You likely either feel one of two ways about Redfall. You've barely heard of it, or it's one of your most anticipated games of the year. That's how it went with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Deathloop too, and practically every other game with the Arkane name attached to them. You love 'em, or you don't know they exist. Disproving my own theory, I sit somewhere in the middle. It seems as though games journalists are contractually obliged to love Arkane, but my position has always been one of quiet admiration. I get it, but none of its games have fully immersed me (before you call the cops, Prey is in my backlog). Redfall's vampire vibes work for me, but what has gotten my attention more than anything else is the fact it has listened to, and responded positively to, fan concerns.
It was recently revealed that Redfall would need an always-online connection. It's a four-player co-op game, but can also be played entirely in single player. Think of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gotham Knights, and then quickly think of a happy memory to fight away the darkness. Better? Good. Always-online connections are highly unpopular, partially because people associate them with live-service games (which in turn they associate with never-ending stories and microtransactions out the wazoo), and partially because that means the game requires servers, which means said servers could one day be shut down, which would kill the game forever. Also, a lot of people have crappy internet and they don't think that should stop them having fun hunting vampires on their own - and they have a point.
Thankfully, Arkane announced yesterday that it is looking into the always-online issue and attempting to remove it from the game ahead of launch. Cynics might suggest this is an empty promise, but the minimal scandal had blown over, and people had accepted this reality (albeit with a grumble). I don't believe it's an empty promise because all Arkane is doing is dragging it back into the spotlight. Now if it launches with always-online a necessity, fans will complain all over again. I doubt Arkane would lie about this, when lying only causes a second wave of bitterness to hit the game later.
Game director Harvey Smith at a preview event (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:you can read TheGamer's preview here), and admitted that while being online constantly is the norm for a lot of people, to enforce that on players who can't participate lacks empathy. "We do take it with a lot of empathy," Smith said. "We listen. And we have already started work to address this in the future. We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into - I'm not supposed to promise anything - but we're looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future."
It's not a guarantee that Redfall will remove always-online gameplay, but it's an acknowledgement that it should try, as well as a real understanding of the reasons behind the disappointment from players, rather than trying to explain why it's easier or more cost-effective for the studio itself. It would be easy to dismiss concerns with a boilerplate explanation, but instead there's an earnest attempt to connect.
I'm well aware that fans sometimes request stupid things. Games are extensively tested in-house to perfect their difficulty spikes and progression loops, and some guy coming along and demanding it either be a bloodbath or hold their hand the whole time is just irritating. Gamers want more of X but also less of X, they want a better story but also no story and the cutscenes should be skippable but also interactable and also you should win things by watching. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:[Insert Game] Needs [Insert Thing] is a fairly common genre of article I write, and even though I try to be more thoughtful and practical than your average reply guy, I'm sure things I've written have made devs roll their eyes and burst out laughing. It's fine, some of them made Gotham Knights, so we're even.
The point is, the way forward isn't to have fan votes on every little feature, or see what's trending on Reddit and immediately fixing whatever gets the blood boiling on this merry Thursday. The relationship between studios and players is already strained because of the parasocial connections players develop in their heads, and the toxic abuse that they feel free to spout because of this. Remember when female God of W𓄧ar devs had dick pics sent their way when Ragnarok was delayed? Or when Laura Bailey's role as Abby in The Last of Us Part 2 resulted in rape threats?
The reason studios don't listen to gamers all that often is because the loudest mouths have proven themselves unworthy of being heard. The distance placed between the two is the fault of players, even if it's only a small minority. However, this u-turn proves that it's possible, and it might be because of Redfall's unique position of having lots of dedicated fans but a relatively small base overall in comparison to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War. This was a legitimate concern, expressed fairly, and Arkane has not been mocked for accepting that and attempting to reverse it. Things can't always work out like this, but it's still nice to see that sometimes, they can.