This review contains spoilers
The genius of this game doesn’t fully hit you until the final mission. Specifically, when Dutch walks out of the hideout and, after all these years, delivers a handful of lines and leaves.
Up until this moment, my impression of the game was that the first four chapters were perfect, while everything else was incredibly mixed. This ended up being a fraction of the full story.
But seriously, how could you dislike the first half of this game? While the prologue is slow, Valentine is perfection, easily the best chapter, with entertaining missions all around and an incredibly engaging town despite its simplicity. Rhodes is a major change of pace, but the missions stay fun and the ending is incredible, with Sean’s death a huge shock and the manor raid a huge payoff. Saint Denis is where the game truly opens up, giving players a full city to explore, and some of the craziest missions yet.
And then Guarma hits.
This chapter is often disliked by fans of the game. When I hit it, I ran through it, enjoying the change of pace and excess of combat that came with it, but found the story odd and out of place. However, the payoff of returning to Unshaken and the madness that followed made everything worth it.
Beaver Hollow was also a mixed bag, starting off strong but quickly devolving into anticlimactic resolutions as the story got more and more insane, at least on paper. But yet again, an incredible climax saves it from being too far gone.
The epilogue felt refreshing for the first half and tiring for most of the second. However, American Venom changed everything. This mission I believe is key to understanding this game’s best trick in storytelling.
When we meet Dutch again, we can understand him more than ever before. His desire for the exciting life of an outlaw and hatred of order in America we can relate to, because we just played through hours of honest work that everyone considers far inferior to the gunslinging experienced in former chapters and for a brief moment in the first part of the epilogue. Furthermore, we get his desire to stay criminals, as anyone committing crimes for fun in the game will. We understand his confusion over loyalty because we experienced it with Arthur. To an extent, we understand his mixed character, as Arthur was the same, at least to many players. This moment recontextualizes everything, and solves the character of Dutch after so many chapters of confusion.
Guarma’s purpose, at least to me, is to transition the focus of the story from a character study on Arthur to a character study on Dutch, albeit one through the lens of Arthur, being our protagonist. In Guarma, we see Dutch’s determination evolve as he is challenged alongside Arthur, bridging the gap between the two. By the end of it, their merciless kills done on the island are comparable. Both understand they did what they had to, for a brief period, despite small discourse.
After Guarma, Dutch is presented as distant. At first, he seems to be an enemy of the player, Arthur, who betrays him after years of loyalty. In the epilogue, Dutch truly is distant, more literally represented this time. The disloyalty of Arthur to Dutch and the reverse are juxtaposed with one another. Similarly aligned are the distances between Dutch and John, as well as the opposite.
But when Dutch comes back, years later, we get who he is as soon as he kills Micah. He is the will of the player, or even a mirrored version of it. Ever since Guarma, the game comes to showcase him in a more untamed and honest light, mirroring the player, who may have spent chapters on low honor just to level things up at the last moment. Dutch is the opposite, starting by masking his intentions, then devolving into his honest self. In Guarma, we see it emerge, and after, we see it in full force.
When Dutch returns, we understand that he didn’t simply go insane, although the game cleverly drops red herrings for this in his repeated head injuries. Dutch was and always will be the person he was, and his intentions were cemented in his own moral plan, even if to the outside world the opposite was true. In the one moment that Dutch has utterly no idea what to do, we realize the purpose of the past few chapters, to fully make us understand the realism of his actions, of his downfall. From an objective point, we see Micah as a skilled fighter, one of the few that supported and recognized Dutch’s vision, having known his real one for so long. However, we also understand his confusions over loyalty, the same ones Arthur experienced with him. And in the end, Dutch adheres to both these visions, killing for the loyalty he lived and killed by, which he quite literally said he would do on the return from Guarma. This inner battle represents what Arthur and Micah do - his conflict over loyalty and his ideals regarding America.
In the end, he chooses loyalty, John being a physical manifestation of loyalty and a reminder of his past failure. His ideals crumble when faced with a friend, unlike what happened with Arthur. This time, he realizes his mistake, and goes on to find people loyal to him that will advance his values honestly, without the distortion of leaving America (which Dutch seemingly never was planning on, having such a stake on crime and the opportunity to leave times over, but that’s another story). Dutch wants people following him that will not go against either of his values, loyal to both him and his cause. This leads to his role in the first game.
The way I see it, the final scene reinforces that Arthur and Micah are mere vessels for exploring Dutch. His decision to hold true both of his values, and carry on his dedication to loyalty while also promoting his cause, is the redemption mentioned in the title, culminating with shooting Micah and giving John the money (which he could have had all along, also another story).
Maybe I’m being delusional or spouting nonsense, but I hope that represents well how I saw what is, in my opinion, the greatest ending of all time in a video game.
You can say this game has mediocre combat, say it’s too immersive at the cost of player experience, any of that. People sure did when it released. But the way I see it, this is the best story in a video game, with numerous layers to dissect and the richest characters I’ve seen in the medium. And despite its flaws, I don’t think anything can take that away.
Up until this moment, my impression of the game was that the first four chapters were perfect, while everything else was incredibly mixed. This ended up being a fraction of the full story.
But seriously, how could you dislike the first half of this game? While the prologue is slow, Valentine is perfection, easily the best chapter, with entertaining missions all around and an incredibly engaging town despite its simplicity. Rhodes is a major change of pace, but the missions stay fun and the ending is incredible, with Sean’s death a huge shock and the manor raid a huge payoff. Saint Denis is where the game truly opens up, giving players a full city to explore, and some of the craziest missions yet.
And then Guarma hits.
This chapter is often disliked by fans of the game. When I hit it, I ran through it, enjoying the change of pace and excess of combat that came with it, but found the story odd and out of place. However, the payoff of returning to Unshaken and the madness that followed made everything worth it.
Beaver Hollow was also a mixed bag, starting off strong but quickly devolving into anticlimactic resolutions as the story got more and more insane, at least on paper. But yet again, an incredible climax saves it from being too far gone.
The epilogue felt refreshing for the first half and tiring for most of the second. However, American Venom changed everything. This mission I believe is key to understanding this game’s best trick in storytelling.
When we meet Dutch again, we can understand him more than ever before. His desire for the exciting life of an outlaw and hatred of order in America we can relate to, because we just played through hours of honest work that everyone considers far inferior to the gunslinging experienced in former chapters and for a brief moment in the first part of the epilogue. Furthermore, we get his desire to stay criminals, as anyone committing crimes for fun in the game will. We understand his confusion over loyalty because we experienced it with Arthur. To an extent, we understand his mixed character, as Arthur was the same, at least to many players. This moment recontextualizes everything, and solves the character of Dutch after so many chapters of confusion.
Guarma’s purpose, at least to me, is to transition the focus of the story from a character study on Arthur to a character study on Dutch, albeit one through the lens of Arthur, being our protagonist. In Guarma, we see Dutch’s determination evolve as he is challenged alongside Arthur, bridging the gap between the two. By the end of it, their merciless kills done on the island are comparable. Both understand they did what they had to, for a brief period, despite small discourse.
After Guarma, Dutch is presented as distant. At first, he seems to be an enemy of the player, Arthur, who betrays him after years of loyalty. In the epilogue, Dutch truly is distant, more literally represented this time. The disloyalty of Arthur to Dutch and the reverse are juxtaposed with one another. Similarly aligned are the distances between Dutch and John, as well as the opposite.
But when Dutch comes back, years later, we get who he is as soon as he kills Micah. He is the will of the player, or even a mirrored version of it. Ever since Guarma, the game comes to showcase him in a more untamed and honest light, mirroring the player, who may have spent chapters on low honor just to level things up at the last moment. Dutch is the opposite, starting by masking his intentions, then devolving into his honest self. In Guarma, we see it emerge, and after, we see it in full force.
When Dutch returns, we understand that he didn’t simply go insane, although the game cleverly drops red herrings for this in his repeated head injuries. Dutch was and always will be the person he was, and his intentions were cemented in his own moral plan, even if to the outside world the opposite was true. In the one moment that Dutch has utterly no idea what to do, we realize the purpose of the past few chapters, to fully make us understand the realism of his actions, of his downfall. From an objective point, we see Micah as a skilled fighter, one of the few that supported and recognized Dutch’s vision, having known his real one for so long. However, we also understand his confusions over loyalty, the same ones Arthur experienced with him. And in the end, Dutch adheres to both these visions, killing for the loyalty he lived and killed by, which he quite literally said he would do on the return from Guarma. This inner battle represents what Arthur and Micah do - his conflict over loyalty and his ideals regarding America.
In the end, he chooses loyalty, John being a physical manifestation of loyalty and a reminder of his past failure. His ideals crumble when faced with a friend, unlike what happened with Arthur. This time, he realizes his mistake, and goes on to find people loyal to him that will advance his values honestly, without the distortion of leaving America (which Dutch seemingly never was planning on, having such a stake on crime and the opportunity to leave times over, but that’s another story). Dutch wants people following him that will not go against either of his values, loyal to both him and his cause. This leads to his role in the first game.
The way I see it, the final scene reinforces that Arthur and Micah are mere vessels for exploring Dutch. His decision to hold true both of his values, and carry on his dedication to loyalty while also promoting his cause, is the redemption mentioned in the title, culminating with shooting Micah and giving John the money (which he could have had all along, also another story).
Maybe I’m being delusional or spouting nonsense, but I hope that represents well how I saw what is, in my opinion, the greatest ending of all time in a video game.
You can say this game has mediocre combat, say it’s too immersive at the cost of player experience, any of that. People sure did when it released. But the way I see it, this is the best story in a video game, with numerous layers to dissect and the richest characters I’ve seen in the medium. And despite its flaws, I don’t think anything can take that away.