What you need to know
- Redfall is an upcoming open-world immersive shooter from Arkane Austin.
- Arkane has received pushback for making the game always-online.
- Studio head Harvey Smith confirmed the developers are looking into ways to disable this always-online functionality.
- Redfall is scheduled to launch on May 2, 2023.
While the next big game from Arkane Austin is built to accommodate single-player or co-op, it currently requires players to always be online. That seems like it won't be the case forever though.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Arkane Austin studio head Harvey Smith confirms that the studio has heard the feedback from players who want to be able to go through Redfall offline, and the developers are currently working on removing the requirement when you aren't playing in co-op.
"There are people who live in places where there are outages or their broadband is shitty, or they're competing with their family members, because their mum's streaming a movie or their brother's on another device," Smith said. "And so I think it is a legitimate critique."
Smith went on to explain that it's a lot of work, and there's no timeline right now for when it will happen, but it is something the developers have empathy for and are working to figure out.
According to Smith, the reason Redfall was always-online in the first place is nothing nefarious, as there's no microtransaction store. Instead, it was to allow the developers to quickly gather player feedback and easily alter things for accessibility.
Redfall is currently slated to launch on May 2, 2023. It'll be available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Windows PC, as well as launching day one into Xbox Game Pass. Redfall preorders are currently available, including the Bite Back Edition, which includes two future characters post-launch.
Windows Central's take
While many people have access to consistent, quality internet connections, many others don't. I myself just upgraded to fiber, but before that my internet was prone to going out and needing to be reset every couple of weeks.
That's frustrating, and many others in rural locations have it worse, so I'm glad Arkane Austin is listening and trying to address this, even if it likely won't be done in time for the game's launch in a couple of months. This is Arkane's debut game as an Xbox first-party studio, so listening to feedback and getting things right is extremely important.
