Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

Well. RDR2 is very atmospheric journey through beautiful american landscapes and a perfectly crafted cowboy-simulator. Its scenic landscapes, countless characters and activities make up an absolutely enjoyable, streamlined story to delve into.

I for my part do think that the main story writing is only average and overrated, same as I would say for Witcher 3 and many other games praised on that behalf. Only chapter six really became interesting eventually. The rest was just: 'We need to go somewhere else!' 'I have a plan!'

The open world is massive but not bloodless as so many others of that size. The different small open world events like people being trapped or attacked by wolves etc. do make it seem alive and breathing. I like that there's not a wall of text for every tiny character but rather the simplified antagonize, greet, callout interactions triade.

RDR2 is a blockbuster that did not innovate anything but rather just applied rockstar's GTA formula on another setting. That does work and was only slightly tedious, despite its gigantic length. Still, if half of those main quests would have been sidequests, the game probably would've been twice as good. It's still one of the most cinematic and epic games ever made.

I remember playing Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360 back in the day and loving the story and gameplay at that time.

The long wait was definitely worth it to experience a prequel.

The prequel lives up to its name without any effort. Following the game thru the main story is enough to know that this game is flawless. Experiencing a few of the sidequests makes it feel like a world you never want to escape.

What an immersive world and story. Endlessly replayable. I wish i had caught the "online" craze but was unfortunately, too late.

Even though, perfect game.

A couple of my friends always thought of themselves as the kind of people who play videogames for the story, while I personally don't think I belong in that category despite how much I love RPGs, I have acknowledged since GTA IV, that Rockstar Games had, at least, top tier writing when it comes to dialogue in gaming. This was a new take back then, because most people that played videogames for the story would hype up the monoliths in the RPG genre as, in their eyes, the greatest videogame achievement in writing and storytelling.

Some would gently break the norm and say something like Silent Hill or Metal Gear Solid to be strong contenders to the pantheon of storytelling, but very few would acknowledge Rockstar Games' writers as even close to that level.

Jesus, look at how much things changed.

Not only have Rockstar did something to be deserving of status in that top tier of excellent stories in videogames, but it left me considering deeply that Red Dead Redemption 2 might have had the greatest story I've ever experienced in a videogame. But, to tell you the truth, after playing the epilogue, I was absolutely sure of it.

Apart from being an gutwrenching emotional punch to the gut, the story is filled with colorful, human characters that laugh, sing, and love each other, and not a single one of these ever turn into an edgy, or tropy walking cliché, which is something many beloved RPGs of old are guilty of doing.

But there are the good sort of clichés that makes the game extra charming, and it's every single cliché that codifies a moment that you can easily imagine when you think about westerns. There's mexican standoffs, there's train robberies, there's dynamite to open bank vaults, there's even a scene where two characters escape from a train in a rail cart, which would be something you would see in an old Looney Tunes episode.

There's absolutely no need to say anything else about this game's story, you're better off experiencing it on your own, and yet, we have to discuss and explain how well the story weaves into gameplay. Well, I don't think it does it perfectly.

For starters, this game requires a lot of patience. There's a lot of riding around on horseback, which thanks to RDR2's design, is mostly downtime. I would appreciate a harder difficulty mode that would allow me to play without a minimap, or map markers, and let me explore things on my own, so I could have a bit more agency. However, this would be a monumental task of game design that would require a lot of changes in RDR2's gameplay, so that the player wouldn't get lost looking for where to go next.

And still, no matter how excusable it is, the downtime is definitely real, and it makes the game feel so much longer. I think the developers acknowledge this problem, at least, because during the epilogue, a lot of traveling is skipped with cutscenes, so it doesn't extend the game even further to burn out even the most patient player.

However, if you somehow don't mind the downtime at all, there's a beautiful world and scenery in between. Unmistakenly, the world of RDR2 is a technical and artistical benchmark of breathtaking visual and audio design, both in soundtrack and ambience. There's a huge variety of environments spanning between cities, marshes, snow, deserts, forests and plains, all of them detailed to the brim with historically accurate items, buildings and even people.

When it comes to interacting with people, there are random events scattered across the open world which never get repetitive. And you can interact positively and negatively with almost anyone in this game. I've never actually seen "small talk" being part of a game's design, but it is here. The "small talk" you can engage in is charming and even funny at times, however you can use it to your advantage, by provoking people into assaulting you for example.

And if you choose to take it a step further in interacting with the open world, there are three major mechanics linked to it: robbing, hunting and fishing. There's locations with Legendary animals, which make up the open world boss encounters of this game. While I didn't spend much time fishing, hunting was something that I enjoyed and isn't a mindless task, as you need to track down good animals for fur quality (based on 1, 2 or 3 stars of quality), and give them a clean shot to not downgrade the fur quality. Furthermore, the ideal rifling, weapons and approach depends heavily on the animal you need. This strategic approach to hunting never feels overbearing to me, yet it never feels mindless either. Trying to find out where animals lived and hunting to feed the camps was something that I would engage with very often, to break the pace of just following around quests markers and having some agency of my own.

Let's also keep in mind that the game has nearly the whole map of RDR1, but if you only follow the story, it's never going to be explored. This means that Rockstar Games left it as an intentional carrot on a stick to engage you in further exploration. And of course, this new and obscured part of the map is also filled with random events, npcs, and new fauna and flora.

As far as the rest of the gameplay goes, it's... decent. The shooting does get tiresome after a while, and there's not much depth to it. Playing with a controller was really hard to get used to, but since I'm mostly a PC player for shooting games, that could be issue for me. Still, I had to turn on RDR2's auto-aim, since dying in RDR2 is very frustrating and breaks the game's whole pace, unlike games like Doom Eternal for instance where dying would get me pumped to try again. I acknowledge this is my fault, but it did detriment my enjoyment of the game. Not only that, the movement and riding controls are... really bad. Mashing X to ride really gets old and unnerving after a while. These problems are somewhat of a big hiccup in my enjoyment of the game, because they are... the majority of the game. It is mostly riding and shooting.

Another issue is that there's also a bit of skippable content, and if you like to collect trophies you better keep saves of each chapter in your hard drive. Ugh.

But despite these issues, I do believe Rockstar Games made a magical miracle here that took almost 10 years to develop. It's, in my eyes, the greatest story ever told in a videogame so far.

SIMILAR MEDIA:

• Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360/PS3): This game is a prequel to RDR for the X360 and PS3, and they both complete each other so well, that I expect a remake or remaster of RDR1 will be out soon just for people to experience the "whole" story. Don't worry, RDR2 can be still played as a self-contained story in it's own right. I feel that RDR1 is simply the continuation of RDR2's epilogue, and most of the "meat" of the story is still in RDR2.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Nintendo Switch): I think the closest game to RDR2 is The Witcher 3. Both are very story driven, open-world games with colorful characters and storylines. And sadly, bth suffer from the same problem of downtime and the game just becoming following markers on the minimap. But eh, if you play videogames for their story, I don't think you would mind.

• The Wild Bunch (movie, 1969): I think this movie directly inspired this game. It's been a while since I've seen it, but it deals with four brotherly outlaws who were like family, trying to survive the end of the wild west era. There's even a dude named Dutch, here.

• Berserk (manga): This might seem like an odd choice, but I see a lot of Berserk in RDR2's story. Without saying too much, let's just say the Van Der Linde gang and the Band of the Hawk have a similar sort of... plot.

For context, I never played the original Red Dead Redemption, though I recall playing and enjoying Red Dead Revolver on the original Xbox.

RDR II is cinematic in every sense of the word. From the beautiful graphics, sound design, world building and character development and story with it's twists and turns and ultimate climax, this game is an experience well worth the price of admission and time commitment to complete it.

The gun play and some of the non-core mechanics of the game can be a bit frustrating at times, but they don't take away from what is otherwise a fantastic experience, and one - like a good book - that will linger with you for a little while after you finish it.

I hate Dutch.

Dutch can be killed off for all I care. I was wary of him in the beginning, but now I just straight up hate him.

I just got to the part where fuckin' Hosea and Lenny died!! Two of the characters I genuinely liked in this game shot John finally came around to me, I like him and Arthur is still mah boy. I just got washed up on the Caribbean Island and well this game took a strange turn? I just didn't see that location coming. I am on Chapter 5, and I'm genuinely curious to see what the rest of this game will have, because it genuinely seemed like it would end at Chapter 4, but of course shit went wrong. It feels like they're dragging the game out? I'm not sure.

Don't get me wrong, I am definitely enjoying myself. I still find it wonderfully peaceful and I really like the game play. Just...fuck Dutch.

Played nothing but this game for a week while I recovered from surgery, and I find it oddly soothing. I'm not sure if others feel this way, but RDR2 is a really calm game to me. Sure there are spats of battles and what not, but I feel like most of my time is spent on my horse, which I actually don't mind that much. The scenery is SO GORGEOUS. I also enjoy that they throw tiny interactions while on your horse journey to make the ride seem not as tenuous. Some of the riding feels a little tedious to a point, but now that I've unlocked more places to fast travel to, it doesn't feel as bad.

Ya'll were right about the stamina, definitely gets better.

I had the weirdest glitch at one point - I had my horse, we're doing fine, and then I hop on a stage coach to go to Valentine, try to call my horse and RDR2 is like "Your horse is dead." ???? What?? When?? Noooo!!!! I loved my horse!!!! :(

I love Arthur Morgan. I think I like him more than John Marston in the first game. He's such a softie and he acts so tough. I want to give him a hug

Few things I'm liking so far:

• Arthur as a character
• The fact that I'm not playing as John Marsten
• The fact you can build a relationship with your horse
• The dead eye mechanic and overall shooting mechanics have been vastly improved since the first Red Dead
• TRAINS!!
• Mission failure consequences are not nearly as bad as they were in the first.

Things I'm not liking so far:

• Stamina. Why is it there? If they're gonna put stamina in, then they need to make my average walk not 1 mph. I don't want to run for 6 seconds and then travel a small distance, but it takes me like 20 minutes because HE WALKS SO DAMN SLOW
• Arthur's voice. Is the voice actor ok? Is his throat shredded? I'm worried.
• Going along with the walking, the other characters are telling me to hurry it up, but I already did hurry and now I have no stamina and I'm just trying to get to this train and I'm being shot at and GOSH DANGIT I DON'T HAVE TIME TO EAT WHILE IM BEING SHOT AT

It starts pretty slow, but I'm keeping an open mind. I've heard a lot about how there is almost too much to do in the game, so I'm curious to see how I, who loves having too many side quests to do, will think of it.

I finished the main story and I don't have the stamina for the extras at the end. I am torn whether the experience was overall good or not. I enjoyed aspects of it. The characters, dialogue, and story were extraordinary and I loved going back to camp to interact.

But most of the story mission gameplay seemed to devolve into long rides to a place, a firefight, and then a chase sequence. Very dull. The optional side quests got away from this formula, which was refreshing.

The lack of fast travel was the killer for me because there were times I just wanted to get to the location. Near the end the story missions seemed to be on opposite sides of the earth with the stage coaches locked for story reasons. Very painful when I just wanted to see the story.

I usually enjoy exploring an open world but this one deterred me from doing so. It took very long to get places and I didn't know if I would find anything interesting there. This meant the cost of exploring was high since I had to manually travel back. You were limited in how many pelts you could carry and if you got killed on your way back you would lose that stuff. I stopped pursuing that stuff early on because of it.

Well, that’s rdr2 in the can. I’m of two minds on this game, it’s an impressive game and has a ton of really enjoyable moments, but the main campaign started to drag for me to the point where it felt like I was clocking in each time I started playing. Critically I started doing the thing where I would avoid non story missions just to advance to main campaign so that I could go back and do them at a more relaxed pace later on (fully realizing that some would likely be unavailable).

But that said, I think there’s a really interesting tonal shift once the epilogue begins and even just being able to leisurely visit old stomping grounds was incredibly relaxing. I don’t know that it would have played that way if the main campaign had been different, but i think it speaks to the contrast between rdr1 and rdr2: the first is really about asserting yourself and being responsible to an abstract notion of some family being held by pinkertons. The second is really this story where your actions are driven heavily by the immediate responsibilities of your actual family. because this responsibility is foisted on you rather than being something you have to internalize or even elect to care about, it’s very easy to naturally resent Dutch rather than coming to your own conclusions about what sort of leader he is. The game positions some sort of notion of conflicted protagonist but the limitations of your own character’s involvement prevent that relationship from developing naturally, instead it is very much forced on you changing the experience from emergent to prescriptive.

The odd thing is that the epilogue posits a situation very different than the first and explores a mode of storytelling that challenges the protagonists’s relationship with their environment in a more nuanced way. So often the game presents moral choices without giving an indication that they’ll actually change anything other than the alignment of a meter, but the epilogue shows that even an on the rails story can drive a nuanced narrative simply by allowing your character to behave consistently in an unfamiliar environment. Could that have been effective if we hadn’t already had 40+ hours of prior gameplay? It’s not clear to me, but simply reducing the scope of the protagonist’s responsibility gives more nuance to their progression as the story advances at natural points that make your choices unintentionally map with their unexpected consequences.

A fun game with lots to think about, but also a very challenging game because it seems to lose its own narrative and conceptual thread. I agree with the take that there’s easily two or three very tight campaigns hidden in the all of rdr2. That sort of game would have been massively resonant with me but I understand it would have likely played very differently.

Curious to see if they release any dlc.

SPOILERS. I was so excited for this game after playing the first Red Dead Redemption. And this did not disappoint.

The campaign story was gripping and had me at the edge of my seat the whole way. Starting from rescuing John from wolves to the highly emotional ending, I was definitely taken on a wild journey. I loved the ability to ‘choose your own path’ for so many story and side missions. It’s like you are finding your story alongside Arthur. Like you’re exploring the countryside and large cities with him. The twists and turns as you ride alongside Dutch, insisting you have ‘faith’ in ‘plan’, keeps you guessing.

The story is made because of the characters. I felt Arthur’s emotions as he struggled with turning against his mentor Dutch who, after all, went crazy with his plans for Tahiti! I wept for Lenny and for Hosea when their lives were stolen too early for them, all because their charismatic gang leader wanted to pull off a bank heist in broad daylight in the middle of the biggest city in the game. The tensions building within the gang were great explorations of personal conflict; my favourite being Arthur’s expulsion of the German lender but also everybody’s shock when Dutch killed Molly O’Shea. My beautiful horse, Hades, whom I had played to a very high bonding level, was shot and killed when I stayed with John at the very end of the game. I couldn’t help but burst into tears when Arthur thanked him for everything!

The exceptional attention to detail constantly blew me away. I have never seen any character actually ‘loot’ dead bodies properly in a game. I actually had to take care of my own facial hair, trimming my mutton chops when they got too long and even putting gel in my hair. The scenery and sound effects of the countryside blew me away, as did when I suddenly got ambushed by rival gangs and bounty hunters.

Where too now? I want to find out more. What was Dutch’s story before this? Hosea’s? Where do the other gang members go? What happens to the Wapitis with their struggle against the Army?

I sure hope Rockstar bring out more RDRs. Best damn open world game I’ve ever played.