Arkane Studios’ employees wanted Microsoft to cancel Redfall, according to Bloomberg

The year 2023 is about to reach its halfway point, and while there are great winners in these first six months, there are other games that cannot boast the same. One of the most disappointing so far is undoubtedly Redfall, with a dismal 56 on Metacritic. It released with numerous problems beyond its technical failures. Today, thanks to an article published by Jason Schreier in Bloomberg, we can understand why Arkane Austin’s game came out the way it did.

A development plagued with problems and little conviction

As can be read in said piece, the low scores that Redfall achieved after reaching the market on May 2 were not surprising at Arkane, mainly due to a lack of personnel and erratic management. Schreier has drawn on the opinion of more than ten people who worked on the game and who, for obvious reasons, have preferred to remain anonymous. According to them, Zenimax was waiting to be acquired, thus focusing their efforts on games as a service that could add value to the company for a possible purchase.

According to these sources, Zenimax placed special emphasis on developers to implement microtransactoins, something that we saw embodied in games such as Fallout, DOOM, and Wolfenstein, and that was in direct conflict with the previous Arkane Austin game, Prey, which despite Being a well-rated titled, it was by no means a sales success. With this in mind, the developers felt “confused” on how to fit the studio’s philosophy into a multiplayer title.

Add to this the fact that, according to these employees who have spoken, the Arkane Austin team was always insufficient in number. With less than 100 employees, they wanted to compete with games developed by hundreds of people -Destiny, Overwatch...-, an insufficiency that even with external support could not be resolved.

As we know, the studio began development of Redfall before Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda and Zenimax was completed, making it so that members of the studio even wished that Microsoft would cancel the game, or just make it a single-player experience.. Far from it, Microsoft allowed Zenimax to operate freely and continue development as it was.

The developers were aware that the game was not up to the task, but the project leaders called for calm, assuring that the “Arkane magic” would do the rest and make Redfall a remarkable game, once the bugs and glitches were eliminated. Such was the surprise of these members of the studio when they saw that this was not the case and that the game had hardly changed.

Meanwhile, from Microsoft they assure that in Arkane Austin they continue working to improve Redfall, for which we hope that it is not too late before it finally enters the well of forgotten games after a failed launch.

Source | Bloomberg