'Redfall' Director on Game's Failure: We Got Swept Away by the Live-Service Trend

August 30 — Harvey Smith, game director of 'Redfall', recently sat down with gaming media outlet The Game Business to discuss why the title failed.

Developed by Arkane Austin, 'Redfall' was originally a vampire-themed first-person shooter, but it ultimately suffered a disastrous failure, leading to the studio's closure.

Smith stated, "The 'Redfall' project was incredibly difficult. We wanted to focus on what we were good at, but the entire industry was constantly evolving. We got swept away by the live-service game trend, and I was somewhat arrogant at the time in thinking that this model would always work for us.

He continued, "Then, while all this was happening, the pandemic broke out. We experienced waves of layoffs, and people were jumping ship left and right while everyone was working remotely."

However, Smith also found something positive in this failed experience. A year after 'Redfall's release, the team fixed thousands of bugs and even continued to push out updates after the studio was separated from Microsoft Xbox.