Redfall, Arkane Studios’ latest title released last month to lacklustre reviews, with the console version of the game currently sitting at a 56 on Metacritic and a 58 on Opencritic. This poor reception was something that surprised Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who revealed that the game review scores were “double digits lower” than expected.

Redfall’s middling reviews were seemingly less surprising to staff at Arkane Austin, who hoped that Microsoft’s acquisition of Zenimax Media would lead to Redfall being cancelled or rebooted as a single-player game.

That’s according to a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, which details multiple factors that contributed to Redfall’s difficult development cycle, including “unclear direction, frequent attrition and a perennial lack of staff”.

Development on Redfall began in 2018, at a time when Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media was looking to sell itself. This decision meant that developers were encouraged to produce games with live service elements in order to generate further revenue. The report states that while this wasn’t “an absolute mandate”, several ZeniMax titles soon implemented microtransactions and/or multiplayer components (Fallout 76, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, etc). Redfall was initially positioned to have a significant microtransaction plan, however, those plans were scrapped sometime in 2021.

It’s reported that leadership wanted Arkane to develop something that was more broadly appealing following Prey’s commercial shortcomings. Arkane eventually landed on the idea of a multiplayer game where players would fight vampires while also potentially paying for “occasional cosmetic upgrades”. The team also benefitted from having industry veterans Harvey Smith and Ricardo Bare leading the project, with both having worked on the popular Dishonored franchise.

But despite settling on an idea for the game and having Smith and Bare at the helm, some staff found the idea of a multiplayer Arkane game “confusing”. Developers say that while Smith and Bare were “outwardly excited” about the project, they struggled to provide a clear direction as development progressed. Over time, some developers also grew frustrated with leadership’s frequent references to games like Far Cry and Borderlands, which added to the confusion surrounding the game’s vision.

Development difficulties also persisted due to Arkane’s Austin studio being “perpetually understaffed”, with the developer employing less than 100 people. While this wasn’t as much of an issue with Prey, Redfall’s larger scale made development more challenging. Even with assistance from ZeniMax’s Roundhouse Studios and other outsourcing groups, developers said that they “couldn’t fill the gaps”.

As morale began to suffer, the studio’s staffing problems were exacerbated as a large number of developers departed. The report estimates that roughly 70% of Arkane Austin staff who worked on Prey had left the company by the end of Redfall’s development. With ZeniMax reportedly paying below-average salaries, Arkane struggled to fill the ranks. The studio’s Austin location also proved to be a stumbling block in the hiring process due to Texas’ conservative state policies, which could be offputting to progressive individuals.

In September 2020, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion dollars, adding a wide roster of developers to Xbox’s first-party studios. For some Arkane staff, this acquisition brought hope that Microsoft would cancel the game, or perhaps even reboot it as a single-player experience. Unfortunately for them, this never came to pass as Microsoft opted for a hands-off approach, something that Xbox’s Phil Spencer admitted was a mistake.

“We didn’t do a good job early on in engaging Arkane Austin to really help them understand what it meant to be part of Xbox and part of first-party, and use some of our internal resources to help them move along that journey even faster,” Spencer said.

““We left them to work on the game… they’re a very talented team – I love that team, and I still do, and I will totally bet on them to do another great game.”