Report: Some Arkane staff hoped Microsoft acquisition would kill Redfall
A Bloomberg investigation into the development of Redfall, the multiplayer shooter from Microsoft-owned Arkane Austin that launched to tepid reviews earlier this year, details a production in turmoil and a studio caught in a philosophical tug-of-war.
The report, which is based on the experiences of over a dozen people who worked on Redfall, indicates the project was initially spun up because ZeniMax, the privately held owner of Bethesda and Arkane back in 2018, was encouraging its studios to create games-as-a-service titles that could generate long-term revenue.
ZeniMax was reportedly encouraging its studios to bake microtransactions into those experiences–although it stopped short of mandating them. This all came during a period when ZeniMax was chasing a potential sale, which eventually manifested when Microsoft bought the studio and its subsidiaries, including Arkane, for $7.5 billion in 2021.
That push for more games-as-a-service projects resulted in Arkane, which had until then built its reputation on developing single-player immersive sims, pushing ahead with Redfall. It initially envisioned the game as a team-based shooter that would include cosmetic microtransactions, although those were eventually scrapped in 2021 due to "games-as-a-service" titles taking heavy flack.
The decision to pivot to multiplayer development reportedly left staff confused. As did the direction of Redfall co-leads Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare, who apparently struggled to create a sense of cohesion, providing the dev team with multiple references to other series, including Far Cry and Borderlands, that struggled to illustrate what, precisely, they should be striving towards.
Understaffing and retention issues also hampered production, with
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