There are signs of meddling in Arkane's creative freedom. From absolutely retarded dialogue to just making games focused on shooting and cooperative gameplay and multiplayer as seen so far in Deathloop and Redfall.
The weapons and weapon switching also look very forced, slow, like it's unfamiliar territory, not to mention that the weapon that jams in the gameplay shown has a similar design to the AR in FO4, which itself had similar design with a gun from Doom 3, together with designs for monsters (ghouls) and fluidity of shooting and combat. If I remember correctly, ID Software "helped" with the creation of FO4 and guess who is helping with the creation of Redfall? ID Software. What can they help with? Weapon design, combat.
Since the weapon switching looks so hanky and slow, this makes me believe they're working with an unfamiliar engine, maybe they're using Void Engine like for D2, an engine that Arkane was forced to use even though they were familiar with Unreal. Yeah, the signs are there.
I said some time ago that maybe Arkane doesn't really have a say in what they're making anymore. Commercial failure after failure (D2, DotO, Prey, Moon crash) may be what led to this.
I fully expect Arkane to completely stop making single player immersive sims after Redfall or maybe the game after. Still, a 20 year run of a company that wanted and succeeded partially in continuing the Looking Glass design school in their games deserves our respect. Because after they're gone, with the exception of Wolf Eye Studio (as of now), Otherside Entertainment owned by the CCP is what will continue to make immersive sims.
And since Underworld Ascendant was such a beloved game especially by the Codex (
), I'm sure by now we know what to look forward to when it comes to them making... anything really. So yeah, the future looks bright. When you shine a flashlight on it.