Redfall’s extended gameplay reveal was a decent hit through the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase this year, but the devs divided fans today after revealing that all players on a squad can play the same character.
Here’s the official announcement, teasing four Laylas as a single squad:
Redfall’s overall tone is hardly aiming for any kind of realism, given its sense of humor and supernatural world. But the main issue is that allowing four of the same character on one squad could break or weaken the strategy of the gameplay.
It’s important for distinguishable roles to create a foundation of strategy, and that formula’s been a staple in the majority of similar squad-based shooters like Left 4 Dead, which clearly had some inspiration here.
Otherwise, the dominating meta will be the only sensible way to play the game, and certain characters will never get any love unless everyone is perfectly balanced.
This can seriously damage replay value and result in frustrating redundancy. It’s arguably up to the players to decide on an appropriate squad, but it’s also crucial for the game to level the field.
Then again, many fans are actually very pleased. The combinations are endless this way. Players won’t be able to lose the class they want, and they can always play the character they like or identify with the most.
In fact, denied characters have been a big problem in other character-driven shooters like Overwatch or Apex Legends. For example, matchmaking online can sometimes cause teammates to abandon the game altogether if they don’t get the character they want.
Ideally, there will be distinguishable cosmetics so that players can make out which character they are in a character-stacked squad.
For now, it remains unclear how character selection will work in single-player mode, or if it’s possible to swap characters anytime through the campaign.
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