Redfall developer working to U-turn on single-player always online restriction
Redfall developer Arkane is «working actively» to remove the game's always-online requirement when playing strictly in single-player mode.
The vampire shooter's always-online restriction raised eyebrows when it was spotted last month.
Now, speaking to Eurogamer, game director Harvey Smith has revealed his team are now working to change how the game worked to make offline single-player possible.
As part of a lengthy interview which featured a deep discussion of Redfall's politics, I asked Smith his reaction to those who want to play fully offline in a world where most people's devices are typically connected to the internet.
«There are two ways developers could react to that, right?» Smith began. «They could say: 'Oh, my God, you're always online. If you get on your Steam, and it's not online, you freak out. If you get on your Xbox, and you can't get the latest patch, or see what your friends are doing, you freak out. You want to be always online!' But that response, I think, lacks empathy.
»There are people who live in places where there are outages or their broadband is shitty, or they're competing with their family members, because their mum's streaming a movie or their brother's on another device. And so I think it is a legitimate critique."
The other response, Smith continued, was to accept the reaction and find out if things can — at a late stage in development — be changed.
«We do take it with a lot of empathy,» Smith said. «We listen. And we have already started work to address this in the future. We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into — I'm not supposed to promise anything — but we're looking into and working actively toward
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