In case you haven't heard, Redfall hasn't been fantastically received. It's gotten some love on this site and I find it to be mid more than bad, but nonetheless, it's beyond underwhelming given all the pre-release hype, and its shortcomings have been widely mocked. Even my partner despises it, and I may not have even had the game on my radar without his undying love for literally any other Arkane piece.
However, prior to playing the game, I hadn't read through the reviews. All I knew about going in was its FPS fiasco a few weeks back, my partner's aforementioned adoration of Arkane, and a quick peek at our Robert Zak's high review score for the game. I didn't have much reason to expect anything that wasn't good, and there were certainly some specific pulls — namely the vampires. The cover art for the game has a lovely Count Orlok lookalike, something that had me pretty hyped. There's nothing particularly wrong with the seductive cape-and-widow's-peak look that has become a pop culture staple for vampires, but I always respect giving such iconic monsters a classic throwback.
The opening really got me hyped too, and it showed just how these creatures of the night had utterly dominated Redfall. A police officer offering a tied-up man as a sacrifice, a mother falling asleep and her kids seeing the monsters at the door, the sun blocked by a permanent eclipse — it all adds up to creating the sense that these things are unstoppable, floating instead of walking as if they consider themselves gods. I was so excited for what was in store, especially when I was about to head to the basement in the game's tutorial and fight the first vampire. The game even popped up with a dialog box warning me "you're about to fight your first vampire", emphasizing the significance of the event.
It was only when I managed to slay said vampire in seconds without taking a hit that I began to realize a fundamental truth about Redfall: the gameplay cannot back up the lore of these vampires.
Redfall's nosferatu massive share the common trait of generally being a bit trivial to fight. They'll generally run right at you while you shoot them, either teleporting away before they get a chance to strike or taking all of the world's possible knockback. After a few shots, they'll stand stock still and expose their heart for you to stake, killing them instantly. If they actually get a chance to make a move before frantically teleporting about the place like an enderman exposed to water, they can be countered with a simple side-step or by playing ring-around-the-rosie with a car or other obstacle. This will completely block them, causing the creature to stand still and swipe at the obstacle. This is a game in which vampires run the show, yet they're far less threatening than the average cultist.
Now, I don't wanna oversell the cultists either — they have stormtrooper-quality aim turned up to eleven and seem to think my face and the ceiling are equally valuable targets in a combat situation — but at least their ranged attacks pose some sort of threat even if they're just as likely to stand still and cosplay Swiss cheese.
Looks also sadly don't help matters, even though there's a lot to praise about how vampires float and how generally appealing their designs are. The issue is that some specific animations are beyond goofy. That aforementioned staring? They'll gaze at you with an utterly gormless expression. Vampires running towards you? It looks like Senator Armstrong charging at Raiden after he gets souped-up on nanomachines. Mixed with their utterly laughable incompetence, they all look like memes just waiting to happen.
The biggest thing holding these guys back might just be the bugs, however. You've probably seen some pretty shocking examples online of vampires beating up the nearest wall as the player looks on, and rest assured I have my own story to tell. I first encountered the Siphon variant at the shipyard, and at first I thought I was in for a good fight. The siphon has three shields orbiting it, requiring you to shoot between them to hit the guy. It also has an attack that drains blood from you at a distance, one I couldn't figure out how to counter. Unfortunately for any challenge I might've experienced, the Siphon decided that fighting me was its number-two priority, coming in just behind ramming itself into a nearby wall. Some way into fighting it, the thing started teleporting away, floating into the wall, and repeating ad infinitum. As you can guess, the threats it was still uttering at me fell on deaf ears.
Redfall is the poster child for a disappointing game. Not necessarily a bad one; just disappointing. When grunt cultists are more of a threat than the baddies on the cover art, I have to ask how this town — where guns and ammo can be found in every car boot and backpack — lost to these clowns.