![]() "We were like, how can we make the kind of games that we like to make but somehow play them together?" All these games that are super fun to play in co-op when we're not working on our own games, we're playing these kinds of games together as friends," says creative director Ricardo Bare. And then over the years it's been Diablo 2, and then Borderlands, and so on. "Harvey and I have been working together for 20 years and, as far back as us working on Deus Ex, I can remember us as a group playing Diablo together. That's the kind of vibe that Redfall has." Maybe you'll spot a farmhouse in the distance and sneak over to it, only to find that it's full of cultists and a few trapped survivors who you can save. "We want you creeping through a cornfield at night in the fog, hearing vampires whisper in the dark. "In terms of freedom, there's what you would expect from other open worlds, but Redfall is an on-foot game – the scale and the pace is a little slowed down in that respect," says Bare. But there's a key distinction in Redfall's design which calmed my nerves: there are no vehicles. Ubisoft's open worlds have become debilitatingly large, and I'll cop to feeling some sense of hesitation before launching into a new one these days. If there's a negative to be drawn from a Far Cry comparison, it's one of scale. That was the atmosphere we set out to create from the beginning." "Some of Redfall's most powerful moments come from wandering around, absorbing the world, and getting caught up in high action for a moment. "You'll want to see if you can get into a barn you found, climb a fire lookout tower that you spotted in the distance, or try and get into a house to read all the notes scattered inside," Smith continues, explaining that you'll still have the freedom to approach missions, areas, and in-world locations with the same curiosity and ingenuity as you could in Dishonored or Prey. "But just once we wanted to know what it would be like to wander an Arkane open world and see where each little road will take you." "I think we will eventually go back to the very sealed immersive sim-like environments," Smith considers. There's an appeal in that too, with a denser playspace allowing Arkane to flex its talent for emergent narrative design. But by modern open-world standards, the titular island will likely be quaint by comparison. "Pick a direction, start hauling ass, and run into the living-world stuff that we have going on." Ricardo Bare, creative directorīy Arkane's standards, the description of a "big-ass open world" is accurate – Redfall is an unfathomably larger space than Prey's Talos I. When I say we wanted to stretch, that's what I mean: What if we took all of our experience – and our creative values – and put it into an open world?" Redfall island should be a place where, after hours of exploration, you feel like you know it the way you know Talos or Dunwall. ![]() "We wanted to take a familiar setting and go deep on it. Dunwall, an industrial whaling city overrun with plague rats Talos I, an alt-history space station with an alien ecology and Blackreef, an island cursed to time loop through the swinging sixties. "When we started on Redfall, we wanted to tackle a familiar location for once," laughs Smith, speaking to Arkane's propensity for building elaborate destinations. ![]() ![]() Well, they were, until most were driven away by the invading vampires, the cultists who worship them, and Bellwether Security a shady private military company looking for nothing but trouble. Creepy cornfields and abandoned fairgrounds, dilapidated houses and cold seaside boardwalks, and plenty of bars and restaurants held in ill repute by the locals. Redfall is embracing more familiar territory, what Smith lovingly describes as a "crappy tourist town" in New England. When you think of Far Cry, your mind is likely flooded with images of exotic landscapes and faraway paradises. ![]()
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