Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Major Redfall patch adds 60 fps performance mode, a stealth overhaul, and more

Xbox exclusive Redfall just got a major patch. The update adds a long-awaited 60 frames per second (fps) mode to the game, as well as a heap of quality of life upgrades and an overhaul to stealth gameplay.

Among lots of other problems, the dame infamously only ran at 30 fps at launch on Xbox Series X and S. While Arkane Studios promised a performance mode patch was in the works prior to release, it didn’t arrive until today.

Redfall Cover
Bethesda

On October 6, Arkane Studios and Bethesda dropped Update 2 for Redfall. The most notable addition is Performance Mode, which lets players prioritize frame rate over resolution to finally get the game to run at 60 fps on consoles. Simply navigate to the Video tab within Redfall’s settings menu to activate it. The patch notes for this update claim it brings improved stability on PC, in addition to solutions to memory-based crashes and AMD GPU-related graphics corruption. The update also contains some new gameplay tweaks to hopefully make the experience better.

Recommended Videos

Redfall will now encourage stealth more, as Arkane added the ability to sneak up on and do stealth takedowns on enemies and made it clearer which weapons are silenced in menus. It also added more options for players to fine-tune aim assets and dead zones while aiming, increased the number of enemies wandering the game’s open world, and added unique ping colors for each player in a multiplayer squad. You can check out the full list of patch notes to see the additional tweaks and bug fixes made.

Redfall had a notoriously rocky launch this year, so it was hard for anyone outside of Microsoft to truly know whether or not improvements to the game would actually be delivered. Bethesda’s Pete Hines had previously claimed it wouldn’t abandon the game, and this update is our first real indication that it’s true. While this isn’t a Phantom Liberty-level rework for Redfall, it certainly seems like the game is now in the best condition it’s been in since launch.

Redfall is available now for PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

Tomas Franzese
As a Gaming Staff Writer at Digital Trends, Tomas Franzese reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Starfield’s ending explained: What are Starborn and The Unity?
Key art for Starfield.

Bethesda Game Studios’ Starfield finally saw wide release on September 6 after years of waiting and speculation. One of the most mysterious elements of Starfield prior to its release was its story, as people wondered how realistic Starfield’s sci-fi universe would skew and if we’d encounter intelligent aliens, time travel, or other odd sci-fi concepts during the adventure.

Starfield is a lengthy game, and its narrative picks up in the back half thanks to some shocking twists, a memorable ending, and an interesting conceit that leads into “New Game Plus”-style replays. If you don’t know whether or not you’ll play enough to make it to the end of your Starfield campaign or just want to know what happens at the end of one of the biggest games of the year, here's a recap of Starfield’s story and ending.

Read more
Starfield’s file size is massive no matter what platform you’re playing on
A spacecraft in Starfield.

The file sizes for Starfield finally appeared across some of the storefronts it's available on now that it's available to preload. As a result, we've learned just how massive the game is.
On Steam, Bethesda recommends that players have 125 GB of space for the game, but Microsoft's own launcher shows an even bigger PC install size of 139.84 GB for Starfield. That size is only slightly smaller on the console, with the Xbox Store showing me that the game will take up 117.07 GB on my Xbox Series X. It's now very understandable why Microsoft is launching a 1 TB version of the Xbox Series S around Starfield; still, the game will even take over a tenth of that system's memory if players aren't expanding it at all. 
This 110+ GB file size across all platforms for Starfield demonstrates just how big Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG will be. It also follows a recent trend of even single-player taking up gigantic chunks of your game system's memory. This year alone, we've seen Star Wars Jedi: Survivor take up over 130 GB of space on consoles, while Baldur's Gate 3 clocks in at 125.14 GB currently. As games get bigger with more detail, it's clear that our gaming platforms will be able to accommodate fewer and fewer games on their SSDs going forward. 
At least you can play the game via Xbox Cloud Gaming if none of your platforms can accommodate that file size. Starfield will be released for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6. Those who pre-order the Premium Edition will get access on September 1, though.  

Read more
With Redfall’s stumbles, the pressure is on for Starfield
A character levitates a book in Redfall.

Judging by reviews and early impressions, Redfall is a resounding disappointment for Xbox and Bethesda. Hyped as Xbox’s first AAA release in over a year and one of the most significant things to come from Xbox’s 2021 acquisition of ZeniMax Media, Redfall isn't quite living up to those lofty expectations. While I'm still working through the game myself, I’ve played enough to know that this open-world vampire shooter pales in comparison to Arkane’s previous titles and its co-op shooter peers.

Coming after one of Xbox’s roughest years ever in terms of exclusives and the failure of the Activision Blizzard acquisition, it’s not a good look. It puts an excessive amount of pressure on just one game in Xbox’s lineup: Starfield.

Read more