Arkane Studios Austin’s Redfall has made a swift exit from the top 50 most played games list on Xbox in less than a month.
The most played games list featured on the Xbox store is now missing Redfall, suggesting that the game’s player base has seen a steady decline since launch. An unfavorable verdict from critics, bugs, performance issues, and negative word of mouth from players are the likely reasons behind the poor reception.
A drop in player base this quick is rather unprecedented for a first-party title from Microsoft. Though, it’s worth mentioning that Redfall had already been in development prior to the console maker acquiring Bethesda, and there had also been a PS5 version at one point. The game’s creative direction, Harvey Smith, revealed during a pre-launch Redfall preview session that one notable consequence of Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda in 2021 was the immediate cancellation of the PS5 version, right in the middle of the game’s development.
According to Smith, post-acquisition, Microsoft stepped in and made it clear that there would be no PS5 version of Redfall, and that the studio would solely focus on development of the Xbox and PC versions. The creative director didn’t see this as a negative thing, however. Smith stated that the decision made by Microsoft favored Arkane Studios Austin, as there was one less platform to worry about, which meant one less complexity for the development team.
Previously, it was reported that Microsoft had known that Redfall would end up being a “disaster” a month prior to the game’s release. Jeff Grubb, who is known for his connections in the game industry, stated that one such connection at Microsoft told him that Redfall was “‘going to be a disaster”. Grubb thought it best to wait until the game’s launch to decide whether this would be the case. However, in retrospect, he felt that he should’ve had more faith in his source. This was somewhat confirmed by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer during a recent Kinda Funny Xcast. He discussed how his team at Xbox had been unable to reach out and help with the development of Redfall in time the way they had been doing for Starfield.
