We weren’t too impressed with the Xbox version of Redfall, but the PC version has its own range of unacceptably poor issues – from traversal stutter to non-descript, non-helpful settings menus, to visual bugs and terrible CPU core utilisation. Support for all modern upscalers and some kind of shader precompilation pass help matters, but this is still far from the kind of quality we’d expect from a major triple-A release.
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About a year and a half into this generation, when I was finally able to get a PS5, I strongly started thinking about the next generation and was pondering that, with as much as I had spent on a Series X, PS5, accessories, storage, and subscriptions, maybe next gen I'd just ditch consoles all together and go back to PC.
After all, why not? Game Pass Ultimate is both console and PC already. Microsoft drops most of their games day one on both PC and Xbox. Sony takes longer to get their exclusives to PC, but they eventually show up.
But this run of exceedingly bad, poorly optimized ports across the entire industry has put me off those plans. Sure, PC is still the better value long term, but I don't want to be saddled with subpar trash releases that require months of patching just to get them running in a stable state — which would still require significant amounts of time on my part to min-max my hardware and settings. Devs inflating specs to try to brute force their lack of optimization is just ludicrous.
This generation still has some time to go so maybe if developers get their acts together I may yet still go with my PC-only plan. But if I were making that decision today? No way. If all the experiences are going to be inferior, I'll stick to where they're inferior AND the least hassle.
This is why I love digital foundry. ❤
This takes top contender for worst PC port! We have modern gpu cores not being used for Redfall! Awful performance on Xbox and PC port spells disaster for Redfall! Xbox boss Phil Spencer says in his own words that great games won't save Xbox. Alex you did a perfect job explaining the problems with Redfall. There are no positives.
It's like AAA decelopers are treating PC like a low priority 3rd console these days.
To emphasize unavoidable issue, like shader compilation, traversal stutters ect, I’d love to see you running games at low resolutions/DLSS ultra performance, frame gen ect. With max settings otherwise. Really a nail in the coffin for the “it runs fine on my system” crowd
You know it's bad when Cyberpunk is set as an example.
Also, can't wait for starfield review. Something tells me it's gonna be a disaster. I hope I am wrong, though.
Alex, you are awesome!
Wow, they actually did it
Alex is such a bro. Puts in so much suffering to try to get the word out systematically and does what's in his power to try to get this stuff fixed
Switching my boot drive to be an intel optane, seemed to help a lot for many forms of stutter for me. I put most of my program files on a separate sabrent rocket nvme but most of the drive calls seem to happen to the boot drive and I think the driver calls contribute a lot to many forms of stuttering.
at this point PC game stores like steam/epic should make a policy where companies will not be allowed to sell their products if they don't have a F2P demo!
a pure garbage
i played it for an hour and just could not stop thinking fornite. The graphics are just copy and paste. Even the music. It screamed gen z in my ear.
PC Gaming: Pay 2x for equivalent power of a console, then get broken games. Bad times for PC Gaming, good time for gpu prices to take a nose dive, as it’s now a sub par gaming platform.
Don't buy any Microsoft games, problem solved. I blacklisted them years ago. Garbage like this needs to have consequences.
The fading out shadows and close look is an Engine Bug I reported to Epic over a year ago. The report got deleted a month after reporting it with no efforts taken … Epic no longer cares about the games idustrie and bloats Unreal Engine with stuff for the movie industrie while breaking the engine more and more over the years.
Poor port? I wonder why no one talks about that this is every unreal game issue that just sucks at multithreading support? UE5 won't be any different, it's not like all of the UE4 issues are magically resolved, it's still same old architecture inside. We have all these fancy trailers and demos, but it will be the same shit happening on release in these games 🙂
Epic piece of crap
Redfall is a spit in the face to Xbox fans. They knew this game was broken, they heard the fans begging for a delay, but MS released it anyways. So since they want to use Gamepass to launch half finished games, I will no longer support Gamepass.
This game looks like a late PS3 game (ex. GTA V) and struggles on current hardware. Modern gaming is just baffling
PC ports and Xbox games just suck. I feel like only Nintendo and Sony deliver consistent great games
I actually feel bad for the DF team not only when they have to play broken games, but also when they are shit! 😂
Seems to me unreal engine 4 is garbage… EPIC, instead of focusing on next gen graphics, should fix those basic things their engine does since so many games are gonna use it… if they dont, its gonna be shitty years of PC gaming… all because of EPIC lazyness.
Someone should do a comparison video between Redfall and FarCry 5, since they are somewhat similar games set in a somewhat similar setting. I have a feeling FC5 will look better in a lot of cases, and run better!
Redfall runs like shit on the XboxsX, so why do you expect it would run smooth on PC?
Cause MS does not give shit, thats why….
Arkane simps on suicide watch.
I just flat out refuse to buy UE4 games on PC now
Buying new games is like shooting yourself in the foot thinking you'll have a good time
Honestly, its issues being a bad port are the least of its problems. The game is overall terrible. The animation quality is insanely bad, enemy variety doesn’t really exist (that I’ve seen), and the AI is broken/non-existent.
Needed at least 6 more months baking. Glad i was able to try it on gamepass and didnt drop $70 on it.
Stay strong Alex. We all love you.
What a mess. Thanks for the reporting Alex!
Explains why its locked 30 on xbox
The game can't run acceptably above that
so game is shitty , you do not need 4090 to playh shitty game right BAN IT !!!!!!
I really wish ports like this would be better, but it still sure as heck beats playing at 30fps with a controller.
Does the extra v-cache of the Ryzen 5800X3D make a difference with these ports? Or do I just have super low expectations? It's been okay for me besides the traversal stutters
Funny how DF and especially John KEEPS ON omitting Sony's horrible PC ports like TLoU from any port comparison. Sorry, but TLoU was worse then Redfall on almost every level.
You know things are bad when your only hope for a bug-free game is Bethesda
Loving the Red Alert music Alex 👍👍
lol shadows are in a quantum state. If you look at them, they break down !