The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, mentioned that this week’s launch of Arkane Studios’ Redfall is “disappointing,” however that the studio behind it is 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 game at Xbox’s new $70 value level.
Spencer mentioned that vital response to Redfall was “significantly lower” than Microsoft’s inside evaluations of the game — on Metacritic, the common assessment rating is 59 out of 100. User evaluations are far much less constructive.
“We do mock reviews for every game that we launch, and this is double digits lower than we thought we would be with this game,” Spencer defined. “That’s one of the disappointing issues; we’d by no means attempt to launch a game that we thought was going to assessment within the low 60s — it’s not half of our objectives. [Redfall] was considerably decrease than our inside metrics in phrases of the place it truly reviewed. But that’s not on anyone however us. We 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 Game Studios as examples of committing to fixing what’s incorrect.
“In terms of our commitment to the game […], the team at Arkane is taking the near-term feedback,” he mentioned. “We’re still working on the 60 fps [update]. We have a good timeline for that. We’re committed to getting that done, and we’re going to continue to work [on] the game. We’ve shown a commitment to games like Sea of Thieves and Grounded, to continue to go and build games. But I also know these games are $70, and I’m gonna take full responsibility for a game that needs to be great.”
Ultimately, Spencer mentioned, “We let a lot of people down this week with the launch of the game, but we will continue to strive on.”
Spencer additionally addressed a widespread query: Why not delay Redfall till it’s prepared? (The game was already delayed considerably in 2022.)
“There are quality issues and we’re working on those, but I think there’s a fundamental piece of feedback that we get that the game isn’t realizing the creative vision that it had for its players,” Spencer mentioned. “That doesn’t feel like a Hey, just delay it [situation]. That feels like the game had a goal to do one thing and when players are actually playing they’re not feeling that thing, that creative execution of the team.”
“When a game needs to be delayed — what we did with Starfield, what we did with Halo [Infinite], what we did with Redfall — because the production timeline is saying, We have this vision, and our production timelines don’t get us to the completion of that vision, we do delay games.”
