Phil Spencer Addresses Redfall's Underwhelming Launch

Redfall, the vampire-slaying shooter, was released exclusively for Xbox Series X/S and PC earlier this week. However, despite being released just this Tuesday, it has received lukewarm reviews from both players and critics, with numerous reports of crashes, bugs, and an underwhelming, lackluster story.

Recently, Xbox Head Phil Spencer appeared on the Kinda Funny Podcast, where he addressed the negative reviews and player reactions and also took full responsibility for the game’s poor performance. When asked about the rocky launch of Redfall, Spencer said:

There’s nothing that’s more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community and just kind of watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed; I’m disappointed, I’m upset with myself
Phil Spencer

Although he admitted that the game had a poor launch and plenty of shortcomings, one can only admire his candor and approachable, non-corporate demeanor. He took the blame for the poor launch on himself and remained defensive about the developers of Redfall. He had complete faith in Arkane Austin, and while discussing them, he stated that he would not oppose the creative aspirations of the teams working at the studio.

Spencer spoke candidly about the Redfall launch, even admitting that a delay wouldn’t have changed much for the game because the core creative wouldn’t have changed. In my opinion, the problems with Redfall are baked in because the core creative of the game is a rather lifeless open-world co-op shooter that barely supports co-op.

He also went on to discuss the framerate debacle, noting that Redfall had originally targeted 60fps but only launched with 30fps. He said:

We’ll revisit our process, back to the announcement of 60 fps, and then we weren’t shipping 60 fps, that was our punch in the chin, rightfully, a couple weeks ago.
Phil Spencer

Despite this, Spencer appears optimistic, stating that the launch will be a learning experience that will allow them to learn from their mistakes and improve in the future. He was adamant that this would not deter their dedication to the game, and he also promised that the developers would continue the project and improve various aspects to meet the fans’ expectations.

If you ask me, Spencer is now on the hot seat because being blunt and honest won’t help him unless the games start delivering. He said the following words as a closing note.