Arkane tries to explain why they would introduce the always online requirement for Redfall.

 

 

Redfall may drop the always-online requirement in single-player mode. Game director Harvey Smith told Eurogamer that developer Arkane is “actively working” on dropping the condition, but nothing is confirmed yet. Smith explained that many people live in places and circumstances where they cannot guarantee a constant and stable internet connection.

“There are people who live in places where there are outages or their broadband is shitty, or they’re competing with their family members, because their mum’s streaming a movie or their brother’s on another device. And so I think it is a legitimate critique,” Smith said.

The developer confirmed that Arkane has already started working on “addressing this in the future”. But whether the always-online requirement will ever be dropped for good remains to be seen.

“We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into – I’m not supposed to promise anything – but we’re looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future,” Smith said.

If Arkane does end up dropping the always-online requirement for the single-player mode, whether that will happen at the launch in May remains to be seen.

But why was the always online requirement necessary in the first place?

It was about capturing player data to help make the game better, not something “insidious,” Smith said.

“It allows us to do some accessibility stuff,” Smith said. “It allows us for telemetry, like, if everybody’s falling off ladders and dying, holy sh** 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.”

Redfall’s multiplayer mode requires an internet connection, of course. Another big game in the pipeline, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, will also require a constant internet connection.

Source: Eurogamer