In a video broadcast during QuakeCon 2022, Arkane Austin revealed more details about the upcoming first-person shooter Redfall. During the video, it was revealed that a single farm in Redfall will be bigger than the entirety of the setting of Prey, one of the studio’s previous creations (via GamesRadar).
When discussing the open world of Redfall during the video, art director Karen Segars likens the size of Prey to “five football fields” and says Redfall is like “hold my beer” in comparison. This prompted studio director Harvey Smith to share an anecdote from Redfall’s development, “I remember early on there was a moment when we were working on District 2 which is a little more rural and Jim McGill took Talos at scale and dropped in the middle of the farm that’s there and the district just eats the whole space station…”
“That’s just one mission, that’s pretty crazy” added lead producer Aaron Carter. Redfall certainly looks to be at an impressive scale, but as we all know a big map does not a good game make. Smith explains that they’ve tried to pack the map with as many examples of environmental storytelling as possible in order to make the world feel more “lived in.”
Creative director Ricardo Bare then shared that one of his favourite things about Redfall is how easily players can be distracted by points of interest that crop up while exploring. He explains that this is common in open-world games and it’s true of Redfall as well, the player will often be sidetracked from their primary objective by unforeseen events that appear as the player travels.
For those unaware of Arkane’s upcoming title, Redfall is a first-person shooter that allows the player to choose between four characters to fight against a legion of vampires. The game has a particular focus on worldbuilding, allowing the player to explore the fictional town of Redfall, Massachusetts.
Redfall was originally supposed to release at the end of 2022 but Arkane announced in May that the release would be delayed until the first half of 2023 so the studio had time to polish their creation. Redfall is still planned to release early next year.
