2023-06-03 00:00:32
While we doubted the statements of Phil Spencer, a few weeks ago, which indicated that Redfall was not a Microsoft order for the Xbox Game Pass, his words seem to prove. In effect, Jason Schreierjournalist at Bloomberga published an article behind the scenes of the creation of the sad project, released a month ago. Sources, members of the development team, told on condition of anonymity, how the development of the game took place. For them, the failure of the game is not a surprise – the developers know well when their production is poor. They revealed that the project for a multiplayer game existed from the start, in 2018, and that it was already carried by Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare. At that time, Zenimax, the parent company of Bethesda and Arkane, was looking for a buyout. Seeing the commercial failure of the solo experience Prey 2017 and the success of service games, they had asked the studio to come up with a concept of this style, with micro-transactions. And if finally Redfall does not offer any, it was only in 2021 that Arkane left them aside, noting that they were increasingly controversial among players.
On the developer side, no one really understood why Harvey and Ricardo persisted in a multiplayer game. Most were experts in single-player game development, and didn’t particularly want to do anything else. According to research by Bloomberg journalists, on the day of the release of Redfallonly 30% of the developers of Prey. Continually understaffed, the team hovered around 100 people, which isn’t a lot for a AAA. Also, since Arkane was looking for multiplayer experts, but they mightn’t give an accurate description of the game, most applicants came to make immersive sim solo, which probably did not help to make a good experience.
In September 2021, when Microsoft acquired Bethesda, some cherished hopes that Redfall either canceled altogether, or at least rebooted as a single-player game. But the Redmond company did not want to interfere, and let Zenimax manage the project as it saw fit, with the success we know now.
If you want to have a little more details, you can consult directly the article in English by Jason Schreier on Bloomberg’s website.
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#Microsoft #isnt #Redfalls #failure
