There comes a point with almost every modern open world game I've played where, after dozens of hours scouring the world for whatever crafting trinkets or rare resources or gear or whatever, I realize I don't actually want to keep doing any of that and have only been doing any of that because I'm generally inclined to delay progressing the main story in favor of vapid side objectives so that I don't 'miss anything'. It's a viewpoint that treats all content in a game as equal and worth doing, even in a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 where that side content consists of some of the most tedious and dreadful hunting and exploring I've seen in a video game that is only occasionally interrupted by a handful of interesting side quests.

It's a shame, really. Rockstar has managed to craft an admittedly awesome narrative that takes place in a vast world teeming with things to do, sights to see and people to rob. I find that the 'vastness' of most open worlds these days relies on a lot of incredibly unsubtle and uninspired shortcuts present throughout the industry that Rockstar is unfortunately no stranger to.

It's understandable to a degree that shortcuts and development shorthand are necessary when producing a game of this scale, but that still doesn't mean that the modern approach to designing an open world of 'scatter x different sets of y collectibles all over the map alongside largely formulaic side quest content' isn't any less tired than I already find it.

I recognize that this isn't a problem in design unique to RDR2, as other games have done it much worse (skyrim lol) which is why I'm not rating this game any lower for how enjoyable I found some of its other aspects. I wish I could care about this game a little more considering how important it is to so many, but when the only major aspect of this game that I care about is its story and generally think very little of anything else it offers when it is marketed as an immersive open world that ultimately fails to impress me outside of the visual department, it's hard to not look at it as another drop in the open-world bucket.