With the likes of Dishonored and Prey under its built, Arkane has established itself as one of the leading developers of immersive sims in the industry, though with its upcoming title Redfall, the studio is taking some interesting risks. Though the game is still supposedly doing a lot of the things that Arkane has always been known for, not only is it emphasizing co-op gameplay, for the first time in the studio’s history, it will also be set in an open world map.
That will bring other gameplay changes, as you might imagine – such as the fact that Redfall is going to be much more of a traditional first person shooter in terms of its combat gameplay loop than any past Arkane title has been. That’s as per creative director Ricardo Bare, who explained in a recent interview with GamesRadar that thanks to the game being “more of a shooter” than past Arkane releases, a lot of the fun in the combat hinges on the unique powers of each individual hero, and syngergizing them in creative ways during encounters.
“While it is true that this is more of a shooter than anything else we’ve ever worked on, a lot of the fun comes from each of the heroes’ powers,” Bare said. “Whether you are synergizing Remy and Jacob together or even if just playing by yourself – using the powers, combining them, and upgrading your character is a lot of fun.”
Interestingly enough, Bare also went on to say that owing to Redfall’s more action-based shooter combat, Arkane sought out assistance from other first party Xbox studios who specialize in the genre – including DOOM developer id Software.
“There’s a certain level of work you have to put into a shooter to just reach the minimum bar, because you’ll inevitably get compared to all the other shooters out there if your guns don’t feel good,” he said. “We got insight from some of our sister studios; the people who worked on DOOM came over and gave us feedback a couple of times, things like that, and we’re pretty happy with the results.”
Redfall is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and expected to launch in the first half of 2023. As per leaks, it is targeting an early May release.
