Redfall’s cooperative gameplay comes with a pretty big caveat – you’ll only get credit for beating the mission as the host.
Following its gameplay reveal at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Redfall has been quite the topic of conversation. And for good reason, as it promises an open-world take on the classic Arkane Studios level design, tons of unique gameplay elements, and cooperative play for up to four players. Unfortunately, while speaking to IGN after the game’s reveal, game designer Harvey Smith made it clear that campaign co-op progress is only awarded to the host after the completion of a mission.
This means that any players who have come along for the ride will have to replay levels they already beat when they get to them in their own campaign. Players will, however, keep any loot and XP earned while completing the mission, so it isn’t a complete wash. Smith says the team originally considered offering story progress to co-op players, but Arkane dropped the idea as it created problems wherein the story and mission structure in their own game would be thrown off.
“So for the flow of things, you want to have to redo those,” he claimed. “The story would be very confusing if you got to mission eight and it said, ‘skip this one because you’ve already done it.'”
While this design choice may be frustrating to some players, it’s not entirely unexpected as Arkane Austin is also positioning Redfall as a fully fleshed out single-player experience. Smith says the co-op is an entirely optional addition that won’t disrupt the story and flow of the game.
“It was very important to us that we allow you to play the game alone,” Smith said. “So you can pick your way along very slowly, play at your own pace, observe things at a distance, plan, formulate, harvest resources, do all those things that you probably like doing in an Arkane game.”
Redfall launches on Xbox Series X|S and PC at some point in early 2023.
