Redfall | Arkane Austin lost 70 percent of staff during development

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According to a new Bloomberg report, a huge number of people left developer Arkane Austin during the development of the dismally-received Redfall. 


 

A new report by the always-excellent Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg digs into exactly what went wrong behind the scenes on Arkane Austinā€™s disappointingly limp vampire shooter, Redfall.

We wonā€™t rake over the whole thing here ā€“ you can read the full piece, sans Bloombergā€™s usual paywall, via this link at present. But one snippet work pulling out is the revelation that, as development neared its end on Redfall, some 70 percent of Arkane Austinā€™s developers ā€“ whoā€™d previously worked on the acclaimed Prey  ā€“ had left the studio.

One of the fundamental problems, per the report, is that few at Arkane wanted to actually make Redfall; the project arose in the fallout from Prey, which was critically acclaimed but failed to sell as expected. Faced with demands for a more lucrative multiplayer game, Arkane began work on Redfall ā€“ seemingly, without much appetite to give it the same level of love and polish that lit up the studioā€™s previous titles.

Redfall isnā€™t entirely without its good points; the weapons feel satisfyingly meaty, and the premise ā€“ a kind of multiplayer take on Richard Mathesonā€™s I Am Legend, as we wrote a few weeks ago ā€“ hinted at a greater potential that was sadly hampered by bugs, janky non-player AI, and the general fog of a game that didnā€™t quite feel finished.

Less than a month after the roundly gloomy reviews, Redfall exited Xboxā€™s list of the top 50 most-played games. For what was once one of 2023ā€™s big releases, itā€™s a particularly sorry state of affairs. The gameā€™s reception was such that even Xbox boss Phil Spencer came forward to publicly admit that he was ā€œdisappointedā€ with the gameā€™s launch in an early May podcast.

It remains to be seen where Arkane Austin ā€“ formerly one of the industryā€™s most respected studios ā€“ goes from here. Hereā€™s hoping the team can bounce back with something great.

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