Redfall has had an interesting last few months leading up to its release. It's creative director Harvey Smith, flippantly revealed that a PS5 version was canned when developer Arkane Studios was part of Microsoft's purchase of Bethesda Softworks. Microsoft was quick to correct the record that Smith misspoke whereas Sony pounced on his statements and included it in their rebuttal against the CMA which approved Microsoft's proposed buy-out of Activision-Blizzard.

This week, the game has been beset by two developments that definitely dampen my enthusiasm for it. First, The Xbox Series X and Series S will only release with a Quality mode. This means the game will be capped at 30 FPS until a 60 FPS Performance mode is added to the game after its launch. The press release that revealed this did clarify that the Series X will be able to maintain 30FPS at 4K and the Series S version at 1440p, however the news is a big "WOOF" regardless.

If you're looking at that and saying to yourself "Well, that sounds like a good reason to buy the PC version!" be aware that yesterday it was announced the PC version will use the highly controversial anti-cheat system Denuvo. For those unaware, Denuvo is well known for its high CPU usage and growing evidence that its constant use of read and write kernels may reduce the lifespan of SSDs. It also has the habit of going offline from time to time, thus causing the games that use it to become unplayable.

AND it's worth pointing out that the game is releasing between Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom! While Denuvo on PC and the consoles versions being capped at 30 FPS is not great, it's more of a "GOD, please dig UP!" situation than deciding factors for most people. While Reddit always celebrates when a game removes Denuvo, I would estimate that the number of people who actually mount protests or modify their game purchases when they hear a game they want has Denuvo is scant. That's usually the case with multiplayer-focused games with a Game Pass release. However, maybe I'm speaking for myself on that. What does everyone else think?

I don't know if we're ever going to fully get away from this on consoles. Seems as though display tech is always ahead of console tech, so whenever a new gen of consoles come along with more power than the last they still can't render at the max resolution at a stable 60. I mean I get it, that's hard to do on a console that by its very nature is going to be outdated in terms of hardware very quickly and yet still needs to be affordable to the masses, but it's kind of a mess the way they're always behind the curve. A lot of people are adamant that they want to use their shiny 4K TV to the max of it's abilities, but the consoles just don't have the power to provide both 4k and a stable 60 (at the minimum) fps, so they end up settling for 30. 8K TVs are already a thing, even though the content is still pretty limited at this point, and who knows where they'll be up to by the time the next gen of consoles rolls around (assuming they do). If they do, are we going to be back to square one with games that render at 8K or even 16K but still at 30 fps??

I'm still incredibly excited for Redfall, and have been replaying my favorite Arkane games (Dishonored 1/2 & Prey) the last few weeks in preparation. It comes out on my birthday, and I still have plans with friends to play the campaign on launch day BUT this is definitely a bummer.

But I played those games I mentioned at 30 fps at launch and really don't think this game will be that much affected by the framerate? Like from the footage I've seen, there never seemed to be an instance where you need to have perfect accuracy or have incredible reflexes or anything. The game doesn't have PvP so no one will be getting an unfair advantage either. So, all in all, I am disappointed, but it will not change how I play this game at launch since it is one of my most anticipated outside of Tears of the Kingdom.

I think the level of angry people get over both of these has gotten so loud and annoying that it’s kinda hurting their cause a bit. I’m just so tired of hearing about both and I barely care anymore.

Especially Denuvo, which if a game has it I guess it’s the cause of every problem, it’s the topic of every steam post or review, it’s insufferable at times.

Which is unfortunate because most big games are going to be shipped with it, it’s very effective. There’s like one scene group that is even remotely effective at cracking it and they’re kind of out of their minds and want people to pay bounties for it these days.

Denuvo: it doesn't do what it says, but at least it's incredibly intrusive and damages hardware.

Seriously, a message at the start saying "PLEASE DON'T CHEAT" would have more effect and less downside.

@bakoomerang: I completely agree. It feels weird that the choice of quality vs performance is being left to the consumer and I am curious what information developers have on which of the options most players use, but regardless, the new consoles should have games optimized to the highest quality. I keep expecting that once games leave the previous generation behind, 4k/60 will follow, but Redfall is apparently proof that I should never assume that. I can't help but wonder if having to produce games for the XSX and XSS is holding back the generation a little.

Its coming on Gamepass so I still might check it out. But its sad. It seems like these so called next-gen consoles aren't so next after all if developers are struggling to have their games run at 60fps out the gate. If I remember correctly, Gotham Knights was supposed to get a performance mode after the backlash of their game only being 30fps, and a poor 30 frames at that. It's spring 2023 and it still hasn't happened yet, unless I'm completely ill informed. It seems like this might be the same result with Redfall, a promise Microsoft know they won't be keeping, at least anytime soon.

It seems like you can tell now a days if a game is going to be bad or flop based on the last min updates before it comes out.

This doesn’t move the needle much for me personally (the Dan/Bakalar impressions video drastically lowered my expectations for this game), but it feels like the hype is cooling off the further we get from that Developer Direct. Microsoft seems hellbent on releasing this game between two of the most anticipated releases of the entire year in Jedi: Survivor and Tears of the Kingdom. It really feels like this game will come and go in a flash, but I suppose we’ll see.

Pretty much all of Arkane's games have technical shortcomings on release, if Redfall releases without a shoddy frame-rate, screen tearing or massive input lag that'll be a win.

Are there console players who are dedicated to only buying games that run at 60FPS and/or have a 60FPS performance mode? I can't imagine that's a large enough group for this to matter all that much. If you're playing on console, you're very likely used to 30FPS.

Alternatively, more people than I suspect are so used to 60 that when they have to go back to 30, they'll realize just how bad it really looks and feels and Microsoft/Arkane will find themselves experiencing a backlash. Would be nice if this told the rest of the world that it's finally, finally time to leave 30FPS behind and start aiming for 60FPS all the time in everything.

As far as Denuvo goes, I'm a PC gamer and I don't recall it ever actually affecting anything I've purchased. I've used SSDs, including m.2 SSDs, for years without experiencing any issues that I thought were related to Denuvo. I've said in other places that any storage older than five years shouldn't be considered reliable, I've played games with Denuvo DRM on SSDs older than five years, and it's never been a problem. It's never even been a problem when playing games on Linux via Proton or Lutris, and I'm pretty sure I've played games when my internet is down without experiencing issues either.

Does that mean issues don't exist? No! It certainly doesn't! But a game having Denuvo has never really affected my purchasing decisions because I don't recall ever having an issue that can be blamed on it.

Do people actually care about 30 FPS vs. 60 FPS? I feel like they just believe it is meaningful as opposed to it actually being meaningful.

I certainly do, to the point where one of the primary reasons I play on PC is the higher framerate. It isn't a placebo. I don't consider 30FPS unplayable, but it takes me a long time to get used to it. Even when I do, I don't think it's really pleasant, it's just something I get used to enough to enjoy the game.

What in the world is going on at Microsoft? How does not a single studio have a complete and polished game ready (other than maybe Hi-Fi Rush)? I remember the excuse for the multi-year drought of new IPs on the Xbox One being that they were gonna come out swinging with the new generation. Now here we are almost 2.5 years after launch and every game is either delayed, unfinished at release, or only exists because of a mid-production acquisition. Hell, if it wasn't for Obsidian and Double Fine things would be even more dire than last gen.

Halo got delayed a year and probably should have been given another. Starfield also got delayed a year... and now this. You'd think Xbox would be telling Zenimax to take their time and make sure Redfall is perfect, but I'm starting to feel like its become the sacrificial lamb to cover for the Starfield delay.

Weren't we hearing about a new Fable like 5+ years ago? Still no trailer? Didn't we get an extended Hellblade 2 trailer like two years? Still no release date? Hasn't MS said they've brought in external teams, like Crystal Dynamics, to help on games... and things are still this bad? I know the pandemic slowed things down for a while, but why has nearly every other publisher (nvm platform holder) been able to rebound by now except them? Phil seems like a good dude, but it seems pretty obvious 343i wasn't an outlier and upper-management at Xbox needs some serious adjustments.

@ginormous76: Until you know the beauty and smoothness of playing games above 60fps, you won't understand how much it does matter. I'll admit, I'm spoiled at this point when it comes to framerates in video games. I want all my games to at least be 1080p at 60fps for it to count. Of course higher than that is preferred. Gaming at 30fps in 2023 should be seen as laughable at this point. This is why the Nintendo Switch to me is almost obsolete, even though I'll likely play Tears of the Kingdom in all its jankiness. There are always exceptions, right...

@av_gamer: Interesting. Maybe I'm just so used to 30 that it doesn't matter. I have definitely played at a 60 FPS performance mode for awhile, then switched it back to 30 and not noticed a difference. I have heard/seen it makes a big difference for online games, because you can see other people quicker.

@av_gamer: Seems a bit dramatic.

Personally I couldn’t easily identify anything over 60, and I routinely swap between 60/30 modes on console. The only truly important thing is stability.