Red Dead Redemption 2 is the perfect gaming experience, and what you were hoping for in the next iteration of the series. It has a rich story, deep gameplay, unrivaled visuals, and plenty of plains to explore.
A perfect game. That’s the phrase. It’s a misunderstood phrase amongst most gamers, sometimes an abused phrase amongst some reviewers, but make no mistake that this phrase only means one true thing — a perfect experience. A perfect experience is when you play a game for hours and hours, not breaking stride except for food and bathroom. A perfect experience is when you leave a game at home, go to work for eight hours, and think about it all day long. A perfect experience is when you continually play a large game that doesn’t seem to run out of surprises and keeps your gameplay needs fed from fall to winter. All of this is a perfect experience in gaming. All of this is Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s everything you wanted it to be.
Character development means better story
When I wear my professor hat and discuss with my students about the importance of story in both gaming and movies, I emphasize to them that you cannot cheap out on the development of characters and expect to have a good story. Both go together like peanut butter and jelly. There are a shit ton of movies out there that just want to get to the action of the story without really giving characters a chance to develop. Gaming does this as well, and it did it forever in arcades (short experiences). This game is different. Red Dead Redemption 2 starts your experience with focus on story and characters, instead of showing you the glory and glamour of the world, and they could have certainly just said, “Here’s the world! Enjoy it!”. By making sure there is a balance between characters and story, you get this game started on the best note possible.
The game starts with Dutch, Arthur (your character), and the whole gang traversing the blizzard blown slopes of a giant mountain looking for shelter before they freeze. Having lost a couple of members of the gang to gunshot wounds, a story that reveals itself as the game progresses, you are put into a desperate situation trying to survive the elements. Each gang member has their use to survive the bleak situation, so you get to know everyone without any blatantly place details. The game, at this point ,establishes a few vital elements from this single scenario. These elements are key to the game’s success, as without them gamers may not attach themselves to the story, which is half of the overall gameplay experience.
The first element is how close everyone is in the gang and how much they will stick together in the harshest of conditions, including a last minute escape into a blizzard. The beginning of the game features people dying, people freezing, people starving, and pretty much establishes how absolutely desperate they are in their current situation on the mountain, but they stick together thanks to the help of Dutch, who is also the one that put them in the situation. His temper apparently put the gang in peril, thanks to an old revenge need, so Dutch has to pull them through to make amends, and he does. Are they angry with him as a player at the beginning of the game? Yes, just like the sentiment of the NPCs around you, but through dialogue the gang show they trust him through thick and thin, even in his faults. It’s endearing to see play out, and the dialogue written in these moments really reflect how close they are to each other. They are a gang, as well as a family.
The second element here is how faithful the group is to each other, and yet fight pretty well like a family. The latter of that sentence is important because it helps create a bond between gamer and the characters they interact with during gameplay. The family interaction helps to create and shape what to expect from each personality. For example, you’ll know what to expect from Uncle in the group, as he’s the drunk that doesn’t fully think through a plan, and he takes a ton of abuse from other characters because of it. Sure, his plans will be lucrative, but ultimately they come at a cost. He is this way from the start of the game, and will not break from that mold. It’s consistent and it’s built by how he is established early in the story. Each character has that type of development and that type of consistency when it comes to what the gamer should expect from them. I haven’t seen a game develop characters like this before, which makes it fascinatingly impressive.
The last element is the urgency that comes with every situation. The first urgency is hiding from the law hunting you from a city called Blackwater, a place where something Dutch/crew did went terribly wrong. Even without seeing the law at your doorstep at the beginning, you can feel it. It creates a constant sense of uneasiness and unrest. You feel that urgency to keep moving and finding a place to hide. It’s a terrible, yet wonderful constant that continues as you progress through the game and make your mark on a changing world that has no place for outlaws. The latter, which is an established motif throughout the game, is echoed through dialogue and action as the game progresses. You will feel the push from the story that this group simply has no comfortable place to live out their days. You feel constantly at threat from the surrounding world trying to eliminate your kind, as well as a need to keep moving to avoid that exstinction.. No matter the success, the money, the growth, you’re still going to feel like these characters are reaching the end of their days. It’s so heavy and overbearing during the gameplay, that you end up feeling sorry for them, even when some seem to have the right intentions, or when some are downright evil as hell. What all of means is that it makes you connect with the characters and their situation, which is not something you naturally see in every video game. You have to have good characters and a solid story for that to happen.
All of the above said, I’m not going to get into the major story details beyond the beginning. I will tell you that you’re in for a treat from plot point to plot point. The character interactions, the way they talk/move/work, are all developed with a solid story that unfolds methodically and with meticulous craftsmanship that is comparable to the best old west movies in Hollywood. The story will feature surprises around every corner, and your character will always find something that pushes the proper progression of the three-act narrative to its fullest. This is the first part of a perfect experience, maybe the most important, and Red Dead Redemption 2 comes through with flying colors.
The world you occupy and what you do with it
It’s big, and it’s alive. Rockstar didn’t pull any punches when creating a world you can find new and random instances on a constant basis. When you load up your game, you’re setting out into a world that is not going to throw you into a repetitive path that is filled full of lazy gameplay design. For an open world experience, it’s easy to just place a gamer in the same situation over and over again without giving much variety to the experience. I’ve seen that happen in many MMOs, and other titles that claim to be open world, but not a lot of them deliver. That’s not the case with this game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 let’s you know from the get-go that you’re going to find new things every single time you load the game. For example, yesterday I was wrapping up the review for the game, leaving the camp that the gang resides in, and came across a couple of men huddled together arguing over something. One man had a sledgehammer, the other was all up in his biz, and they were shouting at the top of their lungs. They were in the middle of nowhere, which means whatever they were doing, they were doing because something intense just happened to them. I rode up to them, got off my horse, approached them, and they immediately turned on me and started threatening me. As I drew closer, and one drew a gun on me, I saw they were arguing over how they were going to open a safe they had just stolen from a bank. I had never seen this instance before in the game, and I’ve been playing for the better part of two weeks, so I was wowed by it. So wowed, in fact, that I shot them both dead. I wanted whatever was inside the safe, so it was the only reasonable solution.
Anyway, once dead, I looked at the safe, figured I needed to get in it quick, so I put a stick of dynamite on it to blow the door open (you can do this in the game — dynamite is fun). I lit the stick, dropped back, and the door blew open…and the money burned up in the process…and a witness to my crime, as I stood amongst two dead guys and a blown safe, called the law on me before I could kill them. Then I was in the shit for absolutely nothing. Many guys showed up, I died quick. I had no regrets, though, as I was highly impressed with this random instance that I had not seen at this point in the game. That’s how the game gets you exploring and it motivates you to keep going. You find instances like this, unique ones, everywhere amongst the land. It’s a great way to keep your game interesting, as well as constantly ask your player to make moral cross-road decisions about their actions. More importantly, you get so many new instances like this as you explore. It’s such engrossing gameplay design.
Related to the instances is how big the landscape is in the game. It’s freaking huge, and I haven’t even unlocked it all yet. For example, last night I was in the swamps of some Louisiana-like land, and I wanted to go explore the snowy mountains that I started the game on. I wanted to mainly see how long it would take me to go from my southern point on the map, all the way to the northern point. Spoiler alert on this one, and again I haven’t unlocked all the map, it took me a solid 20-minutes on horseback to get back to the top of the mountain where I started my RDR 2 adventure. It’s that big folks. I took the trip one step further, I wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountain, so I made my way through it, which took an additional 10-minutes (after finding an Easter egg in the game — oh, yes. They’re present), and ended up on a new side of the map that featured a new mission. Again, the landscape sprawls out and is huge. The promise of new instances will make you take a tour of the map from top to bottom, and even multiple times, as different instances tend to crop up in the same areas. Anyway, the map looks and feels enormous, and it treats your journey likewise. Also, you should note that all the 90+ gigabytes that the game is when installed, is mainly due to the fact that no part of the land needs to be loaded once you load into the game. I hadn’t noticed any rendering of textures, no pop-ins during my exploring experience, rather everything just loaded at once and it stayed loaded. For a game of this magnitude, that is highly unusual. Even GTA V had moments of rendering and pop-in during gameplay on its huge map, but that’s not the case with RDR 2. Once it’s there, it’s there.
Now, something I just mentioned a few sentences ago is the mission portion of the game. You will find missions related to characters of your gang that drive the main story. There are also side quests that you run into through the same characters that aren’t part of the main story. There are also side quests with random characters that are very much outside the story. In addition to these, you will have goals to meet during gameplay, like wildlife to kill, as well as oddity missions that are ongoing through the gameplay that you gain through interactions with particular characters that you randomly run into during gameplay. You get the whole kitchen sink with missions, and every type of side quest dish the comes with that sink.
Starting with story missions, the game gives you these through interaction with gang characters at your camp. You will find these marked with a yellow dot on the map and with the character’s initials inside those dots, whom Arthur is going to talk to in order to get those missions going. Each piece of the story offers up a different experience. For example, I worked with a few characters today to rob a bank. I had never robbed a bank up to this point, so the entire experience of planning, infiltrating, executing, safe cracking (you get choices here), and escape, came with this particular interaction with those characters. This robbery added to the overall story, and helped to offer up more options for the player to upgrade the camp and/or themselves. You will find these moments often, and the game never presses you to do them until you’re ready. It is kind of like Skyrim or Fallout, where the story is there when you want it, but not forced down your throat to enjoy the world it exists in.
Along those same lines, you will find instances that are non-story related, but are still starting within your camp. It’s a second tier with interactions with gang members. The game gives you the option to hear the gang member out, and jump on the side quest, or tell them ‘Not Now’. If you tell them the latter, then the side quest is done, and maybe you can come back to it later. If you follow along with them, then you’re off on some scheme to get money — more than likely the outlaw way. These side quests flow in and out of the player’s life, and they make the game bigger in the long run. They also offer up variety for the player to experience, and it will last 15-20 minutes. These side missions are usually intense, and they’re worth your time. For example, I had one where a gang member (who isn’t going to be named due to spoiling the story) was going to pay me back for breaking him out of jail. He had a plan to rob a stage coach carrying a payroll. Once activated, the ‘easy’ plan went wrong, and the mission became bigger than expected with multiple layers of gameplay. It’s definitely worth the player’s time, as is every side quest I have run into so far in my gaming experience.
Outside of the gang, you will have the opportunity to explore a variety of interactions with non-gang players. These interactions are usually marked with a giant ‘?’ on the HUD. The only way to garnish details about them is to visit the ‘?’, and usually weird things occurred. For example, I had a ‘?’ contain a guy trying to capture wildlife on film, but wasn’t getting much cooperation from the wildlife. In the middle of the shoot, a fox went and grabbed the man’s bag that contained meat to lure creatures out. My job was to run after the fox and obtain the meat. While not the most exciting of missions, it still was different enough to keep the world interesting. I mean, who really expected meat bag retrieval to be a mission? I certainly didn’t predict that type of gameplay.
Another example of this type of side quest involved talking to a man at a train station, who was collecting cigarette cards (cards with random pictures on it). The entire interaction existed to open a portion fo the game that allowed Arthur to collect and sell off these cards (you collect them through exploration of the land). I was collecting these cards before meeting the man, so this wasn’t something I needed to see prior to the cards existence in the gameplay design.Thanks to the interaction of this man, it motivated me to continue trying to find the cards. That’s just an additional layer of exploration on top of a story, side quests, and instances.
As for the open world aspect of this game, the gameplay design gives you some additional goals to keep the world interesting. I want to so badly tell you these goals, even give you some really fantastic examples of design that you wouldn’t think a game like RDR 2 would offer, but it would ruin the surprise. This game is full of surprises, and you deserve to find them on your own. Just know there is a collection aspect of this game, and numerous goals to achieve along your journey through the Wild West.
And we’re not done yet
Items of interest I can tell you with regard to open world, is how you can upgrade, collect, and craft material to make your life easier. You will find material everywhere in this game. You will find collectible items in abandoned places, or places you helped cause to be abandoned. You might find medicine, elements, and various items. With these items, along with the skins of animals (that is a gruesome process), you can craft upgrades or make items, such as bullets, to help you avoid spending money. There’s a lot of crafting going on in this game, not my favorite aspect of any game — but I do respect it, so if you like that sorta thing, then you’re going to be happy with RDR 2’s crafting system.
If you prefer to buy items, then you’re in luck as well. Each town has a nice set of stores that feature a catalogue that Arthur can purchase goodies from during his journey. You can buy guns, clothes, horse items, and various other cool and customizable items with the right amount of money. Of course, acquiring money ties back to all of those missions, side quests, and collectible items to sell. One plays off the other, which makes for a constant motivation for the gamer to keep exploring the world. For example, I made around $2500 today in my bank robbery. That money buys me new weapons, new outfits, and even a new horse, which you can name (hint: BaulsMcGeee). The fact that my rewards for outlawing turn into progression in character upgrades makes me happy to keep playing the game. There are apparently a lot of guns, so I’m not sure I’m going to get unmotivated anytime soon.
Now, one big aspect of the experience in this game, as briefly mentioned above with BaulsMcGee, is horses. You will be riding horses everywhere, if you’re not jumping on trains and hijacking them — yep, you can do that too. Anyway, horses are acquired a few ways. First, as just mentioned, you can purchase them. It will take a lot of money, but you can purchase horses with proper papers from stables. The papers are so that no one will accuse you of stealing them, should you want to sell them for an upgrade. The second way to acquire horses is by roping them in the wild. If you can find packs of horses, and they come in actual horse varieties, so don’t expect generic animals, then you can get one by roping and breaking them. They’re not hard to break, you only need to rope, then ride them. You stay on them by hitting the square button on the controller. Eventually, the horse will calm down and give you a chance to bond with it, which is vital in the horse gameplay portion of the game. You have to take care of your horse, pat them, clean them, and feed them. The horse will bond with you over time, which ensures its loyalty, should you get separated from them. It’s a neat aspect of the game. You can also have multiple horses, so when one horse dies, another comes to the rescue. It’s like disposable horses. It’s just another layer of ‘neat’ from a game offering up a perfect experience.
Before we move on to the pretty part of the game, visuals, let’s discuss enemies and interactions.
While the narrative will push that the world is changing for the better, you will run into nasty sons-of-bitches everywhere you turn. Most people don’t take too kindly to strangers (you) approaching them uninvited, especially if the folks are carrying valuables. The gameplay is designed to distrust your character on a varying scale. Enemies generally give you a verbal insult before going for their gun to create a threatening situation. Even when they have their gun pulled, you’re still going to have a chance to get back on your horse and walk away. If you don’t take the hint at this point, then you’re going to get a bullet. They give you some chances to make the right decision, or the decision you want to make, in the situation before they make it for you. The level of complication and varying scale of threat is neat to watch. What’s even more remarkable is that the game also features a scale when characters need your help. For example, there was a moment where two prisoners killed their lawmen, and found me to be more helpful than a threat. One asked me to shoot off his shackles, which I did after a few shots, and one tagged foot. After accommodating them, they fled from me…until I shot one of them and hogtied the other. Those situations provide some assurance that maybe not all enemies are bad, but more often than not, you’re going to have a gun pointed to your face should you approach an NPC at the wrong time. It certainly adds more intrigue to the experience, plus it constantly throws you moral decisions to make.
Related, if you want to become the evil being in the game, and that’s something I laid on thick in the last few days, then you have to prepare to be constantly hunted. While the concept isn’t new in the RDR series, Rockstar treats it differently in RDR 2. There are multiple tiers of evil in the game that you have to be aware of before you pull that trigger. First, if you kill someone in cold blood, you may have to hunt down a witness. Even after you kill someone, if you’re anywhere near the dead person when another cowboy/settler rides by, then they’re going to assume the worst and tell on you. Should they want to blab to a lawman, you will see a giant WITNESS symbol in the upper-right side of your screen. If you don’t “take care” of that witness, then it will change to WANTED. When it switches to WANTED, then the lawmen are on the way to take you down (or arrest you — depending on the crime). In addition, every crime you commit literally comes with a price, which builds up into a bounty. Each city you visit will individually have a bounty on your head depending on the crime you committed, which means bounty hunters will be looking for you randomly. I can tell you from experience, if you kill enough people, and the bounty gets really high, then you can expect a constant show of force. It’s a crazy game that fits the mold with the last game, where you can’t go ‘GTA’ on everyone because that will equal out to some severe consequences. It’s fun to be hated, though, and I wouldn’t change my character’s reputation for anything.
Quick hitters
Other items of interest before we move on are as follows:
– You have rare animals to hunt down in the game. The first one you’ll meet is a giant bear. The next one is based off a side quest, and the animal is equally as dangerous as the bear, if not more so. You will find you will need to interact with animals in the game in some way, shape, or form. It reminded me a lot of the God Animal quests in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. It was engrossing, if not a fun departure from the usual gameplay.
– There is fishing! You get to fish. Fish.
– What you kill in the wild, you can pretty much eat at camps you can set up anywhere. The food keeps you going, as stamina/health/etc. is important in this game. For example, you can’t just go without food and rest for days in the game, or your character will become drained and weak. This is some Metal Gear Solid 3 shit going on here, but not to the extreme that Kojima took it.
– You can steal trains in RDR 2. There’s nothing quite like lawmen hauling ass after you, while you toot the shit out of a train horn. I can only imagine how pissed they are while they’re trying to jump on a moving train (btw, that’s something you can do in the game too).
– Kill a man, steal his gun. Better yet, steal his hat. I’ve worn many hats in this game, almost none that I’ve bought.
I know there is more to the gameplay, but all of this is the main crux. I’m sure other reviews will fill in the gameplay design blanks, but for right now, you know what to expect from the experience.
As for visuals — *takes deep breath, tears up* — my God, the visuals. You will not see any better visuals in a game to date on the current generation consoles. I can’t imagine that someone has anything planned in the next six months that is going to outshine what Rockstar Games did with Red Dead Redemption 2 in the visuals category. The lighting is unrivaled. The shadows cast by characters, animals, nature, everything, is accurate as hell. The textures, the movements of the horse, the random weather patterns that float in and out of the game, simply stunning — all of it. And the horses scrotal area, yeah, that doesn’t disappoint. It shrinks with the cold, it expands with heat. You probably won’t stop staring at it for a few hours. From sounds to sights, this game sets a new (bleeping) bar for what can happen on the PlayStation 4. Rockstar used all its time wisely to put together one of the most gorgeous games in this generation. If anything else, buy this game to look at it. It’s freaking amazing to stare at, as it moves and waves with visual life.
Overall, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the perfect gaming experience, and what you were hoping for in the next iteration of the series. It has a rich story, deep gameplay, unrivaled visuals, and plenty of plains to explore.
