Developer Arkane Studios is gearing up for the launch of Redfall, set to hit PC and Xbox platforms this May, by providing some new information about the vampire game. The team recently spoke to IGN, where Production Designer Ben Horne stated in an interview that the general focus for its vampire-hunting FPS is on world-building and narrative design.
Horne was asked how Redfall‘s open-world title differentiates from Left 4 Dead. Firstly, the game is more akin to Ubisoft’s Far Cry than Valve’s zombie shooter. Secondly, there is going to be far more narrative meat to bite into than what Left 4 Dead offers.
Left 4 Dead is an awesome game, but we wanted to make something different. We wanted to make something that we feel like has the Arkane DNA that we’ve made in games from the past, games like Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Prey, most recently Deathloop. You can think of all of those games almost like a Venn diagram.
In Horne’s mind, those titles overlap in areas such as mechanical systems that players can exploit to create their own emergent stories. Redfall will be different.
For Redfall, we wanted to focus on world-building, we wanted to focus on that narrative story. So that’s what we’re focused on delivering.
What this means is a lot of environmental storytelling, a strong narrative drive throughout the main campaign, and a world that feels like it’s worth saving. We’ll also see tons of extra lore-specific readables that can be discovered at the player’s discretion.
While that isn’t drastically different from what Arkane has developed in the past, it’s certainly a far cry from what Left 4 Dead offers. While that might be disappointing for players looking for another co-op shoot fest, Redfall seems to be catering to a different crowd. We’ll see if this approach pays off when Redfall releases on May 2, 2023.
