Redfall is Arkane's newest game, a co-op shooter all about slaying vampires—it's a new step for the studio which typically focuses on rich singleplayer immersive sims, but it assures fans that the solo experience is just as important in Redfall as ever.
"We put an inordinate amount of work into making the singleplayer feel right," Arkane Austin studio director Harvey Smith told IGN. "It was very important to us that we allow you to play the game alone. So you can pick your way along very slowly, play at your own pace, observe things at a distance, plan, formulate, harvest resources, do all those things that you probably like doing in an Arkane game."
Redfall supports up to four players, with comparisons being drawn to Left 4 Dead—only the zombies have been swapped out for vampires—but stealth and player choice when it comes to approaching levels are still key parts of Redfalls design, not unlike Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop.
"What works for us is hearing, sight, distance, view cones, and all that nerdy stuff we love," Smith said. "Because it means as I move my way, as I go across a parking lot, scale a little wall across the road, and make my way onto the roof of a building to rewire the antenna for this little side mission that I've got going, I'm triangulating. Along the way, stealth is useful for that. It helps you avoid encounters, so you can get to where you intend to go."
However, while stealth is part of Redfall's mechanics, "this is not a stealth game." It's a way to explore, not to win fights, marking a key shift from Dishonored and Deathloop. Nonetheless, the choice that often comes with stealth in Arkane's games is still present.
"We have quality and design checklists where we're like, 'there's got to be at least three ways in,'" Redfall co-creative director Ricardo Bare said. "And they have to entail different trade-offs for the player. This entrance is not guarded, but it's locked, it has security systems. This entrance is open, but there are guards patrolling. There's a rooftop entrance. And there's another way through the sewer."
Redfall looks to be another Arkane game through and through, regardless of the major shift in its approach by implementing co-op, and you can try it out sometime in the next 12 months.