What a bizarre game this is. One thing I have been thinking about while playing is the way race is depicted here. It's set in 1899, in the American west. South-west, maybe? I'm not great on those sort of sub-region distinctions. There is a pretty generous depiction on the part of Dutch's gang, and really the world generally, in terms of not being too racist.
Just now, I played a mission where race was directly talked about. A Black member of the gang came back into camp, saying that he had almost been lynched. I guess, he and another member, Micah, had been out and about in another town and Micah's actions attracted some attention. The people of the other town had arrested Micah and almost lynched the Black guy, but he got away. Interesting to bring up lynchings, sure, but a strange overall context.
The goal of that mission was to "take him to a bar to get drunk and forget about it," which ok sure. Afterwards, he gets arrested--hopefully not lynched, although it is left unclear; your character is seemingly unconcerned as you get away--and you wake up the next morning, in the middle of nowhere, hungover and without a horse.
Being stranded without a horse in this game sucks. Running is slow and unsafe. You can steal a horse, but that's fucked up: you lose honor and, again, being without one would suck for whoever you steal it from. There's no fast travel I'm aware of. Having to walk all the way back to town would blow: though something like that can be cool sometimes, in a game.
Luckily, there was a mission start point nearby. And midway though, my horse just showed up out of nowhere. God bless shitty game design. Maybe the walk back would have sucked, but actions having consequences is cool? I could have scrambled and stole a horse during the mission. The horse seemingly teleporting to me was convenient but just kind of makes everything else about the game seem pointless, why bother with cowboys and horses if the implications of em are ignored?
