By now, some have probably already forgotten about Redfall, Xbox and Bethesda’s first-person shooter that pitted a quartet of fast-talking heroes against an army of vampires that have taken over a small town.
What sounded like a good idea on paper quickly turned south due to numerous glitches and repetitive and boring gameplay. Its failure led to the closure of its studio, Arkane Austin, and an end to future content updates earlier this year. Now, Redfall is back in discussion, all because of a completely different shooter: Concord.
Hero shooter Concord has had it rough since launch, attracting a very small player base among mixed reviews, leading to early speculation about the game’s future. Amid Concord‘s troubles, a recent article from PC Gamer cautioned people from celebrating its downfall. This quickly led to some gamers pointing out a double standard between this game and Redfall, which was lambasted heavily as it failed to land.
Many of the Aug. 28 posts lambasting the gaming article were driven by a belief that Xbox/Microsoft games are treated differently by the media than ones made by Sony/PlayStation. The downfall of Redfall was well documented, so much so that by the end of its run Microsoft ended up giving disgruntled players refunds. To be fair, Concord is still a new game that just released last week, while Redfall has been around for over a year, so the bad press comparisons aren’t as exact as you might think.
Nevertheless, this discussion about the media’s coverage of both games will not only add more fuel to the already toxic console war fire, but also lead to even more discussions about the gaming industry’s obsession with trying to make as many live-service games as possible. As for Concord, the jury is still out on whether it is a total failure or not. But if Redfall‘s super-sized flop serves as an omen, it doesn’t look good for the hero shooter.
