Every time the black bars letterboxed the screen during Red Dead Redemption 2 , I knew that the “video game” portion of this experience was on hold. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that Rockstar (and the game’s writers) were plopping a movie in front of me instead. It is relatively obvious that Rockstar’s recent games are meant to invoke the feelings of familiar films, but reading and hearing the thoughts from my peers had me realize that many of us—the Housers included—simply have it wrong when analyzing this game’s relationship with the Western film genre.
This mission has some of the most unique characters in RDR2 . It’s found around the Van Horn Trading Post where you’ll stop a man named Bertram from choke-slamming a bartender. Turns out he’s a sweetheart that works with a woman named Marjorie who’s looking for her other employee, Magnif
In-game journals or logs in other games often have the appearance of life, thanks to talented teams, Https://www.reddeadinsider.com/ but none feel like living, breathing books like Arthur’s does. Drake’s notes in the Uncharted series are filled with doodles and charm that is signature to Drake’s personality, but its in-game purpose is usually to solve simple puzzles more than to flesh out the characters. During my brief time with Mass Effect , the Codex was easily my favorite bit since it filled out the history of the galaxy, but it lacked a personal anchor point.
Of course, all media finds its inspirations from what came before—just look at all of the “Westerns” that Quentin Tarantino has done in the past few years, such as Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight . Interestingly enough, some of the other staff of DualShockers found the harsh winter of the game’s first chapter to be reminiscent of The Hateful Eight . But usually, that inspiration and reuse of imagery have to go further than “the director thought this looked pretty.” With that, I remained confused about exactly what head writer Dan Houser was going for with Red Dead Redemption 2 , other than proving that he has a lot of thoughts about American society (as he previously demonstrated in Grand Theft Auto V , a game that felt like a sequel to Goodfellas from some alternate timeline) and that yes, he has indeed seen a lot of movies.
These epilogues and the rest of your time in the game end up being a taste of the life fans of the series have wished for from John’s story. It’s a small taste of peace and happiness before the cycle begins anew from what we saw in the original Red Dead Redemption . Arthur’s journal being passed to John helps facilitate this all-too-brief period of happiness in his life.
Whenever you see an animal on your hunt, simply steady your study on them and adjust your equipment to match what the blurb suggest you hunt them with. Keep in mind that your equipment not only has to be exact, you need to aim for a clean kill without damaging the animal too m
Also, with a white flag hoisted in your camp, no one can attack. But they can see you and wanna kill you, so do what we do. Set up a camp near Saint Denis (high population, high traffic), and then go cook yourself dinner (in real life, in your actual kitchen) and come back to check now and then that 23 players are circling, waiting for you to tear down camp, lasso in hands. After about 30 minutes, they will wander off, one by one, and you will feel oddly satisfied inside that you wasted their time while not wasting your
As someone who studied film in high school and college, I probably have seen a few more Western films than I had wanted to. While I was never fond of the genre and the stories and themes it presented, I found myself more fascinated with the resurgence of the genre rather than the oversaturated Spaghetti Western era of yore. I suspect that Dan Houser was as well because Red Dead Redemption 2 did not remind me of Spaghetti Westerns. In the place of dramatic stand-offs, wandering “men with no names,” and black-and-white morality, there was a grey sense of morality and more profound cynicism at the heart of Red Dead Redemption 2 .
In the open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 , you are given the ability to choose an honorable path or dishonorable one: essentially you can try to be good or bad. Choosing to be honorable means saving women from kidnappings, helping the law bring in bounties, saving civilians from other gangs, and helping strangers in danger who appear along the roadside. Being dishonorable means killing the law and helping criminals, killing strangers, stealing from civilians, and mostly killing in general.
I like Arthur Morgan, but I like the version of him that exists in the journal more than the one who exists on-screen. The Arthur Morgan of the journal is one who finds beauty in the landscape, in the people, and in the tragedies of the West. The Arthur Morgan on-screen is a character trope I’m so tired of seeing: the man who kills, but is tired of the killing.
I can’t imagine what an inevitable Red Dead Redemption 3 would even be about. If the first game was about the death of the West and the second about how the West died, would a third go further back in the timeline in the early days of Dutch’s gang to depict a time of the West… close to dying? Perhaps Rockstar will try to go contemporary, maybe attempting to remake Hell or High Water about ten years too late. Regardless of what any of these plans may be, the experience of playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 ‘s collage of the misunderstood is one that makes the Western a genre that I will want to take the most extended break from.