The top of Xbox, Phil Spencer, mentioned that this week’s launch of Arkane Studios’ Redfall is “disappointing,” however that the studio behind it’s dedicated to persevering with to work on it. Spencer, talking on the Kinda Funny Games Xcast Thursday, additionally took duty for the launch of a tough recreation at Xbox’s new $70 worth level.
Spencer mentioned that essential response to Redfall was “considerably decrease” than Microsoft’s inner opinions of the sport — on Metacritic, the typical overview rating is 59 out of 100. Consumer opinions are far much less optimistic.
“We do mock opinions for each recreation that we launch, and that is double digits decrease than we thought we might be with this recreation,” Spencer defined. “That’s one of many disappointing issues; we might by no means try to launch a recreation that we thought was going to overview within the low 60s — it’s not a part of our targets. [Redfall] was considerably decrease than our inner metrics by way of the place it really reviewed. However that’s not on anyone however us. We now have to personal that.
Spencer mentioned that Microsoft and Arkane are taking that suggestions to coronary heart, and pointed to different, long-supported video games from Xbox Recreation Studios as examples of committing to fixing what’s unsuitable.
“By way of our dedication to the sport […], the group at Arkane is taking the near-term suggestions,” he mentioned. “We’re nonetheless engaged on the 60 fps [update]. We now have a superb timeline for that. We’re dedicated to getting that finished, and we’re going to proceed to work [on] the sport. We’ve proven a dedication to video games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded, to proceed to go and construct video games. However I additionally know these video games are $70, and I’m gonna take full duty for a recreation that must be nice.”
In the end, Spencer mentioned, “We let lots of people down this week with the launch of the sport, however we are going to proceed to try on.”
Spencer additionally addressed a standard query: Why not delay Redfall till it’s prepared? (The sport was already delayed considerably in 2022.)
“There are high quality points and we’re engaged on these, however I believe there’s a basic piece of suggestions that we get that the sport isn’t realizing the inventive imaginative and prescient that it had for its gamers,” Spencer mentioned. “That doesn’t really feel like a Hey, simply delay it [situation]. That seems like the sport had a aim to do one factor and when gamers are literally taking part in they’re not feeling that factor, that inventive execution of the group.”
“When a recreation must be delayed — what we did with Starfield, what we did with Halo [Infinite], what we did with Redfall — as a result of the manufacturing timeline is saying, We now have this imaginative and prescient, and our manufacturing timelines don’t get us to the completion of that imaginative and prescient, we do delay video games.”