The highly anticipated Xbox exclusive Redfall hit consoles yesterday and the latest Arkane title failed fan and critic expectations. It received mixed reviews from critics — resting just below 65% on Metacritic — and was battered by angry fans once it went live.
Arkane has a fairly solid track record when it comes to their titles. Dishonored, Dishonored 2, and its DLC, Death of the Outsider received very positive reviews as did 2017’s Prey. So, the nigh unplayable state of Redfall (if you’re on PC) has many fans scratching their heads and looking for someone to blame.
And they found him.
Xbox CEO of Game Studios, Phil Spencer is the main culprit for the poor performance of the buggy, underdeveloped world of Redfall, according to many disappointed gamers on Twitter. Spencer took over the company from Don Mattrick in 2013, after the former CEO left the company following a slew of negative press around the recently announced Xbox One.
Redfall was already in the beginning stages of its development process when Microsoft acquired Arkane through parent company ZeniMax in 2020. With its announcement less than a year later, fan consensus is that Xbox executives pushed the game’s launch forward in the name of profit.
Others argued that it wasn’t outside of Bethesda’s standard operating procedure to release unfinished, buggy games. Anyone who remembers playing the first rounds of Skyrim or Fallout 4 doubtless has memories of backwards dragons or invisible ghouls.
Redfall — along with Starfield — was already postponed once back in 2022, and though fans were disappointed, there were plenty who acknowledged Bethesda’s consistent short comings. Fans had already been burned years before with the incredibly underwhelming Falllout: 76, but just over five years later, the title has fixed many of the issues encountered on release.
As CEO, Spencer has pushed Xbox cross play ad nauseum. Back in 2017 — after Fortnight — the first cross-play phenomenon swept the globe, and Nintendo and Xbox bigwigs came together to maximize the connectivity between gamers. Even Sony has joined the party after years of resisting the call.
While not all of his ideas have come to pass, it’s hard to argue with some of the successful moves Spencer has made over the years. The plethora of indie titles now available on the Xbox store can be traced back to his initiatives, as well as Xbox’s much more dedicated Xbox Community Standard for how vitriolic players were reprimanded.
Despite all of Xbox’s pushes to be more inclusive, the console still seems to be second best to its primary competitor – Playstation. The Playstation 5 continues to be in high demand years after its release, and it’s easy to see why. In 2022 the company released several high-profile narrative games including God of War III, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and a reinvigorated The Last of Us Part I. When it comes to single player experiences it’s hard to ignore Sony’s clear superiority. But no matter how frustratingly buggy and teeth-gnashingly slow it may be finding a match, gamers have to admit that if they want innovative multiplayer, Sony is not the right console to jump behind.