Microsoft was reportedly hands-off with Xbox dud ‘Redfall’

engadget.com:

By now, it’s well-known that Xbox-exclusive Redfall was a colossal commercial and critical dud when it launched last month. Its somewhat intriguing concept — vampires inhabiting a well-to-do Massachusetts island — was held back by bugs and an overall lack of polish. (The description “not fit for public consumption” summarized Jessica Conditt’s impressions in Engadget’s review.) Now, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has pulled back the curtain on alleged behind-the-scenes turmoil that led to Xbox’s latest setback in its mission to catch up with Sony’s and Nintendo’s first-party console sellers.

The story shows Arkane Studios’ development lacking direction long before Microsoft acquired Zenimax, the studio’s parent company, in 2020. Hoping to capture some of the lucrative juice propelling mainstream “games as a service” titles like Fortnite and Overwatch, Arkane (known for critically acclaimed single-player titles like Dishonored 2 and Prey) looked to incorporate microtransactions into Redfall early on. In-game monetization was eventually scrapped, but the alleged rough start apparently set the tone for a sloppy and scattered design process.

Developers speaking off the record to Bloomberg described the leadership of co-directors Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare as unfocused. “Developers under Smith and Bare said the two leads were outwardly excited but as the project progressed failed to provide clear direction,” Bloomberg wrote. “Staff members said that, over time, they grew frustrated with management’s frequently shifting references to other games, such as Far Cry and Borderlands, that left each department with varying ideas of what exactly they were making.” In addition, the sources describe a “fundamental tension” between