Redfall arrived on Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2023 promising a co-op vampire hunt across a small New England town. It leaves players with a shooter that never finds its footing, scoring 5.9 out of 10 with critics.
Trailer, via Bethesda Softworks.
Redfall, the Town
The setting gives the game its name: a town cut off from the outside world after a vampire experiment goes wrong. Fog rolls over empty streets. Blood-red skies hang over boarded houses. The idea is strong. The execution rarely matches it.
Arkane Austin built its reputation on tightly designed, single-player experiences. Redfall asks that studio to make an open-world shooter built for four players at once. The seams show everywhere, from empty side quests to enemy encounters that feel copied and set down again across the map, again and again, with little to tell one from another.
Four Hunters
Players choose from four heroes, each with a different power set built for co-op play. On paper, the mix should create variety. In practice, most fights come down to spraying bullets at vampires who walk toward you in straight lines until they fall.
The heroes rarely talk to each other in ways that matter. Dialogue exists to explain objectives, not to build character. A player could swap one hero for another and lose little of what makes the story move.
Combat and Its Limits
Shooting lacks weight. Weapons feel alike from one to the next, and few upgrades change how a fight actually plays out. Vampire enemies burn away in showers of red mist, but the spectacle wears thin fast, since most encounters repeat the same pattern of duck, shoot, wait, shoot again.
Quiet approaches exist but rarely reward patience. Guards often notice players through walls or across distances that break the illusion of a lived-in town.
Bugs on Launch
Technical problems defined much of the early conversation around Redfall. Frame rates dip during large battles. Enemies pass through walls and floors that should stop them. Mission markers sometimes fail outright, forcing players to start a save over again to keep moving forward.
None of this is new territory for an open-world shooter at launch. But the frequency of these problems makes Redfall feel unfinished rather than simply rough around the edges. In my own playthrough, a single broken mission trigger cost me an hour of progress.
Playing Alone
Redfall was built with co-op in mind, and it shows. Playing alone means facing content balanced for a squad with no help whatsoever. No AI companions join a lone player. Every fight, every nest, every patrol falls on one set of shoulders.
Without friends alongside, Redfall can feel like an empty town twice over.
The Open World Problem
Side content spreads thin across Redfall’s map: houses to clear out, supplies to gather, small vampire nests to burn down. Little of it connects to a larger story. Most of it feels like filler built to stretch time spent rather than deepen the world around the player.
Comparisons to other open-world shooters are hard to avoid, and Redfall does not hold up well against them. The town itself is small enough that its repetition becomes obvious within a few hours of play.
Story and Stakes
The plot follows the hunters as they try to break the vampire hold over Redfall and figure out how the experiment went wrong in the first place. Story scenes explain the town’s history in broad strokes, but character purpose stays thin throughout the whole game.
Villains lack menace. Major vampires from the story get little time on screen before fights that end quickly and without much spectacle to remember.
Where It Stands
Redfall is not without ideas. Its premise, a town under vampire lockdown, could have supported a memorable shooter. What ships instead is a game held back by technical problems, thin combat and a world that rarely rewards the player for looking closer.
“Redfall’s fog-bound streets promise a monster hunt they never deliver.”
That is my own line, and it sums up the gap between what this game sets up and what it actually provides.
Arkane Austin has made better games.
Redfall isn’t one of them.
Key Facts
– Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PC
– Release year: 2023
– Developer: Arkane Austin
– Publisher: Bethesda
– Player mode: Up to four-player co-op, can be played alone
– Setting: The town of Redfall
– Playable heroes: Four
– Critical score: 5.9/10
Final score: 5.9 of 10
