Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Apologizes for Redfall

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has shared his thoughts on the launch of Arkane Studios' Redfall. 

It was never written in the cards that Arkane Studios would go on to launch a half-baked game. But as it turns out, Redfall, in spite of having Xbox's support, really hasn't won over any crowds this year.

Speaking with Kinda Funny Games, Spencer admitted that he was “upset” with the launch of its latest first-party exclusive, and that moving forward, it would receive the media giant's undying support to help make amends for past mistakes. In other words, Xbox's lack of support for Arkane Studios' works following the Bethesda Softworks acquisition back in 2021.

“We do mock reviews for every game that we launch, and this is double digits lower than where we thought we would be with this game,” said Spencer. “That’s one of the disappointing things: we would never strive to launch a game that we thought was going to review in the low 60s — it’s not part of our goals.”

“But I also know that these games are $70, and I’m going to take full responsibility for launching a game that needs to be great,” he added. “We let a lot of people down this week with the launch of the game, but we will continue to strive on. You have to — that’s what creativity is about.”

“We should've been there…”

Spencer has since said that Xbox failed to assist Arkane Studios in the aftermath of the acquisition. As a result of this, Redfall launched to a staggeringly low Metacritic score of just 58. This, sadly, marked it as one of the worst first-party IPs to date. Not a great start to 2023, all things considered.

“We didn’t do a good job early on in engaging Arkane Austin to really help them understand what it meant to be part of Xbox and part of first-party, and use some of our internal resources to help them move along that journey even faster,” explained Spencer.

“We should’ve been there for Harvey [Smith] and the team earlier — I think that’s on us,” he continued. “Then through the process, it’s an Unreal [Engine] game: we have a bunch of studios that have done some really great work on Unreal over the years, and I think we were too late to help in that when they had certain issues.”

So, what does this mean for the future of Redfall? Is it too late to fix what's already been broken, or is there still hope yet for the vampiric shooter? Only time will tell on that one, it seems. Until then, you can read up on our review of the game for a deeper insight here.

You can pick up a copy of Redfall today over on Xbox Series X|S and PC. Alternatively, you can grab it as part of your active Xbox Game Pass subscription. You can pick this up for $9.99 per month.

So, what's your take? Do you think Phil Spencer and the Xbox crew can fix Redfall? Will you still be picking up a copy? Let us know your thoughts over on our socials here.