Redfall
#AskArkane – Community Q&A Wrap-up
Redfall
To celebrate the announcement of Redfall’s release on May 2, 2023, the release of the latest Gameplay Deep Dive Trailer, we held an Ask Arkane Question and Answer session in the Arkane Discord Server!
There were a lot of great questions from our Outsiders, and we hope that the team’s answers give you more insight into what you can expect from Redfall when it releases in a couple of months.
Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and dig in!
Each character appears to have unique skills that are designed to work in tandem with other characters. How will this affect solo play? – Balaji
The heroes have a lot of fun synergy with each other, which can lead to some interesting gameplay scenarios. That’s a big part of co-op. However, each of these heroes was designed from the ground up to be viable on their own. Playing together with friends adds more options to how you might approach a situation, but that's a benefit of each hero having a fully realized set of options to begin with. Layla’s powers were designed with Layla in mind. Once that was done, then we started to look at how you could extend that experience with other players.
I'm curious about surrounds Remi's skills and how Bribón operates. Is it always deployed and can be repositioned by Remi or does the player have to signal it and wait for a cooldown to return? Does it have an attack or defend mode or operate autonomously of you entirely? - Gwhiz007
Bribón is a constant companion with a bit of a mind of its own. Remi can position Bribón temporarily using her Siren ability to draw enemy attention. While that ability is active, Bribón is also in a defensive posture with its legs tucked in so it can withstand more damage. Otherwise, it is autonomous but following your cues for what it should be doing.
How well does the difficulty scale up solo vs co-op? – QuietGamer90
Difficulty scaling is dynamic in Redfall. There are several factors being considered at all times. For solo play, you’re starting off with your campaign difficulty level, which scales as you progress through the campaign. For co-op, we’re considering your campaign progress and difficulty still, but also looking at the number of players. Depending on the size of your party, you’ll see changes in the sorts of enemies you encounter, how strong they are compared to solo, and the frequency of elite traits. Those aren’t blanket changes either. Some encounters are always going to be easier or harder than others and some may not change at all. But that's the point, things should feel more challenging because you have more players, but it isn’t a flat multiplier by any means.
What will you be doing during the day/evening? Does gameplay still progress as normal? – Izzy is Shiny Hunting
Regardless of whether its day or night, you’ll still be able to progress the game as normal. However, you will see differences in the types of enemies you encounter and what those encounters look like depending on the time of day.
Is "The Rook" summoned procedurally similar to the Nightmare from Prey? Or does he only appear at predetermined points in the campaign? – The Arkane Realm
Once the Rook is introduced into the game, he’s summoned as a result of actions you take from that point forward. If you take more actions that anger the Vampire Gods, you’ll see him more than once.
Are weapons interchangeable or will some weapons be restricted to specific characters? – Dennis
Everyone can use every type of weapon in the game. Sniper rifles, shotguns, stake launchers, etc. But heroes have an affinity to certain weapons, which will be represented in their skill tree.
I just HAVE to ask about the decision to include ladders to the game despite one of the pillars of Arkane being "F*ck Ladders" as well as Layla and Devinder having massively helpful movement abilities? Was it solely to aid Remi, Jacob, and potential other heroes traverse the map? Or is there more of a story behind the decision? – EllyTheGeek
Practically speaking, Redfall takes place in the real world, and this world has ladders! But at the same time, they do add another option for how you might want to approach something. Layla’s Lift and Devinder’s Translocate can be helpful for getting around quickly, but they’re not always the stealthiest approach methods. Sometimes you just want to quietly sneak up to a rooftop.
In regard to crossplay, can we play with Steam friends while on Game Pass version or would we need to all be on the same platform? – Selene
Yes, you can definitely play with your friends on Steam friends on Game Pass!
Will there be cosmetic character customization, and will we be able to unlock any items through gameplay? - Aeon Flex
There will be several types of cosmetic character customization: full outfits, head accessories, and backpack skins. With the exception of pre-order bonuses, all cosmetics are unlockable through gameplay. They’re all there as rewards for you to find or earn through playing the game.
I know it mentioned there are multiple ways of doing things like in most Arkane games, but to what extent? – Zer0ity
There are a lot of ways to look at that. Some missions are optional, non-sequential and have different ways they can be completed. The world is very open so you can reach the same location or objective through many different routes. Each of those is going to expose you to their own experiences by virtue of what you do or don’t encounter. You don’t always have to take on a given objective in a particular order.
Can we unlock the whole Skill Tree, or will we have to specialize? – Koanns
In your first play through, you’re going to need to make some decisions on where you’d like to invest your skill points. You can play through the game on harder difficulties or co-op with friends to help push yourself deeper into the skill tree. But you won’t be able to unlock every node for a single character.
What are Arkane's thoughts and design choices on blending immersive sim with open world settings in Redfall? - Sinnoware
When you're looking at the pillars of what makes an Arkane game, there are a couple that we knew we'd likely need to let go in order to embrace the new pillars of a game like Redfall. Then there were a few others that would need to be adapted and evolved to fit this new context.
Environmental storytelling is incredibly important to the team, and we had to find ways to integrate that meaningfully when you can no longer control whether or not a player will encounter it at all. But we still wanted to invest heavily in making sure that those elements were there to be discovered and enjoyed. The nature of missions allowed us to do a little more of that signature style of storytelling, to weave in emergent gameplay and maintain the freedom of approach that players are used to. But we also invested heavily in the open world as well, and you'll find the same types of gameplay off the beaten path.
Looking at the open world, the biggest change up front is scale. That scale meant that it was prohibitive to have designers come through and hand craft each enemy encounter you might come across. That sort of approach could also get very repetitive since its static and in open worlds you could be crisscrossing through an area multiple times. You don't want to see the same vampire in the same spot always, you don’t want cultists patrolling the same corner. We wanted the world to feel alive and that things were happening beyond player involvement. So, we developed systems that allowed us to take that design touch and apply it at scale. You're not seeing a random spawning of enemies. You're seeing an encounter that someone designed and injected with flexibility to keep it feeling fresh. You're still going to encounter those hand-crafted scenarios in the open world too, they're just not necessarily tied to appearing in a specific location.
If you jump into Redfall and approach it like you would an immersive sim, you're going to find a lot that feels very familiar. There is going to be a lot for you to enjoy.
We hope you learned something new and exciting! If you want to stay up to date on all Redfall news, make sure you follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and join us in the Discord or Subreddit!
