After eight long years, Rockstar Games epic tale of outlaws at the turn of the 20th Century and the end of the mythic Old West period of American history finally gets its sequel in Red Dead Redemption 2. Perhaps more than any other modern game developer or publisher–certainly more than most–Rockstar Games shoulders both a tremendous legacy of industry achievements and some intimidating fan expectations with each game they produce. Fortunately, if Grand Theft Auto V was considered their magnum opus up to this point (its lifetime sales contested only by Tetris and Minecraft in as of this writing) then Red Dead Redemption 2 may just be their greatest artistic accomplishment.

This comes at a cost: Red Dead Redemption 2 is not, contrary to Rockstar Games’ outrageous popularity that almost hypnotically suggests that every gamer will automatically love their creations, designed for everybody. It is a game of tremendous detail and remarkable deliberateness in its world design, storytelling, and even basic gameplay elements. It rewards and also demands the audience’s time, focused investment, and willingness to embrace a slower pace. This will put off some players who prefer a freer, faster, and more action-filled journey from one dramatic set piece to the next. For those willing to embrace what Rockstar Games has created, though, they may very well find their game of the generation, and one of the finest achievements the gaming medium has ever produced.

Red Dead Redemption 2 serves as a prequel to the original game. The narrative opens several years before that game’s protagonist, John Marston, gets rounded up into the U.S. government’s campaign to eliminate the remnants of his former outlaw companions. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the Van der Linde gang is mostly alive and well, albeit dealing with hard times. Civilization grows ever closer: the American frontier receding in the wake of telephone poles, railroads, and new towns and cities. New protagonist Arthur Morgan is acutely aware that the times are changing and the era of the free and lawless West is ending, but his mentor and quixotic leader Dutch van der Linde still leads the gang forward with charismatic speeches and dreams of a better society. Those familiar with Red Dead Redemption’s story will get to experience the clash of ideals, delusions, loyalties, and hard realities that lead the gang and its members into the situations John Marston will ultimately resolve years later. For the unfamiliar, the story of Red Dead Redemption 2 is a solid, marvelously acted drama with its own flavor of melancholy, humor, and action. It isn’t a revolutionary narrative by any means, but Rockstar Games’ deliver their characteristically sharp dialogue and character writing to weave an entertaining Western. As is the nature of prequels, it’s hard to be surprised if one knows where the story is inevitably headed, but the journey itself is engrossing enough to compensate. There is, however, a particularly interesting twist late in the story that provides a clean transition from the events of the prequel into what serves essentially as an extended opening for Red Dead Redemption.

While the early hours of the game are much more linear, combining narrative exposition with tutorials and character building, most of the gameplay occurs in an open world. The setting incorporates some areas from the original Red Dead Redemption (Blackwater, for example, returns) and delivers a semi-fictional vision of the American West at the turn of century. Rockstar Games manages to balance player autonomy with a strong narrative focus remarkably well, in possibly one of their most finessed takes on open world design. As with the original Red Dead Redemption, there are primary missions that advance the main plot and are always available to pursue, and also a wide variety of side activities and offshoot stories that range from miniature dramas to comedic breaks to quiet tragedies. Side activities include pursuing bounties at sheriffs’ offices (not everybody knows Arthur Morgan is a wanted outlaw on sight), playing poker and dominoes, and everybody’s favorite way to lose a finger: Five-Finger Fillet. As with the original Red Dead Redemption, Arthur can encounter characters and situations of interest randomly while traveling the world. These encounters vary from rival gangs attempting an ambush to unique sidequests with their own storylines to shooting competitions to helping (or robbing/murdering) folks in need. These events don’t always appear on the map unless the player is very close, but they happen with enough frequency to provide a consistent detour of interest, if not entertainment, while the player roams from one locale or mission to the next.

Part of what makes Red Dead Redemption 2’s open world so impressive is that these activities and events feel like natural extensions of the setting. Hunting and fishing don’t occur in special locations, Arthur just needs to spot some roaming animals (or start searching for trails to track) or cast a baited hook into a nearby body of water. Cooking food makes it more valuable to maintaining Arthur’s health, stamina, and time-slowing Dead Eye ability. Crafting ammo, material upgrades to Arthur’s equipment widens his versatility, so finding crafting ingredients becomes a comfortable extension of the general exploration, shopping, robbing, and other actions the player can freely partake in. All of these things take a set amount of time that will seem tedious to some but likely engrossing to others who enjoy the immersion Rockstar Games works to create. Fishing, and especially hunting, require patience as you wait for fish to bite or follow a deer with a bow long enough to down it with one perfect arrow that leaves its pelt pristine. Cooking and crafting also take several seconds for each individual item created. In almost any other game, these actions would be streamlined to allow multiple items to be prepared at once to avoid boring the player.

However, because every single aspect of Red Dead Redemption 2 follows this philosophy of patient, methodical execution, the waiting soon becomes part of the setting itself, part of the immersion. In some ways, this approach works against mainstream gaming expectations, and will certainly frustrate some players who want to pick up the pace. Arthur moves and turns with an almost plodding slowness, looting bodies involves him carefully searching pockets before retrieving items, goodies found in cabinets are individually picked up and stowed in his bag, and he refuses to move faster than a purposeful walk while in camp with his companions. The game forgoes fast travel options in most instances, preferring that Arthur travel to a train station or find a carriage to help him along rather than teleporting as in most open world games. The clear intention from the developers seems to be that this is a game for those who want to take their time and soak in every little moment. In this age of frequent patches and DLC, it’s unclear if Rockstar Games will hold to this design philosophy or introduce more streamlining later. For now, they deserve credit for implementing a vision that won’t please everybody, and will surely garner some criticism in some circles, but also distinguishes Red Dead Redemption 2 from contemporary open world games.

For some less immersive points of criticism, the inventory system and menu UIs tend to be more clumsy and tedious than not. Weapons, items, and items unique to Arthur’s horse all appear within a wheel while holding the quick menu button. These sections are divided into tabs which are further divided into wedges containing a host of different consumables, weapons, etc. Each wedge can be further navigated by pressing the shoulder buttons on the controller until the desired item is found. To use said item, the player then must keep the control stick pushed in the direction of the wedge containing the item they want while releasing the quick menu button. Even a slight mistiming will cause Arthur to not use the item. Being unable to see more than one item per wedge at a time also means flipping past what you want is quite easy, and then you need to go through the list of items in that wedge all over again. This system is so poorly organized, even for the efforts it makes to accommodate console gamepads, that it exists more as a tolerable evil than asset. The regular inventory UI allows you to see more items at once, by opting for a grid instead of a wheel, and also has tabs dividing items by type, but still requires quite a bit of navigating for what should otherwise be a simple process.

One of the most spectacular aspects of Red Dead Redemption 2 that will jump out immediately is its graphical design. The game is rivaled only by the remake of Shadow of the Colossus earlier this year as the single most visually impressive game of the generation, and is a top contender for best looking video game of all time at this point in history. That these visuals were achieved on a game exclusive to consoles is only more impressive, given the technical gap between consoles and gaming PCs witnessed this generation. Rare is the game that at any given moment achieves such picturesque aesthetics the way that Red Dead Redemption 2 achieves them. Rockstar Games’ RAGE engine continues to impress with each refinement, it’s hard to believe how much the engine is accomplishing today when one recalls its earliest iterations were used to power Grand Theft Auto IV and the original Red Dead Redemption. Lighting and shadows are handled with a wide degree of tones and subtleties. The texture work on the various terrains, from rolling grasslands to gravelly slopes and rocky hilltops to swampy rivers and marshlands, is remarkable from both an artistic and technical standpoint. Of particular note is the snow, which gets shifted about by horse hooves and human legs in a manner almost true to life. The day to night cycles and weather systems also grant the world a beautiful array of colors that further demonstrate what a visual achievement Rockstar Games has managed here.

As to be expected from Rockstar Games by now, the voice work for their wide cast of characters is excellent. An accent here or there may be a bit off but that’s hardly worth nitpicking when the performances as a whole are so professional and spirited. The sound work on gunshots, footsteps, and all variety of environmental noises ranging from croaking frogs in bayous, rocks tumbling down crumbling precipices, and the labored snorts of Arthur’s horse during a long chase are all on point. The soundtrack is another standout, featuring collaboration with a host of music industry pros, including Willie Nelson, Josh Homme, Daniel Lanois, and Woody Jackson (returning from the original game, as well as L.A. Noire and Grand Theft Auto V). Musically, the game rolls through a wide range of emotional melodies that at times invoke the grand mythic elements of the Old West found in Ennio Morricone’s work, and at other times blend into invocations of southern blues and spirituals.

Red Dead Redemption 2 stands as one of the crowning achievements for both Rockstar Games and this generation of video games. It’s a marvel of engineering and testimony to the developer’s dedication to polish and detail. Where so many AAA games and studios hold to the popular trends of their times, Rockstar Games insists on making those trends their own, and even bucking a couple of them entirely. Bravo to them.

9.8/10

Check Out the Red Dead Redemption 2 Trailer:

Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. For more information about the game, please visit here: https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption2/

Michael Schreiber

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I've been gaming for 22 years, ever since my mom picked up a secondhand NES, and I've played on just about every gaming platform out there since. I think video games are one of most innovative and artistic mediums in the world today, and I'm always curious how developers will surprise me next.

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