Rockstar doesn't design missions so much as they make excuses. Excuses to indulge in overcooked dialogue, fun traversal, flashy shooting, and intricately designed worlds. With some of their games, the repetitive and shallow structure of missions completely kills the experience. If the dialogue is aggravatingly juvenile and the world hollow, the missions just feel like a waste of time. But if you buy into their worlds and the people in them, then you will accept these excuses as the means to an end they are. Before this, I've properly cared for two of Rockstar's games. Vice City and Bully grab me because they exist through the lens of parody, turning Rockstar's frequently annoying idiosyncrasies to their advantage. Red Dead isn't like that. I buy into Red Dead because it is completely immersive and profoundly affecting as a piece of storytelling.
To point out that Red Dead is a Revisionist Western is both mind-numbingly obvious and not really going far enough. This feels like the last Western. This world is a desolate and lonely one, befitting a population of sad and dissatisfied people, none more so than our lead man. John Marston is an incredible protagonist, aesthetically dripping classic Western iconography but desperately running from that image. By the time we take control of the game, he's already at odds with his mission and perception of who he is, neither of which he comes to terms with. Constantly John is put opposite classically abrasive Rockstar-tinged Western caricatures and again and again he brushes them aside with a defeated weariness mirroring my exasperation with them. Positioned to play both sides in an ideological revolution, John is forced to kill those he fundamentally agrees with, visions of his own more idealistic past, over and over again. Of course, when we finally do lead those rebels to victory we are left with the knowledge that their leader is a despicable person destined to abandon his morals if he does reach power. By the time the main narrative ends, you're denied any even momentary satisfaction with confronting John's past. And by the time the game truly ends the small bits of happiness John has finally built in this world are swiftly and definitively ripped out from under him. Its vision of the constant, even random, brutality of life wouldn't feel out of place in a Coen Brothers film.
In Red Dead, you're often having a great time while having a terrible time. You want to see John grow, but you also want to see him get his family back. You and he both put your morals aside for the sake of his mission, and you and he both quickly discover how easily you do so. It's a truth you learn over and over again. John wants to change, he fundamentally believes he can, hell maybe he even has, but the world forces him back into the life he tried to leave behind again and again. No one is more complicit in doing so than you the player. But when you are shooting up "bad guys" you're having a blast. Damn, the major set pieces are fun.
I love the structure of the missions as well, which almost always feature John walking into the frame from stage left like it's the beginning of another kitschy Western Serial episode. Not only does it deflate the slightly annoying "Oh I swear I'll give you information next time" type moments, but it's a great contrast to how dark the underlying story is. Sure, some of the missions are just weak, no two ways about it, but the game works hard to overcome Rockstar's design philosophy with them and ultimately succeeds. I have my fair share of nitpicks (my god the fast travel system is pointlessly annoying to use) and minor plusses (this early 2010s vision of cartoon-adjacent photorealism is delightful) but it all falls away before the storytelling, which is just sublime.
In the end, John does kill his past to save his future, but it doesn't matter. For all his hopes that his son would live a better life than he, the romanticism of the Old West is brutally murdered and the cycle of violence begins again with a fresh coat of paint.
"You know, I dreamt of documenting the last days of the Old West. The romance, the honor, the nobility! But it turns out it's just people killing each other."
To point out that Red Dead is a Revisionist Western is both mind-numbingly obvious and not really going far enough. This feels like the last Western. This world is a desolate and lonely one, befitting a population of sad and dissatisfied people, none more so than our lead man. John Marston is an incredible protagonist, aesthetically dripping classic Western iconography but desperately running from that image. By the time we take control of the game, he's already at odds with his mission and perception of who he is, neither of which he comes to terms with. Constantly John is put opposite classically abrasive Rockstar-tinged Western caricatures and again and again he brushes them aside with a defeated weariness mirroring my exasperation with them. Positioned to play both sides in an ideological revolution, John is forced to kill those he fundamentally agrees with, visions of his own more idealistic past, over and over again. Of course, when we finally do lead those rebels to victory we are left with the knowledge that their leader is a despicable person destined to abandon his morals if he does reach power. By the time the main narrative ends, you're denied any even momentary satisfaction with confronting John's past. And by the time the game truly ends the small bits of happiness John has finally built in this world are swiftly and definitively ripped out from under him. Its vision of the constant, even random, brutality of life wouldn't feel out of place in a Coen Brothers film.
In Red Dead, you're often having a great time while having a terrible time. You want to see John grow, but you also want to see him get his family back. You and he both put your morals aside for the sake of his mission, and you and he both quickly discover how easily you do so. It's a truth you learn over and over again. John wants to change, he fundamentally believes he can, hell maybe he even has, but the world forces him back into the life he tried to leave behind again and again. No one is more complicit in doing so than you the player. But when you are shooting up "bad guys" you're having a blast. Damn, the major set pieces are fun.
I love the structure of the missions as well, which almost always feature John walking into the frame from stage left like it's the beginning of another kitschy Western Serial episode. Not only does it deflate the slightly annoying "Oh I swear I'll give you information next time" type moments, but it's a great contrast to how dark the underlying story is. Sure, some of the missions are just weak, no two ways about it, but the game works hard to overcome Rockstar's design philosophy with them and ultimately succeeds. I have my fair share of nitpicks (my god the fast travel system is pointlessly annoying to use) and minor plusses (this early 2010s vision of cartoon-adjacent photorealism is delightful) but it all falls away before the storytelling, which is just sublime.
In the end, John does kill his past to save his future, but it doesn't matter. For all his hopes that his son would live a better life than he, the romanticism of the Old West is brutally murdered and the cycle of violence begins again with a fresh coat of paint.
"You know, I dreamt of documenting the last days of the Old West. The romance, the honor, the nobility! But it turns out it's just people killing each other."