Redfall has so much about it that screams Arkane, from the stylish character models to the outlandishly mishmash but somehow coherent aesthetic, to the punchy, crunchy dialogue and the absurdly inspired combat. It’s legitimately refreshing to see that Xbox is able to recognize what it has in its back pocket with this frankly phenomenal studio, which brings me to my next point.Īrkane is known for developing immersive sims, which, while excellent, have never really managed to meander into the mainstream. Arkane signed off and stole the show with what I reckon is the most exciting game from all of E3 so far, and it did it because nobody else can do it like it can. Not Playground Games with Fable, which wasn’t even there. Arkane was the studio given the showcase’s coveted final spot, Not 343 Industries with the objectively bigger Halo Infinite. It’s not all about sales figures, though, and Xbox clearly knows and respects this. I doubt Prey will ever be as commercially successful as any God of War game, and Deathloop will sell fewer copies than Horizon Forbidden West later this year. Sure, not as many people have played Dishonored as The Last of Us Part 2. Arkane is remarkably incomparable to anything else, which is likely why yesterday’s Xbox showcase concluded with Redfall as the encore. It would be easy for me to say that Arkane is Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s legacy studios like Sony Santa Monica and Naughty Dog, but that’s not accurate. Admittedly, I felt almost as confused at the end of the trailer as I did at the beginning, if not significantly more so, but that’s not a bad thing. Yesterday’s trailer introduced us to our four playable characters - Layla Ellison, Devinder Crousley, Remi de la Rosa, and Jacob Boyer - and featured some preliminary details on the world Redfall’s story transpires in. I wasn’t sure what Arkane Austin was going to get up to next, although it certainly wasn’t this. And yet - and yet - these universes continue to make sense in the most perfect way purely because the people at Arkane are the best in the business. To be completely honest, nothing about them should make much sense either due to how hodgepodge their aesthetic, narrative, genre, and just about every other conceivable descriptor or qualifier are. What I mean is that nothing about these games is easily or readily understood in some kind of overtly gratifying way. I don’t mean bad working conditions - Arkane delayed Deathloop to consciously avoid crunch. They’re confronting because they are challenging, which is a residual atmospheric context from the conditions they were created under. From the inherent mystery of Dishonored’s gritty, magic-filled dystopia to the vacuous but somehow oppressively small crannies and corridors of Prey’s Talos 1, these universes often feel as if they’ve been designed with the core brief of being as close to impossible as possible. Related: Despite Stronger Exclusive Games On PS5, It’s Getting Hard To Recommend Sony’s Console Over XboxĪll of Arkane’s worlds are emphatically arcane. Now we’ve finally had a look, I can’t stop thinking about that one specific claim: “At Arkane, there is really this refusal to accept that something is impossible.” This is the first title we’ve seen from the enigmatic studio since Prey and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider in 2017, which means it has been under wraps for around four years. While Bakaba is currently spearheading Arkane’s Lyon branch, Arkane Austin’s Harvey Smith is the man at the helm of Redfall, the latest game to be revealed by one of Microsoft’s most singular - if not the most singular - developers.
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