After playing Redfall extensively as a solo player and actually quite enjoying it like (not unlike our Rob Zak, who's been forced into a staunch defence of his original high-scoring Redfall review), I decided to experience Massachusetts’ most haunted town with three comrades alongside me. After persuading them that Redfall wasn’t as bad as its critical reception would imply, I was actually astonished to find how much worse it feels as a multiplayer game than a single-player one.
Right from the off, we encountered a game-breaking bug when we all jumped into the game from the very beginning. Only two out of three of us were able to pick up the starter gun, leaving the unarmed third chap unarmed. But whatever, let's just call it an emergent escort mission.
When we arrived at the fire station - the first HQ in the game - I was surprised to find that all the civilians who arrive after you clear the place were already in place instead of cowering behind a door. Our objective marker still wanted us to slay the vampire in the basement, even though the NPCs are meant to be hiding until you do.
Well, down to the basement we went and of course the vampire waiting for us. However, since the game clearly interpreted the Fire Station as a "safe" place, we were unable to draw weapons to fight the creature! He also didn’t seem to be able to damage us at least, so we all sighed in exasperation as Nosferatu swatted at us uselessly.
We ended up circumventing this issue by having everyone advance past the opening portion of the game in single-player before hooking up for multiplayer. On a technical level, everything worked mostly as intended after that, but after playing a couple of hours of multiplayer, I came to a grim conclusion: Redfall just isn’t that fun with others. All the game’s strengths are negated by the chaos of a multiplayer shooter.
One of the aspects I particularly enjoyed about Redfall was its eerie undertones. Hearing the Hollow Man taunt you as you creep around the town’s dark streets, trying to avoid the gaze of vampires as you proceed towards your destination. You might stray off the beaten track and explore a building, reading some creepy lore off a note in the process. This is how, deep down, Redfall wants to be played, slowly and methodically.
As you can imagine, the multiplayer experience is anything but. There is no need to approach anything strategically because the combat is trivially easy with four players. Redfall becomes a cycle of accepting missions, sprinting towards the quest marker, easily dispatching enemies and repeating. There is no time to appreciate the nuance or care that’s been put into fleshing out the sleepy towns of Redfall.
The game also just doesn’t play well as a multiplayer shooter. There is no need to utilise teamwork or figure out combos using those cool skills when holding down the fire button will suffice. The single-player isn’t particularly difficult either, but at least there’s a chance you might die if you’re overwhelmed by enemies. There is no danger to anyone’s life while playing multiplayer.
During my solo playthrough, Redfall grew on me because I found the later missions very interesting, and the lore was starting to reel me in. Anyone playing the game to completion with multiple people likely won’t have these same experiences. You won’t have to creep down hallways, you won’t be keeping an ear out for stray vampires, and you won’t have time to absorb the lore lest you be left behind by your friends. People aren’t going to stop and wait a minute so you can read a book. It just doesn’t happen in multiplayer.
Like our reviewer, I too didn't face any major technical issues in single-player, but it now appears that that was partially due to the single-player experience being more technically sound than the multiplayer.
Apart from the aforementioned game-breaking bug we experienced, the game was just more janky in general. After killing a vampire, multiple people would try and stake it, resulting in several people shaking on the spot. Trying to climb a ladder at the same time as someone else causes you to climb it backwards and then teleports you back to the bottom when the animation ends. Accepting missions is a poorly optimised process, with players accidentally unreadying every time they open up their inventory. All of these minor issues arose during only a couple of hours of gameplay.
The “always online” aspect of Redfall also seems to destabilise the NPC AI. The enemies have to be permanently active to facilitate an always-online open world, and the well-documented strange behaviour of Redfall’s denizens is testament to Arkane’s inexperience with this kind of gig.
Arkane is a single-player studio. Yes, Deathloop has a compelling multiplayer touch, but that worked precisely because it was an unpredictable rogue element in a fundamentally single-player game. Redfall had the potential to be a similar experience, an open-world take on Arkane’s successful formula. Instead, we got a ham-fisted multiplayer looter shooter that isn't fun in multiplayer and compromises on single-player features to accommodate the game’s lesser half.
My advice is to ditch your friends and enjoy Redfall at your own pace, and for Arkane to ditch multiplayer and get back to what they're best at.