Redfall - Arkane - TTLG Forums

heywood on 4/5/2023 at 17:25

Well, the old solution was tutorial levels and the old, old solution was manuals. When we pick up a new game, we always want to get into the game as quickly as possible. That's been driving the evolution.

I like the current practice of teaching the gameplay during the game as long as it's done in the flow the game and obvious tutorial bits are skippable on replay, like stops at the shooting range. And give me the options to turn off the quest markers and navigation aids. Then I'm happy.

Gingerbread Man on 4/5/2023 at 18:32

Quote Posted by Yakoob

Best way to describe it I've heard: "every game is someone's first game"

Thing is that this "Saints Row: The Masquerade" 30fps nonsense looks and plays like it's Arkane's first game.

ZylonBane on 4/5/2023 at 18:59

whynotboth.rle

samIamsad on 6/5/2023 at 12:50

I'd finally just bought a retail copy of Deathloop instead. My GPU isn't quite up to par (still the 1050 ti I bought specifically for Dishonored 2, actually.) And the gameplay videos didn't hugely grab me, certainly not enough to buy into a then very expensive GPU upgrade (a lot more shootery than previous Arkane games). But I'll still try to play the game as any other before -- whereas still possible. Ditto for turning off all the "Baby's first computer game" markers -- whereas still possible. And with visual details set to "low", of course. ;)

Inline Image:

https://i.imgur.com/vc4GmcY.jpg

Otherwise, I'm still a bit shocked. Who's actually still around from the "Golden" years, in particular at Austin studio's key positions? Somebody at RPGCodex (yeah, I know...) did a bit of an analysis, haven't checked how legit it all is, mind. But the proposed turnover seems pretty large. Raf took a couple guys with his also when he left anyway, which clearly showed in Weird West (visually as well as design and gameplay systems wise).

samIamsad on 6/5/2023 at 22:39

Redfall's credits sure look interesting. Roughly 80%+ or so of the Austin world/level design team seems to consist of newbies hired from all over the open world gaming industry. Redfall's OW design lead for instance previously was the lead on Anthem. Checking their LinkedIn profile also reveals that quite a few of this fresh blood was hired as late as early 2022. Anyway, I went out and bought a boxed copy of Deathloop instead, despite my GPU not being up to par. Comparing both games' credits, I'm not surprised that Deathloop feels much closer like an Arkane game "proper" -- even though some of those folks have also left Lyon by now (Carrier, Davidaud, Saquet...). For as long as Lyon still has Dana Nightingale, not all is lost. :)

Lead Open World Designer:

Rachel Adams. Newbie. Ex Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem.

Open World Design Team:

Jason Pane: Newbie. Ex Destiny.

Morgan Gain: Newbie. Ex Mafia.

Lead Level Artist:
Michael Hutchison. Newbie. Ex Shroud Of the Avatar, Star Wars: The Old Republic, animation jobs for Sierra oldies.

Level Architecture Team:

Jim Magill. Did stuff for Prey already.

Freddie Lee. Newbie. Ex Mafia III.

Camden Beyer. Newbie. Ex Saints Row.

Lilian chow. Newbie. Ex Far Cry + Watch Dogs.

Elisabeth Kim. Newbie. Ex Watch Dogs.

Nicole Tan. Newbie. Ex Tomb Raider, Avengers, etc.

Alison Dela Cruz. Newbie.

Dan Qinn. Newbie. Ex Days Gone.

Katherine Stull. Newbie.

Level Design:

Jeremy Catlin. Did some stuff for Prey already.

Kelly Mangerino Ferry. Newbie. Ex Mafia III.

Campaign Level Design Team:

Anthony Huso. Arkane veteran.

Steve Powers: Arkane, DeusEx and Origin veteran.

George Royer: A couple years at Arkane already, seems to have been promoted though (was a playtester on Prey).

Paris Stacy: Newbie.

Cory O'Brien: Newbie. Did writing before.

EvaUnit02 on 7/5/2023 at 19:07

Quote Posted by samIamsad

You're running a decade old, budget GPU. Of course a game designed exclusively for a newer gen of consoles is going to suffer, this should be obvious/common sense logic.

Quote Posted by samIamsad

Otherwise, I'm still a bit shocked. Who's actually still around from the "Golden" years, in particular at Austin studio's key positions? Somebody at RPGCodex (yeah, I know...) did a bit of an analysis, haven't checked how legit it all is, mind. But the proposed turnover seems pretty large. Raf took a couple guys with his also when he left anyway, which clearly showed in Weird West (visually as well as design and gameplay systems wise).

Buy Weird West instead of this early access turd (dREaDFALL). It's by Raphaël Colantonio's new studio. There's even a FPS view mod available.

Now I'm hearing that the difficulty doesn't scale up when more players join, i.e. which has been the standard for ARPGs since Diablo(/looter shooters since Borderlands 1). This has gotta be a SP game with MP tacked on at the 11th hour. We expect the likes of drop-in/drop-out joining; enemies scaling to player count; progress registering for all players, inc clients; to be standard for ARPGs.
(https://youtu.be/EH5iaoEp3ZQ)

Xbox being too hands off with their studios definitely seems to be a huge mistake. Eg only within the past year did they clean house of all of the shit upper management at 343 Industries. That studio's output was a literal decade of failure, with four projects being steaming turds of varying degrees. Halo was a juggernaut IP of the AAA industry at one point, now it's in significant decline after a decade of failure. Heads should've rolled YEARS ago for damaging such a one time, very lucrative IP.

samIamsad on 7/5/2023 at 19:43

Quote Posted by EvaUnit02

You're running a decade old, budget GPU. Of course a game designed exclusively for a newer gen of consoles is going to suffer, this should be obvious/common sense logic.

Six years old. Which is why it's actually still on the market. The game runs better than it should though, given that even the VRAM is below minimum 6. All I had to do was turning on adaptive resolution, which notches the res a bit down here and there. But I can live with that.

Had Redfall "hit", I'd upgraded the 1050ti for a RX 6600 (230 bucks around here meanwhile). Back then I had bought the 1050ti specifically for Dishonored 2 (and upgraded my RAM for Prey)... Outside of Arkane, I barely play graphical blockbuster games anymore. My base system has been upgraded since though as well and is semi-recent: Zen2 +16GB.

Quote:

Buy Weird West instead of this early access turd (dREaDFALL). It's by Raphaël Colantonio's new studio. There's even a FPS view mod available.

Bought and finished immediately upon release, remember that these forums were surprisingly quiet. Also looking forward towards their next game. By Colantonio's posts on twitter ("Immersive sims until I die!" + a poll whether their next game should be first person), I figure it won't be a "games as a service" looter shooter as well. :D

Prey's system lead is now at Bungie, btw. and who knows who will join / work with WolfEye next. Meanwhile:

Raphaël Colantonio
Julien Roby
Christophe Carrier
Étienne Aubert
Cédric Peyravernay
Emmanuel Petit
Viktor Antonov
Julien Mario
Jeff Lake
Jouan Amate
Gaël Giraudeau
Ben Howenstein
Borut Pfeifer
David Heutmaker

All worked on Weird West/collaborated with WolfEye on that one. Can't wait! Still curious about Arkane Lyon's next project though as well. Who knows... As said; Microsoft more recent even supported ultra niche projects such as Obsidian's Pentiment and Redfall was already a thing long before Microsoft were around Arkane /ZeniMax/Bethsoft.

EvaUnit02 on 7/5/2023 at 20:35

Quote Posted by samIamsad

Six years old. Which is why it's actually still on the market.

You're right. Sorry, the GPU I had in mind was the 750Ti.

Still you're reaching if you're hoping for an old budget GPU to be able handle a new gen console exclusive game. I wouldn't go near a AAA game built exclusively for current gen consoles with anything less than a middle-market GPU from 2018, at the earliest. Exercise some common sense.

Quote Posted by samIamsad

All worked on Weird West/collaborated with WolfEye on that one. Can't wait! Still curious about Arkane Lyon's next project though as well. Who knows... As said; Microsoft more recent even supported ultra niche projects such as Obsidian's Pentiment and Redfall was already a thing long before Microsoft were around Arkane /ZeniMax/Bethsoft.

Redfall was also early enough in development that they were still working on a PS5 version, we know that from the Activision acquisition legal filings. MS are very much accountable for this turd, Xbox head Phil Spencer said so himself in a recent interview podcast with Kinda Funny Games. Don't white knight for the trillion $ corporation, buddy.

The only Xbox first party studios that seem to be chugging along without a hitch seem to be their Forza studios; their Gears of War studio; Obsidian; Double Fine; Ninja Theory; InXile. There's been insider reports about the development troubles of high profile games like Perfect Dark and Fable reboots, State of Decay 3, Everwild (live service MP game from Rare); it isn't just Halo. Xbox really need a kick up their arses for how they run their studios.

ZylonBane on 7/5/2023 at 22:35

Quote Posted by EvaUnit02

Still you're reaching if you're hoping for an old budget GPU to be able handle a new gen console exclusive game.

He literally said, in text you quoted, "My GPU isn't quite up to par", you idiot. Everything you're saying, he already knows. Are you really so desperate to be the smartest guy in the room that now you're projecting imaginary ignorance on everyone around you?

samIamsad on 8/5/2023 at 02:09

Well, no reason to fight. With adaptive resolution enabled on lowish settings in Deathloop, I have a minimum of ~35fps, which is okay, in particular as I'm playing slow/sneakily.

That said, if you tweak, even a 1050ti in 2023 can keep up surprisingly well still, given that it's a budget card from 2017ish (albeit one, unlike current ones, with the full feature set of its series). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cTpKLFskgs&t=4331s)

Aside of prices and the games I play (Elden Ring was the only AAA game for me last year): The 1050ti was also a sub 100W TDP card (75W TDP, actually). And undervolted it consumes as little as 60W peak. There haven't been cards like this in quite a while. The 6600 of course delivers much more FPS per watt, but it's a 130W peak consumption card still. In parts for sure a result of dedicated RT hardware even in entry level cards -- despite them being far too slow for any real RT. If I'll buy one of those, I'm going to undervolt for sure. And that may happen, what with BG3 around the corner (the EA in 2020 was still fine).