Redfall

Redfall is an open-world FPS that drops you in the titular town as it's being taken over by vampires, and it is up to you— alone or with a group of friends— to fight back

- Violet Plata

The game starts off by making a huge mistake: not explaining how you should play through it; more on that later. It begins simply, as you get to choose from four characters — two girls, two guys, and plenty of racial representation— and then you get dropped into the intro, where you get an overview of what's happened. Afterwards, you're pretty much free to grab a gun and go off anywhere in the town.

Whilst the narrative is quite an interesting one, there are two downfalls to it: firstly, it's a story that you have to piece together through sometimes vague scenes—which left me unsure if I had even understood parts of it properly — and secondly, outside of the story missions, everyone and everything feels lifeless.

This issue was apparent from the beginning, as one of the first quests is to introduce yourself to the people of the main hideout, and what you get is a bunch of half-baked lines and awkward hellos. You never really get to know the characters, and while there are some that stand out, it's all very superficial. This was very unfortunate because, in a world where you're going out to face terrifying vampires and cultists for the good of the town and its people, you ideally want to care about the community and story.

This is also when I'd like to preface something imperative: I played very little of the game alone. If I wasn't playing with my wife, I was in a group with her and another GameOn staff member and friend, which means the gamemight feel even more empty if you go at it all alone, especially considering the gameplay loop; this leads me to why it was a huge mistake that they marketed Redfall as an "open-world".