Over the last decade or so, Arkane Studios has been hitting it out of the park. While the studio has been around since the early 2000s, the developer really hit the mainstream in 2012 with its superb stealth game Dishonored. Following that breakout hit, Arkane then worked on Dishonored 2, Prey, and the recently released Deathloop, all of which have been pretty great successes. Arkane is trying its hand at something new next year with Redfall, a four-player co-op vampire shooter that looks like it may have a bit of a tonal issue.
First announced in June 2021 during the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, Redfall is taking the tight gunplay of Deathloop, the supernatural abilities of Dishonored, and mashing them together to create a spooky open-world vampire survival game. While Redfall seems to be shaping up nicely, some fans have noticed a juxtaposition in the game's tone, with its early trailers appearing quite different from the most recent one.
Redfall's Latest Trailer Could Lead to a Confused Tone
When Redfall was first announced back in 2021, the gaming public immediately drew comparisons between it and Left 4 Dead, as is the case with any 4-player horror co-op game. While Redfall's setting, gameplay, and enemies make it stand out from Left 4 Dead, its four-character dynamic does have a few subtle similarities, and that feeds into the game's overall tone quite heavily.
In June of this year, Arkane released an extended look at Redfall's gameplay. Though this 5-minute deep-dive begins a little spooky, with the player-character exploring an abandoned church, the tone quickly shifts to be much more lighthearted. As each character is introducing themselves, they take little jabs at the narrator, keeping the overall tone quite lighthearted and hearkening back to Left 4 Dead's protagonist dynamic. The narrator also makes plenty of tongue-in-cheek references to the absurdity of the game's premise, citing that these vampires aren't just the usual "trashy movie vampires."
The latest Redfall trailer, however, takes a completely different approach to the game's tone, instead opting to go for pure horror. Titled "Into the Night," this new trailer focuses on showing fans the different types of vampires they'll be seeing during the game, including some designs that are a lot spookier than the enemy types that were previously shown. There's a creepy voice-over repeatedly asking why the player is hiding, there's some eerie music playing, and the trailer showcases a few scenes of intense horror, with one sequence showing the player tentatively sneaking through a house before being ambushed by a floating vampire. The whole vibe of this trailer is a little at odds with what players have been shown so far, leaning much closer to pure horror than a lighthearted experience with horror elements.
There's nothing wrong with Redfall leaning closer to horror, but this tone being quite a departure from previous trailers could be a little worrisome. The horror genre is a very difficult one to get right, and when comedy is thrown into the mix, it's even more tricky to make the end product feel like a tonally consistent piece of media. Very few movies, TV shows, or video games have managed to balance comedy and horror well, with What We Do in the Shadows, Shaun of the Dead, and Gremlins being some standout examples. That being said, it's not impossible for Redfall to balance its comedy and horror elements, and if it succeeds, then it fills a big niche in the current gaming market.
Redfall is expected to launch in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.