Bloomberg has published a new report regarding the troubled development of Redfall, and according to the publicaton’s sources, Arkane’s vampire shooter was in such a poor state that some of its own developers wanted Microsoft to cancel the project or reboot it entirely, turning it from a multiplayer to single-player game. The report also notes that a PlayStation version of the game was in the works, but that ended up being canceled, with Microsoft having purchased ZeniMax back in September 2020. Redfall has a user score of 3.5 on Metacritic, and many players have given the game one star.
From a Bloomberg report (alternate link):
[…] Microsoft purchased ZeniMax for $7.5 billion. It was an ambitious move that gave Xbox control over lucrative franchises such as Doom and Fallout as well as the upcoming Starfield, a role-playing game from the makers of the wildly popular The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Although adding Arkane’s portfolio wasn’t the main goal, it was potentially a nice bonus for Microsoft — particularly if Redfall turned into a hit.
The acquisition gave some staff at Arkane hope that Microsoft might cancel Redfall or, better yet, let them reboot it as a single-player game, according to sources familiar with the production. Instead, Microsoft maintained a hands-off approach. Aside from canceling a version of Redfall that had been planned for rival Sony Corp.’s PlayStation, Microsoft allowed ZeniMax to continue operating as it had before, with great autonomy. Microsoft’s Spencer would later say in the Kinda Funny interview that Xbox “didn’t do a good job early in engaging Arkane Austin.”