Even if Rockstar's design philosophy has worn out its welcome long ago, I would be lying if I said Red Dead Redemption 2 didn't tick all of my boxes while playing it. Maybe it's just the nostalgia goggles refusing to come off, seeing that I played RDR way back in 2010 when I was 13 years old and absolutely adored it (my first Platinum trophy ever). But even with all of its rigid mechanics and fragile pretentions of free-form play, RDR 2 consistently delivers an involving narrative experience that had me on the edge of my seat all the way through -- which is especially impressive, seeing that I had the ending spoiled for me a couple of years ago. The journey there, even with its array of hiccups, is one of the most emotionally satisfying I've found in my life, with some of the best characters probably ever written. Slow but always meditative, gleefully chaotic (sometimes too much so), and a perfectly captured portrait of the american landscape as a dialectical dream/real. This is a game I'll cherish for the rest of my life, but I do hope I never have to play anything like it ever again. RDR2 should be the last hurrah for this kind of open world experience. There's nothing else you can do here. Time to break the wheel.