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I wish I could just start and end with that joke, but unfortunately I feel compelled to say more. I truly do not think the hate this game is getting is merited. Redfall is not good, but it will not be the worst game you play this year. I think it is tempting to say that Arkane Austin was meddled with and their vision was compromised by corporate overlords, or that the release was too rushed, which I’m sure is all true to some degree, but I’m not convinced that these are the core issues with Redfall. I think the issue is that this game is just too many things. This game is trying to be at least three completely different games and is none of them well. The loot system is a cavalcade of junk, the co-op is hectic and empty, and the open world stuff, the only stuff that comes close to succeeding, is bogged down by those other two. The vampires aren’t enough of a threat to be exciting to fight by the late game, and some of your powers are sort of busted. The fact that co-op was marketed so hard on this is utterly baffling, because I truly think this game is only ever fun playing solo. Any of the friction that arises from playing carefully vanishes when you’re running around with three other players. You can’t read diaries or look at environmental storytelling when your friend is just bee-lining to the next waypoint. There are a few really cool moments in this game that would be utterly ruined in a four-stack. If they hadn’t been trying to make that work, maybe they could have devoted resources to making the weaker elements stronger. (Though I still think the game shouldn’t have done loot the way they did.) There are moments where I can see a version of this game that works, when I’m skulking through dilapidated mansions or scoping out a cultist camp. I also think there is a legitimate novelty for a vampire story to not have the vampires be sexy socialites and instead just be straight-up ghouls. The vampire gods in Redfall are capitalist Nosferatus who run a version Theranos that is even more evil somehow. Each of them is shitty in their own way and you do definitely want to see these fucks dead by the end. And I did play it to the end, because I have brain problems. Do I regret it? A bit. I think I would have gotten more out of another game, but I do not think Redfall is a horrible, unplayable game. I had some fun here and there. It’s just such a mess of competing design paradigms that it turns into a giant pile of oatmeal. And boy, am I stuffed!

go to mansion
look at lawn
investigate lawn
look at grass
look at stairs
look at the lawn
reach down and touch the yard
investigate the thing on the lawn
look at the glimmer by the stairs
touch the sparkle
touch object by stairs
investigate sparkle
investigate object
get thing over there
get thing
tell Yasu to get thing
tell Yasu to get the thing on the lawn
tell Yasu to investigate lawn
reach down and touch the grass
please look at lawn
please look at the lawn
please look around
help
help me
help me please
slap Yasu