I’ve never loved Rockstar’s game design due to a lack of interactive and fully realized worlds (more on this later). With 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2 my passion for storytelling has been reignited into heights I never could have anticipated.
When I was younger I had always wanted to write stories because I was a big reader. There was never a time when a book wasn’t in my hands and great fiction writers allow me to envision their worlds and visit new areas while meeting great characters. Books were, and still are inspiring, and they constantly get my creative process flowing. Red Dead Redemption 2 obviously has the visual aspect of it already done, but it’s told like an ancient, epic tragedy. Full of a wide-variety of characters with distinct personalities that fill in the world and compliment one another on this sprawling journey. At the forefront is Arthur Morgan (voiced to perfection by Roger Clark). A man caught in the middle of a Wild West that’s transitioning to a new age of living. The life of an outlaw is dwindling, and with the law constantly breathing down the Van Der Lind gang’s neck, Arthur finds himself struggling with the type of man he wants to be.
The West is asking him to be a bad man, but deep down Arthur is a good man, a sad man, a broken individual who got caught in a life that made him feel like the best version of himself. It gave him friends, a home, a code, a life to be apart of and share with others. What’s so beautiful about this arc is that it doesn’t give Arthur’s history away in a single scene dedicated to his past life. It rather rewards a patient player who is eager to explore the land of New Hanover by exploring Arthur’s personality through his actions and decisions we make for him. The game simply works better when going for High Honor, but there is a range of vistas, crowded forests, and sweeping terrains for Arthur to explore and dedicating as much time to side missions as much as the main story is integral to the experience.
This is why Red Dead 2 is such a success for a developer that has previously given us many different worlds and characters to meet, but they’ve always come up short. Usually there isn’t anything compelling to explore and you’re almost always caught in a vehicle speeding through the outline of what they want to achieve, rather than actively participating with the world. Red Dead 2 invites us to visit an era that has been a staple of our entertainment for decades. From John Wayne to Sergio Leone, Westerns have been baked into the fabric of the way stories are told today. Red Dead Redemption 2 channels that era of storytelling with modern mechanics and perspective, and we frankly haven’t gotten a Western story this good since the previous century.
As mentioned previously, Arthur is at the forefront of this long-winded epic and the world and characters come alive because of how well written he is. Again, the honor scale is a bit broken considering the game goes certain directions that may contradict a choice so that’s up to you, but the experience is less about a direct impact on Arthur, rather than his impact on the people and space around him. There’s a great interaction (one of many) between Arthur and the Gang’s lazyman, Uncle, where Uncle asks Arthur “What’s gonna happen to everybody?” To which Arthur replies, “I guess folks is gonna make a choice whether they live or die.” Uncle responds, “And you?” Arthur finalizes this interaction with, “I don’t have that choice no more. I’m just trying to help others see clearly. That’s my choice.”
This exchange perfectly encapsulates Arthur’s journey from beginning to end as the narrative slowly evolves into the story that it really is. After a painstaking early set of chapters, the latter half settles into a patient character study that elevates it’s material through unexpected twists and boisterous explorations of character. The main story missions usually end in a shootout throughout that time, but it still saves room for insightful touches of personality that feels rooted in it’s world. The cutscenes almost feel as if they were ripped straight from a classic Western, and those are the times when you’ll fall in love with the vast array of variety stitched into the quilted pattern of this game.
I think the reason why Red Dead Redemption 2 worked so well was because Rockstar was patient with the creation of it. It never felt like an obligation to make, and truth be told, they never had to make another game set in this universe again, but their drive to bring this game to life feels passionate. The amount of hours they put into the creation of this game says all that needs to be said about their desire to fill-in another corner of their version of the wild west. Sure, gameplay mechanics feel primitive, missions overly repetitive, sometimes tedious, and the game isn’t for everyone, I get that, but all of these aspects fully enhance the narrative they focused on, and it allows for the world to open up like no other open world game has before. It’s what all prequel stories should strive to accomplish, and although it has 60 hours worth of content compared to whatever six hour saga a filmmaker can put together, it still sets the bar high for storytelling in general. A story with grand ideas and sky high aspirations, but an understanding of character driven by choice and lasting consequences for future relationships and plot points.
Although the technical lack of choice is intertwined directly with actions that Arthur is forced into, it still has a gripping sense of morality baked into the design of the game. Whether it’s the muddy roads of Strawberry or the forward thinking Saint Denis, Rockstar invites it’s players to fully explore the far reaches of New Hanover with one of the greatest video game experiences I’ve ever had the luxury of playing, right alongside one of the most well-written protagonists in recent memory. It begins like the latest stages of a sunset preparing for overwhelming darkness, and concludes with a sunrise in hopes for a bright and better future.
Red Dead Redemption 2 gets a 95/100