Thinking about my brief play last night, I could have probably got some enjoyment out of it, the first few minutes were a pleasant surprise, based on the negativity surrounding this game.
Then, I noticed a very low Res texture. The sort of thing that you sometimes see for a second before the real texture pops in.
But it didn't, for a way longer than you'd think.
I don't think Redfall's environment looks bad, those opening scenes revealing the open world looked pretty good to me.
Then the AI. That's the deal breaker.
I don't know if this is a game they'll keep patching as with Cyberpunk and in some ways, this is a similar situation.
I wonder if discussions were had about how Cyberpunk bounced back and still made a lot of money. It even got withdrawn from sale.
Whatever the case, games shouldn't launch like this, especially first party titles that presumably can eat the cost of a delay and can pull in support.
It's obvious that shit loads of work goes into getting a game made, and Redfall clearly benefits from hard work of a lot of people, it's just not finished. It's really sad to see. I can imagine that some games come together at the last minute, and I don't actually think Redfall's problems seem insurmountable, given that the AI being fixed would seem to be the main problem - that actually changes gameplay. On the other hand, the AI is such a giant part of the game, how is it so primitive at this stage?
Either way, the noise about textures and framerates are the kinds of things that optimisation would solve (or from my perspective as a non-developer, anyway), they're not really a problem in the same league as the gameplay being broken by poor AI.
If they're allowed to put it back in the oven and create the necessary patches Redfall could end up being worth a look, as it is, it's probably 90% there, but destroyed by the AI and general lack of polish.
