Enlarge / The author, awakening to a horrific era in which he finds himself eternally lusting after games you can play without a connection, driven mad by his impulses to the point where he can no longer keep up his human facade. (credit: Arkane/Bethesda)

I have played Arkane’s new co-op vampire loot-shooter Redfall for about five hours. From what I’ve seen and experienced, the reviews are right: The set design, art, music, sound, and voice acting are all solid, sometimes splendid. But the actual gameplay is mostly uninspired marker quests, inventory stat comparisons, and brain-dead-enemy shooting with awkward-feeling guns.

I might have liked to play more. We received our review codes at Ars mid-day Thursday, with an embargo set for Monday night. Being a fan of Prey, the whole Dishonored series, and Deathloop, I planned to pack in as much time as I could in what I assumed would be a rich world. I had to travel over the weekend, but no matter: I’d bring my trusty Steam Deck and a good-enough laptop and get some time in on trains, planes, and idle hotel moments.

But Redfall does not want you to spend any time offline in its haunted, leaf-strewn New England town, nor on a slow connection. You need a Bethesda.net account to play Redfall, even though the platforms it’s available on, Xbox and Steam on PC, both have their own matchmaking and voice chat capabilities. All the buttons and “host/join” prompts make starting a single-player game feel like starting a multiplayer game, just lonelier. But eventually, you can play Redfall by yourself after a few clicks.