Arkane Studios’ vampire adventure Redfall is designed to be a multiplayer experience. Up to four players can work together in the game’s main campaign, fighting back hordes with a range of unique abilities. But according to developers, campaign progress is not transferrable between these players, with only one ‘host’ player able to advance the story.
That means anyone who joins the host player’s session will need to play through the campaign on their own, even if players work through the story from the very beginning. While character progress will be saved – players will maintain the levels and loot they’ve earned – they’ll still have to start from scratch when playing the game on their own.
The reason for this decision appears to be related to game design. According to developers speaking to IGN, the semi-open world structure of the game is still fairly linear – and players will need to be part of the story ‘flow’ to stay engaged. Should all players earn campaign progress when jumping into a host game, the story will be broken up and piecemeal – something Arkane wants to avoid.
‘The story would be very confusing if you got to mission eight and it said, “skip this one because you’ve already done it,”‘ Harvey Smith, Redfall game director told IGN.
Read: Redfall: First gameplay shown at Xbox and Bethesda showcase
Players will be able to join host sessions at any point in the game – but this will come at the detriment of needing to replay whole segments, should they wish to follow along with the campaign themselves. That said, if a group of players are travelling through the entire game together, this won’t cause too much drama as long as the host player stays the same.
While the Arkane team reportedly tried to circumvent these requirements during development, the original plan to give story ‘credits’ didn’t work out. Instead, players will simply maintain loot and XP, and be able to carry that over into their own playing sessions.
Redfall is set to launch for PC and Xbox Series X/S in 2023. It will arrive day one on Xbox Game Pass.
