Bethesda

Smith suggests that devs have two ways to react to these complaints: Listen and try to fix things or point out that everything else is always online.

“[Devs] could say: ‘Oh, my God, you’re always online. If you get on your Steam, and it’s not online, you freak out. If you get on your Xbox, and you can’t get the latest patch, or see what your friends are doing, you freak out. You want to be always online!’ But that response, I think, lacks empathy.”

He further explained that he understands that some people live in places where internet outages are common or “broadband is shitty.” He also understands that some players are “competing with their family members” who might be streaming a movie or playing another game on a limited internet connection.

Advertisement

Why did Redfall require an always online connection?

So why even try to make the game always online in the first place? The obvious answer—and what is often the case in big games—is to sell players more products via in-game stores. But Smith says that wasn’t the case with Redfall.

Advertisement

“[Always online] allows us to do some accessibility stuff,” Smith said. “It allows us for telemetry, like—if everybody’s falling off ladders and dying, holy shit that shows up. And so we can go and tweak the ladder code. There are reasons we set out to do that that are not insidious.”

Regardless of why Arkane was planning on making the game require a constant online connection, I’m happy to see a studio listen to fan feedback about an important issue and try to fix the situation, instead of ignoring it.