Redfall being always online may be a thing of the past. Arkane’s vampire game made headlines for all of the wrong reasons when an official FAQ revealed it would require an Internet connection, even for single-player content. But that may be changing, according to a report from Eurogamer.
In the time since then, it seems that developer Arkane hasn’t let criticism from fans and industry pundits fall on deaf ears. In a new interview with Eurogamer, Redfall director Harvey Smith told the outlet that the team was looking into reversing the always online requirement that its game will launch with.
Redfall’s developer working to U-turn on single-player always online restriction https://t.co/bXlkes9wSK
— Eurogamer (@eurogamer) March 22, 2023
When asked about people that wish to play offline, Smith responded to Eurogamer with an explanation about how there are two ways to react to criticism from fans. One would be to point out how all of our devices are currently connected to the Internet and tell people to deal with it, but Smith believes that response lacks empathy.
“There are people who live in places where there are outages or their broadband is shitty,” Smith said, “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.”
Speaking further, Smith stated that he is looking at a solution from a viewpoint 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… I’m not supposed to promise anything, but we’re looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future.”
To put fears of microtransactions or in-game purchases to bed, Smith answered that there will be nothing of the sort in Redfall. The online requirement wasn’t necessitated for players to open their wallets. It mostly came down to wanting to collect telemetry data so that Arkane could tweak problem areas (Smith gives an example of a ladder being buggy). Another is looking at ways to implement accessibility features based on player interaction.
While Redfall will still launch with this online requirement, there’s a chance in the future that players will be able to take their vampire hunting offline. Redfall is slated for release on May 2, 2023, for PC and Xbox Series X|S.
Featured image via Bethesda.
