Redfall Devs' Plea for One Last Patch Reveals Industry's Dark Side

Harvey Smith, lead game designer on Deus Ex and creative director of Dishonored and its sequel, has spoken out about his experience working on the poorly-received Xbox console exclusive Redfall.

Smith's team at Arkane Austin had been hard at work on a final patch for the game, version 1.4, which would address numerous player issues and bugbears.

However, after being laid off in May 2024, Smith and his team had to negotiate with Microsoft to be let back into the office to ensure the patch saw the light of day.

'We finished the game and it was very poorly received,' Smith recalled. 'We then worked on it for a year. We patched thousands of bugs. We then got laid off, but we had in the pipe version 1.4. It was the one that fixed tons of stuff.'

Redfall launched to negative reviews in 2023 and proved to be the final project for Arkane Austin.