Redfall - Everything We Know About Arkane Austin's Co-Op Shooter

Taking place on the fictional island town of Redfall, Massachusetts, Arkane Austin's next game is a first-person shooter where you find yourself trapped in a community that has become overrun by vampires and a cult that worships them. With no way of easily communicating with the outside world, you have to search for a way out of Redfall, utilizing an assortment of mutant abilities, firearms, and high-tech gadgets.

Redfall looks like Arkane Austin's take on a Borderlands-like game, featuring four unique playable characters and the option to play solo or in four-player co-op. This is a fairly big departure for Arkane Austin, which previously made 2017's exceptional Prey, an entirely single-player game. Below, we go over everything we know about Redfall, including when it's scheduled to come out and for which platforms.

Release date

Initially set to release in Summer 2022, Redfall has been delayed. The game is now scheduled to launch in the first half of 2023. Arkane Austin has not yet announced an exact release date.

What we know

In Redfall, you play as one of four survivors. There's cryptozoologist and inventor Devinder Crousley, combat engineer Remi De La Rosa, ex-military sharpshooter Jacob Boyer, and biomedical engineering student Layla Ellison.

Each character brings their own special abilities to combat. Devinder can trap and disorient enemies with his assortment of gadgets, Remi takes her drone companion into battle with her, Jacob has been cursed with wraith-like abilities that give him a ghostly presence on the battlefield, and Layla possesses telekinetic superpowers.

Regardless of their specialty, all four can wield all loot you'll uncover in Redfall, so you're not limited to a specific playstyle once you've locked in your character. Loot is divided into color-coded tiers of rarity and power, similar to Borderlands or Destiny.

Borrowing elements from previous Arkane games like Dishonored and Prey, Redfall will feature stealth and immersive sim elements. However, unlike those games where using the environment to your advantage and stealth mechanics is encouraged, Redfall--if the trailers are any indication--seems to swing a bit more towards action-focused combat.

Redfall will have a linear campaign set within an open world filled with optional side quests and environmental storytelling. "I think there are advantages to the kinds of games that we've made like Dishonored and Prey where it's very single-player," Arkane Austin studio director Harvey Smith told GameSpot. "But with an open world, you can go anywhere. You can be meaning to go here, but look out across a baseball diamond and a graveyard and a trailer park and see something that you want to do over there and then get into this whole thing because the AI heard you and followed you and kited you into something else. And then you wander upon a vignette of some petrified vampires and a UV light on a tripod because some lady sniper from Bellwether set up a tripod there with UV lights and turned them off so that the vampires start thawing out and she's fighting for her life and you can just walk off or you can help her, or you help [the vampires]. And suddenly an hour has passed and you're just like, 'Oh my God, I haven't even gotten to the mission yet.' And that's really what we love about open-world games."

Platforms

Redfall will launch for Xbox Series X|S and PC. As an Xbox first-party title, it's unlikely to be ported to PlayStation or Switch platforms post-launch.

PC system specs

Arkane Austin has not yet released the PC specs for Redfall.

Trailers

Redfall has a handful of trailers, both cinematic and gameplay. We've embedded the more notable ones below.

In 2021, the Xbox + Bethesda Showcase revealed Redfall to the world with a cinematic trailer that introduced us to the personalities of the four playable characters and provided a look at the vampire threat they face.

The Xbox + Bethesda Showcase in 2022 kicked off with our first look at Redfall's gameplay, showcasing the four playable characters and their unique abilities.

Multiplayer details

Redfall can be played either solo or within a group of up to four players. Unlike games like Left 4 Dead or Back 4 Blood, Redfall does not limit who you can play as when you and a friend main the same character. If you want a full party of Laylas, you can do that--just another way that Redfall is a lot like Borderlands.

DLC/Mictransactions details

Arkane Austin hasn't yet announced whether Redfall will have post-launch DLC expansions or feature microtransactions. Some DLC on par with Prey's superb Mooncrash expansion would certainly be welcome.

Preorder details

Redfall is not yet available for preorder. However, as a first-party title, it will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one. So if you're a Game Pass subscriber, you've kind of preordered Redfall already.

Of note, Xbox will reportedly start selling its first-party titles at a $70 price point (instead of $60) starting in 2023. So if you don't have Game Pass, make sure you have an extra $10 on hand when Redfall does become available for preorder.