Arkane Studios’ upcoming vampire-hunting co-op shooter, Redfall, desperately needs a strong start to stave off concerns. But, with the latest announcement by Xbox, we highly doubt if a lot of players are still looking forward to seeing Redfall in May.
According to the game’s official Twitter account, the upcoming Xbox exclusive title by Arkane Studios will ship with frame rates capped at 30 frames per second on the Xbox.
This is undoubtedly tough news for an Xbox camp that desperately needs a big AAA title.
Redfall, which launches on May 2, was already delayed out of its release window last year to presumably give Arkane more time to work on it. Unfortunately, it’s only going to have a 30 FPS option on both the Xbox Series S and the Xbox Series X.
It’s still unclear when the 60 FPS performance mode for Redfall is coming, but, at this point, does it even matter?
Modern co-op shooters and high framerates go hand-in-hand. Even 60 FPS is barely cutting it these days. This is a deal-breaker that will undoubtedly make Xbox Series X owners lose interest in Redfall. To make matters a lot worse, Arkane has a penchant for making games with buttery smooth combat systems, which will now be hampered on the Xbox Series S/X because of the 30 FPS cap.
The argument exists that maybe Arkane should delay Redfall until the 60 FPS performance mode for the Xbox Series X is ready. Don’t forget, first impressions last, and while Arkane has a ton of goodwill among gamers, it’s not enough to save Redfall from being ridiculed for being a AAA shooter that caps its performance to 30 FPS in 2023.
You can’t spin this development about Redfall positively. Unless Arkane pulls out a miracle and manages to get the 60 FPS performance mode out in time, which renders all this hullabaloo moot, the upcoming co-op shooter likely won’t sell as well as expected next month. It’s not necessarily a death sentence but it’s close.
Arkane and the rest of ZeniMax Media subsidiaries are under a significant amount of pressure to deliver notable exclusives now that they’re under the Xbox umbrella.
Redfall was already a divisive title heading into its release for several reasons and this doesn’t help at all.
It will be interesting to see how Xbox and Arkane will salvage this situation if that’s at all even possible.
But, hey, at least Xbox is giving away a Redfall-themed Xbox Series X, right?
