Redfall still has the “Arkane DNA” of Dishonored and Deathloop

With the Redfall release date closing in, Arkane’s take on open-world games with the studio’s signature immersion and design is piquing everyone’s interest. The shooter can be played in either co-op or single-player, so questions of how Redfall will fit into what Arkane has made before are coming up, and the studio has some answers.

Redfall production director Ben Horne spoke with IGN about Arkane’s approach to its newest game, alongside showing some new Redfall gameplay as well.

“Left 4 Dead is an awesome game, but we wanted to make something that we feel has the Arkane DNA,” Horne says. “Games like Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Prey, and most recently Deathloop. You can think of all of those games like a Venn diagram, where they overlap in really key areas that we like to tell stories in.”

Horne adds how for Dishonored this difference meant stealth, for Prey it meant physics, and for Redfall this means the focus is shifting to world-building. “I think it’s natural to make games in a certain mold and to want to say ‘we want to take what we love here and we want to break that mold’. Making a large open-world game was breaking the mold for us.”

You can see the new Redfall gameplay in the video below.

It was also revealed recently that Redfall will always require an online connection even during single-player, with Horne saying that striking the balance between players who decide to dive in completely solo, and those wanting to have up to three friends join in, was incredibly difficult.

That said, there’s no sort of tethering when you play with friends, meaning if there are four of you, you can all go to each corner of the map and do your own thing whenever you want.

As Redfall is Arkane’s first foray into open worlds, like FromSoftware with last year’s Elden Ring, there’s naturally been a lot of question about how the immersive sim makers game will play. Arkane says Redfall will play more like Far Cry than Left 4 Dead, as the exploration will play a key role instead of playing in smaller, more linear, levels. You can check out the full Redfall interview over at IGN.

A massive Bethesda Steam sale is also going on right now, which includes discounts on plenty of Arkane games like Dishonored, Deathloop, Prey, and more, so be sure to check it out if you want to brush up on the studio’s work ahead of Redfall.

If you want more we’ve got lists of the best FPS games and stealth games too, both of which are sure to have overlapping ideas and elements with this year’s Redfall.