Phil Spencer Apologizes To Players For Redfall

Man, am I glad I was wary about dropping $70 on Bethesda’s vampire shooter, Redfall. I was contemplating it. The atmosphere was almost a sell on its own. But, I’m glad I didn’t because the overall reception for the game has been poor enough that Xbox head Phil Spencer felt the need to apologize to players for it. The whole thing probably sucks a bit more for them because it was the first official Bethesda exclusive to drop since Microsoft bought the Fallout developer.

That said, it’s not the biggest surprise either. As we discussed on the last Always Online, Bethesda (Arkane in particular here) is known for delivering incomplete products that are later polished by mod developers. However, that was when they were just Bethesda and not part of Microsoft and the Xbox family. Expectations shift.

The apology came during an appearance by Spencer on Kinda Funny Games, where he noted that the most challenging thing for him is “disappointing the Xbox community”. He also explained that the Xbox team does “mock reviews” for their games prior to launch – which are intended to help predict the games’ reception. Redfall scored “double digits lower” in real reviews. He added that they wouldn’t have launched a game that they thought would hit that low.

He goes on to say that the Redfall team is working on fixing the quality issues. Although, he also notes that while the game has bugs, what is going on technically, with things like crash rates, is “not out of proportion for a game that has just launched”. He admits that the animation, texture, AI bugs, and similar issues are a problem.

Spencer also notes that the game isn’t hitting creatively. Effectively, players felt the game had one job and it failed at it.

During his apology, Spencer reaffirmed Xbox’s commitment to the game, noting that Bethesda and Arkane will continue to support the game. For those wondering, he also noted that the developers are still working on the 60fps update. And, he acknowledged the beefy cost of games like these for players, saying that he’s “going to take full responsibility for launching a game that needs to be great.”

And $70 games kinda do need to be great. They don’t need to be perfect, but they need to be interesting, fun, and playable – and something that you’ll be willing to come back to in order to get the full value out of it. Perhaps that will still happen. It’s not as if other games haven’t launched to poor reception, only to become pretty good later on.