Redfall launched last week and it's probably fair to say it didn't exactly receive the warmest welcome. Expectations were high since Arkane rarely releases anything that isn't a well-loved hit, but in the eyes of most, Redfall is a rare miss for the studio. It seems the team behind it was expecting backlash, to an extent, as players who make it to the end of Redfall's story will find a thank you message from Arkane detailing just how difficult it has been to make this game happen.
Highlighted by Idle Sloth, the thank you from Arkane appears during Redfall's credits, and it includes a number of reasons explaining why Redfall's road to launch was a bumpy one. “In order to bring Redfall to life, we endured so much together – the pandemic, global upheaval, and a once in a century ice storm that shut down Austin, TX for a couple of weeks,” the message reads.
“The final result is a testament to the people who labored for years on the game, obsessing over every aspect.” It's also interesting to note the opening paragraph of the message which mentions Arkane's attempts to stick to what it's known for when creating Redfall (innovative game mechanics and terrific world-building) while also incorporating elements it doesn't have a lot of experience with, like four-player co-op and an open world mission structure.
Whether the thank you was put there through fear the game wouldn't be received well or not, it doesn't appear to have made Redfall players more sympathetic to Arkane's efforts. The replies to the post above mostly label the message as a list of excuses, highlighting that the studio faced the same hurdles as most other triple-A studios during development.
It certainly doesn't help that Redfall launched so soon after Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Also developed through the pandemic, Respawn has been praised for managing to launch a game on the scale of Survivor just three years after Fallen Order. That said, Survivor has had its fair share of issues at launch too, especially the PC version.
Despite Redfall's rough reviews and declining Steam numbers, the number of people playing Arkane's vampire game on Game Pass paints a different picture. Despite what has been said about Redfall, it seems those with a subscription who have the ability to check it out for no additional cost have gone ahead and played it anyway. A huge win for the Redfall team as it seems unlikely many who have experienced it through Game Pass would have been willing to pay $70 for it.