On October 26th, 2018, Rockstar Games released the game: Red Dead Redemption 2. Yet another beautiful open world game created by Rockstar. Founded in 1998, Rockstar mainly publishes games in the action-adventure genre such as the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Red Dead Redemption is also very popular. Both of these games are free roam open world games. These two franchises are definitely their most popular, but they have also produced other games such as: Midnight Club, Max Payne, and Bully.
Game Summary:
The game takes place in 1899 in a time where the way of the cowboy was beginning to die, and industrial America began to expand… After a failed bank robbery attempt, your character: Arthur Morgan, as well as the rest of the Van Der Linde gang, all flee for freedom. The outlawed gang experiences multiple internal conflicts which begin to inescapably tear them apart. While playing as Arthur Morgan, you will come across a series of encounters giving the player a choice between morals or loyalty to the gang that raised Arthur.
The main story takes between 40 to 60 hours to complete, although the average play time is around 84 hours due to the slow game pace, and amount of side quests. It forces you to take your time in order to explore all the details of the extremely immersive game. Not only do you have to explore the scenery, but you have to keep Arthur healthy by keeping his health, stamina, and deadeye meters full. The health, stamina, and deadeye meters are all filled by consuming food and drinking tonics. Food can be collected by hunting animals, buying from the general store, or consuming the food your camp produces. Tonics are created by crafting ingredients at your campfire, and money is collected by completing missions, selling pelts, and hunting bounties.
Game Design:
Red Dead Redemption is an extremely immersive and realistic game, the graphics were truly ahead of its time when the game first came out. You really do become immersed into the lifestyle of a late 1800s cowboy. 24 hours in the game equals 48 minutes in real life, and each day is different. As you travel across Big Valley you will notice a different variety of animals depending on where you are. You also must pay attention to the weather; you will encounter miserable intense storms and beautiful sunny days. As the weather gets colder, you must keep Arthur warm with suitable clothing.
Cinematics & Dialogue:
Red Dead Redemption 2 won several awards including: best performance, best narrative, and best audio design. The dialogue between characters is realistic, every character sounds how they look and every character and NPC you bump into has a different personality, mood, and tone. You will notice before, after and during missions a cutscene will play. Although you do have the option to skip, each cutscene is different and holds a purpose, revealing details on missions and secret locations around the map. Personally, after spending over 100 hours playing Red Dead Redemption 2 I would give it a solid 5/5, and definitely request adding it to your wish list if you have not played it.
Written by Conner Roy, Lethbridge College
