Early last month, it was revealed that Redfall is a game that requires an online connection at all times. While this isn’t a problem for people who want to play co-op (since it requires internet anyway), it’s a strange thing to ask of those who want to explore the island and uncover the vampire mystery on their own.
Fortunately, Arkane Austin seems to have heeded the criticism. In an interview with Eurogamer game director Harvey Smith says the negative reaction is “legitimate criticism” and explains that they are now trying to find a solution:
“There are two ways developers could react to that, right? They could say: ‘Oh, my God, you’re always online. If you get on your Steam, and it’s not online, you freak out. If you get on your Xbox, and you can’t get the latest patch, or see what your friends are doing, you freak out. You want to be always online!’ But that response, I think, lacks empathy.
There are people who live in places where there are outages, or their broadband is shitty, or they’re competing with their family members because their mum’s streaming a movie or their brother’s on another device. And so I think it is a legitimate critique.”
Although it appears that Redfall is still launching with the online requirement, the team is working to remove this as soon as possible:
“We do take it with a lot of empathy. We listen. And we have already started work to address this in the future. We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into – I’m not supposed to promise anything – but we’re looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future.”
Radfall launches for PC and Xbox Series S/X on May 2, and is also included from day one with Game Pass. Check out the latest trailer below.
