Redfall is More Like Far Cry and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Than Left 4 Dead – Arkane

Developer Arkane’s upcoming game, Redfall, will be closer to something like Far Cry than Left 4 Dead, according to creative director Ricardo Bare and studio director Harvey Smith. Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar, Bare and Smith spoke quite a bit about the upcoming co-op shooter.

“It’s totally understandable for somebody to come to that conclusion,” said Bare, speaking about how players might have come to the conclusion that Redfall resembles Left 4 Dead going by the game’s trailers. “There are four playable characters, you can play together cooperatively, and you’re going against the undead. But, in terms of the way that you play and experience Redfall, it’s not like those games at all. Redfall is more like loading into Far Cry.”

Rather than featuring individual levels like in Left 4 Dead-styled games, Redfall will instead feature an open world that players can go about exploring.

“You’re in a big-ass open world,” says Bare. “We have a home base where you can talk to NPCs and get side-quests. You can go to the mission table and pick up story-driven missions. Or you can not give a shit about any of that and just head outside; pick a direction, start hauling ass, and run into the living-world stuff that we have going on.”

Redfall‘s world is also set to be bigger than what we’ve seen in Arkane’s other games, with a direct comparison being brought up between Redfall and Prey’s Talos I. When compared to other open world games, however, Redfall’s setting will be quite smaller. The game will feature no vehicles, for example, lending itself to boots-on-the-ground gameplay.

“In terms of freedom, there’s what you would expect from other open worlds, but Redfall is an on-foot game – the scale and the pace is a little slowed down in that respect,” says Bare. “We want you creeping through a cornfield at night in the fog, hearing vampires whisper in the dark. Maybe you’ll spot a farmhouse in the distance and sneak over to it, only to find that it’s full of cultists and a few trapped survivors who you can save. That’s the kind of vibe that Redfall has.”

Bringing in other games for the sake of comparison, Smith states that Redfall comes about from Arkane wanting to do something closer to classics like Far Cry 2 and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise.

Redfall is currently in development, and will be coming to PC and Xbox Series X/S. While the game doesn’t yet have an official release date, rumours indicate that we might see it hit store shelves in early May.