Redfall tips: 5 mistakes new players need to avoid

Arkane’s Redfall is here, dropping hot into Xbox Game Pass.

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Redfall is here, and it’s not exactly great, but not exactly awful either.

In ourRedfall review, I describe how Arkane’s efforts to build a Borderlands facsimile ultimately fall short. You can squeeze some drops of fun out of the game, however, owing to its pretty world, serviceable shooting, and interesting story beats. And hey, at least you can play it onXbox Game Pass.

In any case, Redfall has some pretty odd pitfalls new players may fall into. I suspect some of these issues will be patched out or improved over time, but if you’re starting on one ofRedfall’s launch times, do take note of these quick Redfall tips.

1: The point(s) of no return

Without spoiling, Redfall is split into two separate areas of the island’s coast. Irritatingly, you cannot return to the first area once you’ve completed it, and you cannot return to the final area once you’ve defeated the last boss. While Redfall does warn you that you won’t be able to return to the first area once you’ve reached the final mission, I’m pretty sure I missed the warning that the final boss would throw you into new game+ immediately.

On the mission table, you’ll know the final mission when it’s right up to the right-hand side of the window. Telling you the names of the missions might constitute spoilers, but it’s fairly obvious. Once the window is full, you’re ready to move to the next area.

2: Pick the right class

One of the issues I had with the game was picking a class to play. Depending on your personal playstyle, it may not exactly be obvious which class is best from the outset. Here’s some tips for each of the game’s heroes.

3: Combat tips: fighting vampires, and stealth

Redfall is a bit of an odd game for those who are used to traditional Arkane titles. There’s no parry or dodge button, despite the game forcing you into melee engagements frequently. There’s no insta-kill stealth take town abilities for vampires, and level scaling renders your weapons useless quite frequently. Here are some general combat tips to survive your trip to Redfall.

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4: Adjust your controller settings

Out of the box, at least on console, Redfall has this uncanny interaction with Xbox controllers. The game has an “input response” preset buried in the controller menu, which can be adjusted to improve the way the game handles with a joystick.

I’m not quite sure what the point of this setting is, but with it set to default, the motion curve on joystick pulls is simply too steep. You’ll get a much smoother curve between slow and fast turning if you set this option to “low.” If you set it to high, you’ll hit maximum turn speed with the most miniscule flick of the stick. I don’t think anyone is going to be doing 360 no-scope trick shots in Redfall, but I could be wrong.

I also adjusted the controller sensitivity a bit to compensate after changing this setting. Your best bet is to turn the input response to low, and increase the controller sensitivity to around 3.5 to make it feel like a more normal console FPS.

5: Be careful when deconstructing weapons

One pitfall I often found myself in with Redfall was via its maddeningly basic, yet irritatingly essential loot system, which sees your guns phase out of viability quite rapidly as you press through the game.

Enemies scale up to your level, rendering any sense of progression moot. However, your guns will gradually decrease in effectiveness, forcing you to find new ones. The best place to get new guns tend to be within the game’s vampire nests, which appear as blue door icons on the map. After doing a battle event at the end, I’ve found the highest frequency of legendary items in the vaults that spawn after breaking a nest’s heart.

Every weapon type has strong importance in Redfall, but some become absolutely essential tools for dealing with certain threats.

Even if it’s lower level, always ensure you keep a UV beam in your arsenal. In some nests and some events, being able to snap-freeze a crowd of angry, melee-range vampires is a huge help. You should also look to maintain access to a stake gun. Stake guns deal massive damage to vampires from a distance, and are also silenced apparently (despite making a very loud noise). They’re great for sniping vampires with, and also for clearing interiors in lieu of a silenced pistol. There are a few regular guns in the game which can kill vampires without a stake, but for the most part, vampires will not die from a regular sniper rifle headshot. You’ll want to make sure you always have at least one staked weapon equipped at all times, although the flare gun and electrifying weapons can also burn vampires without a stake execution.

As such, be sure to avoid accidentally salvaging good weapons and those essential tools. There’s sadly no way to “pin” a weapon to lock it out of being salvaged, but you need to hold down the left trigger to salvage, which makes it a little harder to destroy something by accident.

Any other questions? Hit the comments.

Redfall is a disappointment, especially as someone who adores Prey and Dishonored, and other Arkane games. It feels like a huge step back for the studio, but despite that, I still enjoyed my time overall. I’m not sure what the future will hold for Redfall. Whether it will get content updates moving forward, or whether Arkane will step away and move on to the next game. There exists the DNA of a decent open world shooter in Redfall, but a lack of iteration and vision clearly hindered the final execution.

If you have any other questions from someone who has completed the game, with 30 hours in,hit the comments below or in our forums, and I’ll get them answered for you.

Jez Corden is the Executive Editor at Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem while being powered by tea. Follow onTwitter (X)andThreads, and listen to hisXB2 Podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!