Facepalm: Most games see their player counts drop a few months after launch, but in the case of Redfall, which only arrived five months ago, so few people are playing it on Steam that there have been times when there weren't enough to make a team of four.
Being developed by Arcane – the company behind the excellent Dishonored series – and published by Bethesda meant that hopes were high for team-focused FPS Redfall. But it launched to some scathing reviews from critics and players alike in May due to the bad AI, bland missions, and a myriad of technical issues. There were allegations that Redfall's own developers hoped Microsoft would cancel the vampire-themed game.
Despite these issues and the fact it's available on PC Game Pass, Redfall still managed to attract several thousand concurrent Steam players during its post-launch period, peaking at 6,124. But PCGamesN notes that the figure is now much, much lower.
In the last 24 hours, Redfall has seen a peak of just 35 concurrent Steam players. At the time of writing, that number is down to 7, according to SteamDB. This isn't something new; the concurrent player count has been falling to single figures repeatedly over the last few weeks and has at times been as low as two during certain times of the day. It meant there were not enough players to form a full team of four people from Steam – though you can play solo, and there are the PC Game Pass players.
There's no indication of how well Redfall is performing on Xbox or Game Pass, though it's unlikely to be doing much better.
Pete Hines, senior vice president of global marketing & communications at Bethesda, recently said that Redfall would do a Fallout 76 and eventually gain more universal appeal. He attributed this to its status as a first-party-studio title, which ensures it will remain on Game Pass indefinitely.
"We are the same company that has had launches that didn't go the way we wanted, and we don't quit or abandon stuff just because it didn't start right," Hines added, making the comparison to Fallout 76. But then that game never saw its player count drop as low as Redfall's.