Redfall is currently sitting at a 62 on OpenCritic, a number that has been steadily dropping since its embargo. These negative Redfall reviews were “disappointing” to Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, and he recently talked about how the game underwhelmed and how Xbox is moving forward.
The Redfall reviews were also a surprise
Spencer spoke about the reception with Kinda Funny on its Xbox-focused podcast, Xcast. He got into it rather quickly and said that he was disappointed in himself for letting down Xbox players.
“There’s nothing that’s more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community,” said Spencer. “I’ve been a part of it for a long time. I’ve obviously worked on Xbox, [been] head of the business, had a lot of friends, [gotten] a lot of feedback, and just to kind of watch the community lose confidence [and] be disappointed, I’m disappointed. I’m upset with myself.”
He then reflected on the process and implied this stumble will help Xbox learn in the future.
“[Revisiting] our process, I think back to the announcement of 60 frames per second, and then we weren’t shipping with 60 frames per second and that was kind of our punch in the chin, rightfully, a couple weeks ago. And then seeing the game come out and the critical response was not what we wanted. And it’s disappointing. So I picked myself up [and asked], ‘What can we learn? How can we get better'”
However, he pushed back against claims that Xbox was forcing Arkane Studios to do something it wasn’t well-versed in. Since Arkane has only made immersive sims that don’t as heavily focus on gunplay, some had assumed that Redfall’s position as a more traditional shooter meant that Xbox had pushed the team too far. And by that extension, its critical failure is on Xbox. Spencer said he supports teams in trying new ideas and even brought up a few examples.
“One thing I’ll fight is the, ‘What went wrong?’ There’s clearly quality and execution things that we can do. But one thing I won’t do is push against creative aspirations of our teams. A lot of people will say, ‘Hey, you’ve got teams. Teams know how to do one kind of game. Just force them to go do the one kind of game they have a proven track record for.’ And I’m just not a believer of that. Maybe that means I’ll underdeliver for some of our fans out there, but when a team like Rare wants to do something like Sea of Thieves, when a team like Obsidian wants to do Grounded, when Tango wants to do Hi-Fi [Rush] when everybody probably thought they were doing The Evil Within 3, I want to give the team the creative platform to go and push their abilities, push their aspirations.
“But I also need to have a great selection of games that are continuing to come that surprise and delight our fans and we underdelivered on that and for that. I apologize. It’s not what I expect [and] not what I want. But it’s ours to deliver.”
Spencer also said the reviews were a surprise and they were “double digits” from the scores seen in Xbox’s internal mock reviews. He used this as a jumping off point to say that Xbox wouldn’t intentionally set out to make a game that settled in the 60s. He, once again, took responsibility for the stumbles here and noted that Xbox has shown its commitment to games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded in the past.
And while he said he understands that players are rightfully skeptical heading into the upcoming showcase, he said he’s excited to show the many games coming in the future. He also explained that things are lining up in a way where Xbox could have big games out every quarter.
