A new rumor has emerged about Redfall‘s release.
As always, we cannot vouch for the veracity of this rumor, but it’s worth consideration, as so many questions remain unaddressed by Microsoft.
As you may already know by now, Redfall came out to a very poor critical reception. While some reviewers actually rated the game an 8/10, MetaCritic and OpenCritic metascores place it closer to a 6/10.
There are multiple reasons for the poor reviews that Redfall had received. Among them was the poor performance that the game had launched with. This has been a common experience for the year so far, with other AAA games from every company. But for Redfall, it was particularly damaging, because of the bad press that was generated when it was revealed that the game would only target 30 FPS at launch.
On top of that, some reviewers also felt that Arkane Austin was put too far away from their element, and the grand experiment of putting them to the job, of making a multiplayer online game and putting their own spin on it, has basically failed.
Now, however, this rumor adds a new dimension to this story. Jeff Grubb talked about the game release on the latest episode of his Game Mess Stream, and he dished on what he knew.
As reported by Gaming Deputy, Grubb had a source who told him far ahead of time that “Redfall is going to be a disaster”. Grubb’s source also confirmed that Xbox did not believe in Redfall either.
Jez Corden of Windows Central then revealed that Microsoft and Xbox were actually not involved in the decision making for releasing or postponing Redfall. As it turns out, Microsoft gave Bethesda Game Studios independence in making these decisions themselves.
Jeff pointed out that Microsoft’s policy is to respect and encourage autonomy for Bethesda, and the studios under them. They aren’t going to interfere in games that are under development.
With all that in mind, a completely different picture emerges of Microsoft’s place in all this. Microsoft had notoriously muddled, and compromised, development of several internal projects, to the detriment of said projects.
It’s unfortunate that Redfall’s poor release has nothing to do with them at all, but Microsoft simply has to grin and bear it.
Jeff shared another detail, that should make Arkane fans hopeful about the future. Arkane has many other projects under development, and it is these projects that Microsoft is paying closer attention to as they believe in them.
Hopefully future Arkane releases on Xbox Series X|S and PC will not disappoint, but as for Bethesda, they still have one chance with Microsoft and the public. As Jeff pointed out, Microsoft believes Bethesda can still salvage their name if Starfield comes out OK.
You can watch Jeff’s Game Mess Stream below.
