Redfalldeveloper Arkane Studios has confirmed that it’s planning to change a feature that’s drawn a relative amount of controversy. The upcoming first-person shooter has been looked at as quite the curiosity, even among Arkane’s biggest fans. That’s because Arkane is best known for its single-player releases, including theDishonoredseries,Prey, and most recently Arkane Lyon’sDeathloop. Arkane Austin is moving in a different direction, however, with what’s previously been said to be the always-onlineRedfall.
Always online games are increasingly popular in the modern video game industry as publishers and game developers seek to monetize their playerbases. An offline player, after all, doesn’t have immediate access to microtransactions.Early leaks ofRedfallindicated it, too, would be heavily monetized with an in-game store and microtransactions. However, Arkane has since confirmedRedfallhas no microtransactions or in-game store. It’s possible that player feedback led Arkane to reverse course.
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Now Arkane is ready to reverse course on another controversial decision. Arkane Austin game director forRedfallHarvey Smith says that the team is now working on anoffline mode forRedfall. Speaking with Eurogamer, Smith explains that developers can react to requests for an offline mode in two ways. They can say players are always online anyway and ignore criticism, or they can show empathy to those who don’t have reliable internet. Arkane it has decided to listen, but there’s a catch.
Adding an offline mode to a game so heavily built around online co-op isn’t easy, and is especially difficult for a game that was previously always-online. That’s why Smith says that offline support forRedfallis a feature Arkane is working on for future release. Smith’s language implies offline support isn’t coming for launch, and may not be coming at all. Arkane is at the very least “looking into it” and “working actively toward fixing” it in down the line.
Redfall, whether it’s a success or failure, is going to be looked at as an example of developers responding to criticism deep into development. Fans saw analways-online multiplayer gamewith what could have been heavy monetization and voiced their skepticism. Arkane’s plan is now to releaseRedfallwithout microtransactions and to eventually support an offline mode.
Redfallreleases May 2 on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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