The screenshots first made their way onto an album on Imgur. These uploads were quickly taken down, but by then the cat was already out of the bag. Among the screenshots, we can see a lobby system, weapon stats, incomplete textures, a pretty standard looking suburban ruined environment and a few clear placeholders.
Ever since Redfall was announced, many have assumed that we’re looking at a game that can be roughly summed up as ‘Left 4 Dead, but with vampires’, however the leaked screenshots and some new information revealed by those who allegedly had access to the playtest - as seen in this Reddit thread - paint a different picture. Essentially, we’re looking at ‘Borderlands, but with vampires’. The upcoming game from Arkane is channeling the open-world looter shooter formula for Redfall, with a lobby based system designed around co-op gameplay and various weapon types a rating system and perks. It seems as though most players will be able to carry three weapons, and have one armor slot, one medkit slot, and utilise items called Mementos and Remnants. In the screenshots we also get a sense of the environments we’ll be fighting through. A large dock area with the water inexplicably missing appears in several images, and other areas seem abandoned - but not ruined - town areas and some wilderness with roads. Notably missing from the images, or this preview build entirely, are enemies - though there are some random NPCs t-posing in a building. The game carries the iconic Arkane stylized art style, but notably more dialed back and genericized than, say, in Dishonored or Prey. It makes sense that with a genre as popular as the looter shooter right now, Arkane is trying to cast a wider net than with previous releases. Arkane’s other major title, Deathloop, has just launched on PC and PlayStation 5. Meanwhile Redfall is expected to launch in the summer of 2022, on Xbox Series X|S and PC - so you know which platform to pick if you want to enjoy both Arkane titles.
