The fictionalized West of Red Dead Redemption 2 finds itself being constantly pulled between the forces of pastoral freedom and ordered law, pushing this conflict through not only the main storyline of Dutch's gang, but reflecting it within the game design as well.
Once the game finally spits you out of the tutorial area, the player is granted an immense amount of freedom - the world is yours. Taking full advantage of this, I ran around trying to experience everything possible and was fully rewarded with an amazingly immersive world. I hunted down gunslingers, found buried treasure, rescued hostages, took no prisoners, bought and customized my own guns and horse, fell victim to a kidnapping, and had so many other unique and memorable experiences off of the beaten path that I was truly in love with everything I was experiencing. I had freedom in how I interacted with the world, and the world actually responded to my choices in how I wanted to handle things, while still remaining mysterious and massive.
The geography available to explore is breathtaking and provides much variation while still holding true to realism. It's surprising how you can ride from snow covered mountains to fictional New Orleans and still feel like the world around you is cohesive and tangibly real. Rockstar perfectly blended the environments into one another both visually and through gameplay, as so much of this cohesion owes itself to the random encounters being flavored for whatever part of the wilderness you are in - you may run into fierce wolves and mountain men in the snowy peaks, or people panning for gold in the western reaches, or southern moonshiners in the swamp. All of it blends together and you are able to live in it, riding your horse back and forth, meeting people, exploring, and just being a cowboy supporting your gang.
Running side-quests with the array of characters are also rewarding experiences with depth and complexity, especially in the ways the game fleshes them out compared to their presence in Red Dead Redemption 1. They do a fantastic job of characterizing Arthur as well, while still giving the player agency in how to handle situations both in and out of combat. The side-stories are often made up of more intricate, down-to-earth style dilemmas and storytelling, which again makes the world and your choices as a player feel more tangible and real.
This was my experience through the early game chapters, and if I had stopped here, you would see several more stars above this review, as I absolutely adored my time with the game. I was hooked. Then, the main plot took over and my feelings toward this game plummeted.
Dutch's gang finds themselves lost in a world that doesn't want them anymore. They seek freedom and excitement, but can't escape the law which seems to be ever looming over their shoulder. As the presence of law becomes stronger in the game, the structure of the game becomes more strict as well, and my frustration began to mirror the characters' frustrations - the game didn't want me to have freedom or play the way that I wanted to anymore either.
Red Dead Redemption 2's main narrative and story-based missions are set on train tracks, and unfortunately rather than being the outlaw able to pilfer through the train for nuggets of excitement and happiness, the player is tied to the tracks and forced to watch the obvious conclusion approach steadily with the realization that this train actually moves at a snail's pace. I understood what was happening very early on (as anyone who played the previous game would), and rather than expand or deepen the ideas presented to make me question things or alter my perspective, the game insists on hammering down the same point over and over again at every possible opportunity.
The game doubles down on this during story quests, inhibiting even gameplay. Over and over again the game took away my customized weapons that I paid for, upgraded, and spent time making look exactly how I want, and replaced them with generic guns it wanted me to use. In one mission, I already brought a scoped rifle, and the game forced me to use another rifle because it had a scope. Other times, antagonists would disappear, teleporting out of existence for the sole reason that they were needed to advance the plot later. The player is constantly forced to play the story missions in the exact way that the game wants, down to the exact guns it wants you to equip, despite large portions of gameplay and themes of the game being based on viewing freedom as a good virtue.
This causes such incredible disconnect that Red Dead Redemption 2 seems a game at war with itself. Much like the narrative within, the game can't decide which virtue to extol - freedom of the world or control of the narrative. In the end, this is an unnecessary choice to try and make, as many games have shown it is possible to embrace both by creative framing of the central narrative around player agency. Red Dead's failure to understand this is the biggest flaw in an otherwise excellent game.
Once the game finally spits you out of the tutorial area, the player is granted an immense amount of freedom - the world is yours. Taking full advantage of this, I ran around trying to experience everything possible and was fully rewarded with an amazingly immersive world. I hunted down gunslingers, found buried treasure, rescued hostages, took no prisoners, bought and customized my own guns and horse, fell victim to a kidnapping, and had so many other unique and memorable experiences off of the beaten path that I was truly in love with everything I was experiencing. I had freedom in how I interacted with the world, and the world actually responded to my choices in how I wanted to handle things, while still remaining mysterious and massive.
The geography available to explore is breathtaking and provides much variation while still holding true to realism. It's surprising how you can ride from snow covered mountains to fictional New Orleans and still feel like the world around you is cohesive and tangibly real. Rockstar perfectly blended the environments into one another both visually and through gameplay, as so much of this cohesion owes itself to the random encounters being flavored for whatever part of the wilderness you are in - you may run into fierce wolves and mountain men in the snowy peaks, or people panning for gold in the western reaches, or southern moonshiners in the swamp. All of it blends together and you are able to live in it, riding your horse back and forth, meeting people, exploring, and just being a cowboy supporting your gang.
Running side-quests with the array of characters are also rewarding experiences with depth and complexity, especially in the ways the game fleshes them out compared to their presence in Red Dead Redemption 1. They do a fantastic job of characterizing Arthur as well, while still giving the player agency in how to handle situations both in and out of combat. The side-stories are often made up of more intricate, down-to-earth style dilemmas and storytelling, which again makes the world and your choices as a player feel more tangible and real.
This was my experience through the early game chapters, and if I had stopped here, you would see several more stars above this review, as I absolutely adored my time with the game. I was hooked. Then, the main plot took over and my feelings toward this game plummeted.
Dutch's gang finds themselves lost in a world that doesn't want them anymore. They seek freedom and excitement, but can't escape the law which seems to be ever looming over their shoulder. As the presence of law becomes stronger in the game, the structure of the game becomes more strict as well, and my frustration began to mirror the characters' frustrations - the game didn't want me to have freedom or play the way that I wanted to anymore either.
Red Dead Redemption 2's main narrative and story-based missions are set on train tracks, and unfortunately rather than being the outlaw able to pilfer through the train for nuggets of excitement and happiness, the player is tied to the tracks and forced to watch the obvious conclusion approach steadily with the realization that this train actually moves at a snail's pace. I understood what was happening very early on (as anyone who played the previous game would), and rather than expand or deepen the ideas presented to make me question things or alter my perspective, the game insists on hammering down the same point over and over again at every possible opportunity.
The game doubles down on this during story quests, inhibiting even gameplay. Over and over again the game took away my customized weapons that I paid for, upgraded, and spent time making look exactly how I want, and replaced them with generic guns it wanted me to use. In one mission, I already brought a scoped rifle, and the game forced me to use another rifle because it had a scope. Other times, antagonists would disappear, teleporting out of existence for the sole reason that they were needed to advance the plot later. The player is constantly forced to play the story missions in the exact way that the game wants, down to the exact guns it wants you to equip, despite large portions of gameplay and themes of the game being based on viewing freedom as a good virtue.
This causes such incredible disconnect that Red Dead Redemption 2 seems a game at war with itself. Much like the narrative within, the game can't decide which virtue to extol - freedom of the world or control of the narrative. In the end, this is an unnecessary choice to try and make, as many games have shown it is possible to embrace both by creative framing of the central narrative around player agency. Red Dead's failure to understand this is the biggest flaw in an otherwise excellent game.