The game is filled with poorly thought out choices and uninspired designs. This is amazing when you consider that this studio, Arkane Austin, previously developed Dishonored and Prey. The real Arkan’s DNA appears sporadically, but by then the damage was already done.

The main problem is that Redfall tries to be a single player and multiplayer game in one, but it fails on both fronts. In essence, Redfall is typical loot shooterwhere she always performs short missions from a secure base in the town of the same name in order to eradicate vampires.

On paper, it’s basically a multiplayer game. You can choose from four different characters, each with their own powers. For example, Jacob can summon a supernatural sniper and scout the area with a raven, while Layla can raise a shield with telekinetic powers. All this is not very extravagant, but so far enough.

However, the shoe pinches with age. In Redfall, completed tasks are credited only to the host. The rest earn weapons, XP and the entire circus, but don’t make any progress in the story. As a result, you are practically forced to play the entire game with the same deck from start to finish. It’s incomprehensible that Arkane didn’t find a solution to this, as they only had to look to their peers for it.

In addition, Redfall has some curious bugs related to the co-op process. For example, there are notes and books that you can read everywhere. If someone in your session has already read a note, it often happens that you can no longer open the note. Then you can find the letter on your list somewhere, but who takes the time for that during a co-op game?

As a single player game, Redfall isn’t much better, because you have a lot of “problems” from the fact that the game is intended to be a multiplayer game. Besides the overwhelming bosses, there are plenty of action-packed action that arise in the multiplayer setting. For example, it’s weird that your character is screaming all sorts of things into the air. One really annoying thing is that you can’t pause the game for a moment. When you’re on the lists, the world goes on and you’re vulnerable. Mainly because no one can take care of you.

Not that it’s a big deal if she dies, because until then the world goes on. So the game does not restart at a previous checkpoint, you are just taken to the nearest spawn point. From there you only need to walk a short distance to tirelessly continue your battle. So you don’t have to be wary of booby traps, for example. If the spigot goes off completely and you die in the explosion, just walk to the location and all the explosives (and with a bit of luck even some enemies) will be cleaned up.

Well, Redfall is Arkane’s first co-op game, so perhaps those design flaws could be forgiven if they showed their true strength. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The studio, which designed the beautiful worlds of Dishonored and Prey, misses the mark this time around with a generic village where there isn’t much to experience.

Only sporadically, you know Arkane really knows how to make a good game, with gorgeous environments that make you stop and look around. But the majority of Redfall consists of public houses with the same furnishings – if you can get inside at all. On top of that, Redfall has an abundance of notes that cause all sorts of problems in co-op, but it’s also not very cool. As if they are busy with ChatGPT to write an empty space.

Redfall’s graphic style is beautiful and – like Arkane’s previous work – has subtle shading effects, but is marred by technical mishaps. As known, the game runs on Xbox Series X exclusively at 30fps, but that would be so far if the framerate was stable. Especially when vampires teleport, the game temporarily changes to a slideshow. In quieter moments when the game is stable, Redfall also suffers from an abundance of pop-ups. The experience is similar on the Series S, only logically at a lower resolution.

Is there nothing positive to report? However, the imaging looks surprisingly good. This is not unimportant, because it is good robber shooter Befitting of it, the game mainly consists of shooting, shooting, and more shooting.

It’s often elusive why a shooting game looks so good. It’s also hard to quite put your finger on it with Redfall. While Redfall isn’t quite as fast and responsive as competitive shooters, anyone who’s played games like Prey or Deathloop lately knows there’s a certain magic to using big guns that feel heavy. These weapons make a real impact. In addition, the arsenal of weapons is well balanced. With a sniper, you can use a completely different strategy than with a shotgun. Like the icing on the cake, there are also more original shooting irons to be found, such as a weapon that shoots wooden pegs.

You can actually carry three weapons alone at the same time, so you can arm yourself well in most situations. However, you also notice here that the whole point of the game is to be a cooperative game, in which everyone chooses different weapons and complements each other. After all, everything is more fun with friends and Redfall is no exception, but let’s not beat around the bush – there are so many better and more fun co-op games out there to enjoy.

Redfall is now available for Xbox Series X and S and PC. For this review, the game has been tested on Xbox Series X and S.