Redfall, the next game coming from Arkane Austin (Dishonored, Prey), received the gameplay unveiling at the recent Xbox & Bethesda Game Showcase event.
The footage showed a group of players tackling a campaign mission. Redfall is, after all, the first Arkane game to support drop-in, drop-out cooperative multiplayer. Some studio fans have worried this would mean a departure from Arkane’s DNA, but in a video interview with IGN, Game Director Harvey Smith reassured everyone that it’ll be like a classic Arkane experience when played solo.
Redfall is made so you can play through the campaign solo and you don’t have bots with you for the other characters, you’re just purely solo. You pick Layla, Jacob, Devinder, or Remi, and you’re alone as you go through the world.
It’s not a super hardcore stealth game but stealth is a factor. The AI is based on awareness with sight and sound, so you can use stealth to get an advantage on people or to bypass a conflict or whatever to avoid fighting if you’re wounded or weak. The single player just goes through the campaign and there’s no special mode for multiplayer or any of that. You can play with other people, one other person, two other people, three other people, for a total of four, but solo is very much a classic Arkane experience.
Smith also shared additional details on the gameplay mechanics of Redfall.
- Character progression is persistent, while campaign progression only happens for the session’s host
- Players choose a specific character for any given campaign and cannot swap, nor can they respec skills
- It is possible for each player to use the same character during a co-op session
- There is no level scaling, so if a level three character joins the match of a level forty character it will have an extremely hard time, but it will also gain experience more quickly
- Characters have three active powers that can be upgraded in different ways, some passive ones, and a set of skills that are common across all characters
- The open world map is split into two separate districts: Downtown and Rural Redfall
- Weapons have levels and random perks/traits
- Vampires can drop the so-called Remnant items, which are effectively magic items that can affect various stats
- Vampire nets are fairly procedural, replayable, optional spaces that can deliver interesting loot.
Redfall is targeting an early 2023 release on PC and Xbox Series S|X.
