The Haunted Hoard: Redfall (Xbox Series X)
The small fictional city of Redfall, Massachusetts wasn’t a place of much note until the day the black sun rose and the ocean stood still. With the sun eclipsed and the running water stopped, the hidden vampire underbelly of Redfall was finally free to prey on the populace openly, recruiting civilians into cultists with the promise that anyone who turned over someone else would be exempt from being fed on. It’s a dark set-up, and around the town you’ll find the signs of desperation and fear this terrible situation caused… all while the four playable heroes crack wise and use garden gnomes as stakes. This conflicted tone sadly extends beyond the four protagonists of this first-person shooter, because while at times it feels like it could have been a single-player adventure with a large open city to explore, at others it buckles under its true shape as a cooperative loot-based shooter that can’t quite find the right way to squeeze it into the action.
Redfall’s story begins with a scene speaking of a girl with miracle blood being taken to Redfall to donate it and then we see quickly the vampire takeover, and yet the characters you play as will spend most of the game catching up to putting two and two together. This is partially an absence of information on their part, since they’re mostly standard citizens or people called in to deal with Redfall after the fact, but this is the first of a few issues with Redfall’s story-telling. While the static images used in cutscenes do make them feel a little basic, there are a few major “vampire gods” to take care of and you spend a period of time investigating how they relate to the broader rise of the vampires in Redfall.
Strangely though, in this first-person shooter where you can play solo but also can be joined by three other players who you potentially might not even know, there are long periods where you learn the story by wandering around a location viewing echoes of past events. The devotion to story-telling at least means there is more going on underneath the idea of a vampire takeover, but it feels like it will inevitably make players antsy as they spend long stretches without really doing any meaningful shooting. At the same time, the city of Redfall has a lot of notes and small stories to find that can be more quickly told, but they run into an issue of what material they can draw from. You’ll find a farm where people offer sacrifices to “The Voice in the Trees”… which is obviously a vampire. You find a house where it seems like a serial killer operated… because he was a vampire. When these side quests terminate in facing the vampires they’re tied to they’re often a special stronger vampire at least, although they are also going to be from the game’s small pool of special vampire enemies who you will encounter somewhat regularly either when you’re exploring the open world or doing story missions.
Redfall itself is a richly realized location with many places you can enter, from vividly created maritime museums to movie theaters and lighthouses as well as plenty of standard homes and businesses. The ocean waters receded as they were frozen in place and open up a large area near the already well-realized docks where you can find sunken ships and even whale carcasses. The game does feature a second map as part of the city, Burial Point more rural and having more areas devoted to worship of specific vampire gods, but strangely once you head there you can’t go back to the main part of Redfall for no adequately explained reason, meaning the many optional activities become inaccessible unless you make a new character or restart after finishing the game. The side content can be worth doing though even if it is sometimes predictable or reuses mission concepts. Taking over parts of town and defeating the local ruling vampire is part of progressing the story even if it gets a little formulaic before you’ve done fully done so, mostly because missions tend to boil down to shooting at vampires much of the time save for the rare option to attempt stealth or even once a full on infiltration of a cult if you can manage to approach their camp properly. Side quests and optional buildings though will give you time to level up your character and find new guns, and Redfall does get the basics of these elements right.
The four playable characters, while sometimes undermining what could have been a moody horror shooter with their banter, do have some unique skills to set them apart. Remi De La Rosa for example has a little robot companion she can deploy that can be upgraded to eventually be a bit of a combat companion. Jacob Boyer can turn invisible and deploy a raven to mark enemies for proper sneaky takedowns. Devinder can easily teleport around and use UV lights on enemy vampires. Layla uses telekinetic powers to block bullets or create elevators that can spring people up to high places. As you level up and earn skill points, you’ll find these abilities can be made more useful or potent rather than just getting small boosts. Layla, whose ultimate power is to summon her vampire ex-boyfriend, can make him into a potent attacker who heals her with each hit, and limited use abilities will get multiple charges so you can string together their uses more easily. Helping the town by doing community tasks will also allow for other upgrades that aren’t quite as impactful since they start small but start to add up, like having the food you find around town heal you more, enemies drop more ammo on death, or you can even start defusing traps for free or have a chance you won’t use up a lockpick or hacking kit when using them to get to some of Redfall’s better treasures and more valuable areas.
The guns in Redfall are similarly varied and fill their role fairly well, although they aren’t quite as cleanly managed as the upgrades. Plenty of weapons can be found around town, but their rarity and level will determine if they have extra effects and how hard they’ll hit. This is a mostly random element save for the finds scaling with your own general growth, and while you can have three guns equipped at a time and forty in your pack, it does get cluttered rather often and requires some sorting. Guns can be broken down for resources, and the Community Standing upgrades require such resources to unlock so the currency is not just there to spend on the mostly unnecessary and uninteresting weapon and item vendors. The guns themselves include a mix of standard firearms fare and some more suitable for taking on vampire foes. Pistols, revolvers, shotguns, snipers, and assault rifles all handle rather nicely and having three options you can swap between on the fly means you can afford to throw in the specialized options like the sniper rifle but still be flexible in a close-range fight. Higher rarity versions of these guns can have special effects or twists though like the stun gun pistols or ones that can fry a vampire when normally you need to finish them off with a close range staking. The unique weapons do offer some other options for vampire takedowns, the stake launcher for example often able to kill all but the strongest vampires with one good hit of its very limited ammo. The flare guns can incinerate them instead, and if you can keep a UV beam on a vampire long enough, they’ll be petrified and you can smash them apart for a simple kill.
Cultists with firearms do mean there is a fair bit of standard firefights that are influenced well by Redfall’s wide range of locations, even if sometimes the enemy AI seems to slip up and stand around even when they should know you’re there already. Even in offline mode it can occur, but usually you’ll get mostly competent gunmen to face with the slip-ups amusing enough since they’re rarely robbing you of some incredible battle. The vampires will often be the centerpieces of bigger fights or a more potent wandering threat as you explore the town, and the standard and most common type are unfortunately a touch annoying in design. They are durable and fast which gives them appropriate potency, even facing two at once sometimes a tough skirmish since they can be on you so quickly, but they also can teleport and do so rather often. This unfortunately can turn a tight fight into one with moments of confusion as you try to even find who you’re facing, this perhaps a way to prevent you from unloading with the shotgun or UV beam too easily or a way for your co-op partners to cover you when the vampire teleports out of your vision. It makes most encounters with standard vampires a bit more of a chore though, because rather than worrying about their strength and speed, you’re anticipating that moment where they slow the fight down and drag out and encounter that should have been over sooner.
Special vampire types can be a mixed bag as well. Beyond the explosive Bloodbags and the Watchers who will snipe you if they spot you that serve as mostly enhancements to a pack of foes or an area’s design, there are only really four vampire variants of note. The Angler will try to pull you in to deliver slow heavy damage, this likely meant to incentivize co-op partners freeing you in time so she’s not too bad unless you are playing solo. The Siphon will drain your health as long as it has clear vision on you which can be meddlesome in more open areas, and some of the boss vampires also are given this trick to make killing you much easier. The Shroud is perhaps the most annoying though, as they’ll make a dome of darkness around you while also traveling through the ground, meaning it’s another rather confusing fight possibly meant for others to bail you out rather than you having a good fight if you’re the one afflicted. The Rook is at least an interesting later addition, a big burly vampire that takes a lot of punishment who will appear after you trigger a Rook Storm. Doing certain actions like completing missions or killing special vampires will eventually lead to a storm of red lightning and his appearance, making for a surprise fight with one of the better designed foes. He still can do teleports but not as egregiously and the lightning adds some extra danger on top of things, but generally a lot of vampire fights are going to be a bit awkward compared to more standard gun fights.
Bosses often don’t have the best attacks either, the final fight of the story even a bit underwhelming since it is mostly about some admittedly well-placed vampires rather than the boss herself. Others can at least have gravitas even if they’re doing basic claw swipes or bothersome siphoning, but the extra content outside of true goals can also be a little awkward too. While you clear out vampire claims on the city, there are also periods where they try to take control again, turning a space into a hot zone where vampires are stronger until you enter a strange twisted domain that mixes together elements from around the town. These Vampire Nests are visually interesting at least and do place a lot more vampires together to make progressing through their linear designs a good trial, but the rewards aren’t really there to make it an appealing task and they can only do so much with the limited enemy pool. Like how some of the side quests storytelling is hampered by knowing it’s always going to lead to the same vampires, the nests end up poor repeatable content since after dabbling a bit you’ll see they aren’t really worth the effort seeking out, especially with how all over the place weapon rewards can be. Thanks to some post-release patches Redfall is at least playable offline, but the online elements produced half-baked areas like the Vampire Nests in a poor attempt at longevity when perhaps more love could have gone into expanding the range of what you can face rather than how you face it.
THE VERDICT: The location of Redfall, the actual weapons and abilities, and the sense of growth thanks to smart upgrade systems all could have gone towards a pretty good horror shooter, but much like the spooky soundtrack with trap beats, other elements leak in and pull away from the effective pieces. The vampire enemies are strong but their special powers feel like they’re designed to be annoying or confusing and the main characters undermine the atmosphere with their irreverence when most everything else is presented seriously. Elements made to suit co-op online play like the Vampire Nests don’t have enough to draw on, while standard missions can only go so far with the gunplay despite it often working in small doses.
And so, I give Redfall for Xbox Series X…
An OKAY rating. Redfall isn’t a live-service shooter, but it is built in ways that aim for long term play despite that not feeling like what suits its world or breadth of content. The town of Redfall is a space with a lot to find and it could have been inhabited with more intriguing side quests, but even though they’re sometimes predictable or don’t have huge payoffs, there is still some enjoyment found in entering buildings and uncovering something with some clear direction and thought behind it. Larger setpiece areas can spice up gun fights and the followers of the vampire gods do ensure there is a good bit of standard first-person action to prop the experience up and give your abilities and special guns some usefulness. However, the vampires themselves are probably the weakest part of the implementation as they are stretched too far and designed too much around their roles in multiplayer. Too many special powers sacrifice one player’s enjoyment so others can bail them out, and unlike a game like Warhammer 40,000: Darktide where a partner can bail you out quickly, you still need to hide to avoid the siphon or bumble around in a shroud of darkness until the foe is fully defeated. While the Rook can be a bother in that his appearance can come at a bad time, he is at least perhaps the best designed of the vampire foes, imposing and powerful but not leaning on leaving you confused or irritated by the skills he brings to bear. Most of the tougher vampires are used sparingly enough they don’t become overly obnoxious and you can start to become powerful enough or have tools like the stake launcher to clear those encounters better, but it does make most fights with a foe of note less special when you feel like you’re facing a nuisance rather than a challenge.
A better batch of vampire foes would be the path to making Redfall better regardless of whether it was a solo atmospheric experience or a cooperative vampire killing playground. Redfall is famously known as the game that lead to the sad demise of Arkane Austin, mostly because of its buggy launch and the confused design born from a team used to slower immersive shooters not finding a multiplayer game a good fit. In its current state it is playable with little issue save for the rare crash, but even if this had been the Redfall we received at launch, it probably wouldn’t have done much better. Certain ideas behind the shooting and world design work as well as you’d hope, but the action isn’t clean enough to make it a consistently entertaining experience. It’s in a better shape now, but it would have to change that shape a lot more to rise above being a decent shooter that might be let down by its vampires more than it is helped by them.