suppose there are various levels to ‘ground up’.
It’ll be interesting to see how these studios pan out though.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t these NetEase studios built by investing in studios that are created beforehand from industry veterans?
I think NetEase owns them, though. How is that any different from TI and Darrell Gallagher?
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Technically no because they actually poached talent directly from Sega/RGG (in the example I can think of)
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