Despite launching several years ago, it took PC Game Pass until late February of this year to make its way to my neck of the woods. As someone who compulsively collects digital video games, I immediately jumped at the chance of adding (or, well, renting) hundreds of new titles to my constantly growing library of games that I’ll probably never play. After subscribing but not playing anything during the first month, I eventually decided to try some of the games on offer.
Unfortunately, one of them ended up being to be Redfall.
Now, I don’t claim to have prophetic powers, but from the moment I saw the reveal trailer years ago I instantly knew that Redfall was going to be a terrible game. Of course, there was always a chance I could be wrong, so I had to actually play it for myself to confirm if I was indeed a prophet with the power to see into the future or just someone who's always cynical for no reason. I only played about an hour of Redfall, but that was an hour too much - an hour I’m never going to get back.
While some of my colleagues insist that Redfall is actually a pretty good game (a stance they've since doubled down on), I found my hour with it to be a joyless and painful experience. Appropriately enough, this vampire game sucks, surprising no one save for a few pure souls who can always see the good in all things. Sadly, all this jaded cynic was able to see here is an unpolished turd marketed as a premium product. Everything ranging from the braindead AI and laughable character models to the last-gen visuals and the technical issues that have become a staple of modern PC gaming seamlessly blends together to create an abomination of a game with no redeemable qualities.
I’m sure some might say that I’m being too harsh on Redfall, and that an hour of playtime isn’t nearly enough to judge a game. Perhaps. But when you’ve been gaming for decades and have kept a close eye on everything that’s been going on in the industry during all this time, you can pretty much tell whether a game is going to be good or bad within minutes. Besides, if a game makes a lousy first impression it’s hardly the player’s fault for not wanting to waste more time with it on the off chance that it’s going to get better later on.
The only positive thing I can say about Redfall is that it made me understand why so many people love PC Game Pass. Imagine saving up $70 of your hard-earned money to buy a cool new video game from Steam and mistakenly buying Redfall instead. Oh, no! Well, everybody’s dunking on it, but you kinda like vampires so you might as well give it a shot, right? The game doesn’t make a great first impression, but you keep playing because you're quite literally invested in it. Thing is, it doesn't get better so you want a refund. What’s that? You played Redfall for two hours and four minutes? Tough luck buddy, you’re no longer eligible for a Steam refund. 70 bucks down the drain.
Even if you can somehow get past all its problems and manage to find something resembling a decent game buried in there, the price of a game like Redfall simply doesn’t make sense. Ever since publishers have brazenly started to charge an extra 10 bucks for "AAA" games, the quality of said games has only gotten worse. I can think of very few $70 games that actually deserve that price tag.
The only positive thing I can say about Redfall is that it made me understand why so many people love PC Game Pass.
All of that is to say that I’m glad Game Pass is becoming more widely available and is finally reaching regions where video games are prohibitively expensive. Thanks to the service, more gamers can now avoid disasters like Redfall (or play them risk-free) and instead spend their hard-earned cash on any number of other things that are actually worth buying. Naturally, you still need to spend a bit of money on the subscription, and you don't technically own those games, but at this point that’s still a vastly better alternative than paying full price for a new game, especially at launch.
Personally, I’m still sticking to Steam as my main gaming platform and mostly using Game Pass for trying new games that I might end up buying on Steam later. Provided you can stand the Xbox App. The launcher isn’t as bad as the Epic Games Store, but doesn’t come anywhere near Steam in terms of functionality. I’m not a huge fan of the app itself, but I definitely can’t argue with the value proposition. If it can save you from buying even one atrocious game like Redfall, the monthly subscription is well worth it.