The hype is real. If you’re into games, you’ve seen the numerous Red Dead Redemption 2 adds everywhere. When Rockstar releases a new game, everybody listens. Besides the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Red Dead Redemption is their second main franchise featuring an open world. It’s no secret that the hopes and dreams for a Rockstar game are always incredibly high but most of the time, the team always delivers. Did they do it again with Red Dead Redemption 2? Or is it time to upgrade the open world experience with more innovations?
A cold open
Red Dead Redemption 2 kicks off with a cold open, literally. Without any explanation, you follow Dutch’s gang desperately trying to shake off the people they are running from. To make things worse, the gang is stuck in what seems to be the blizzard of the century. If the gang doesn’t find shelter soon, they’re gone for, they’ll need to act fast if they want to survive. This cold open really sets the tone of your new adventure. It’s not easy being an outlaw in a time where the law wanted to take over. You feel hunted from the first moment and if you’ve played the first game, you’ll immediately recognize some of the key characters.
In the first Red Dead Redemption, you took control over John Marston who was forced to hunt down his old comrades of the Dutch van der Linde gang. The gang fell apart for reasons unknown and was involved in the massacre of Blackwater. It was your job to hunt them down one by one but in the end, a lot of answers remained unanswered. This sequel is here to solve those mysteries and includes some iconic characters such as Dutch and Bill Williamson. The only main difference is that they are a lot younger, Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place years before the events of the first game and is a prequel instead of a sequel. You take control over Arthur Morgan, a new character and Dutch’s right hand.
Discover the world at your own pace
Now, some might argue that the opening of Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bit slow and I can certainly understand why. If you’ve seen the trailers, you want to discover the open world as fast as possible. Yet, opening like this is crucial for the rest of the game. It serves as a short tutorial where everything of this vast open world is explained to you. Without this quick introduction, you would have been overwhelmed by the possibilities. The world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is packed with tons of things to do and this goes way beyond the story.
The real game kicks off when the gang decides to set up their camp and embrace the life of nomads. It’s a classic American Dream story where the gang members are constantly dreaming about better circumstances and more wealth. As Arthur, it’s your job to help them out in the best way possible, but take my advise and take things slowly. As said before, there’s a lot to discover and it would be a shame if your rush through it. This is without a doubt the most impressive open world that Rockstar created to date.
This is the real deal
Spending your first moments in this open world will truly feel overwhelming. Never before have you seen an open world of this scale filled with details of this level. Modern games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey suddenly feel like something from another generation. The open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is the real deal, with draw distances mirroring those of the real world and a lack of drop-ins, this truly is open world done right. Besides looking extremely good, the way you clear your missions is also done in an amazing way.
The pinnacle of open world games
You can easily trigger several main missions at once but you’re never forced to follow them at a set time. You can continue clearing some interesting side-quest and return to the main missions if you want to learn more about the story. Thanks to this, there’s no real difference between the main story missions and the side missions, everything has its natural flow and it all feels like the real deal. You’ll meet people who’ll give you quests constantly and if you’re not on a quest, you can track down some animals in the woods. There’s no doubt about it, immersion is key in the game and it’s clear that Rockstar made all the right decisions here. No, it’s not the most innovating open world, and yes, it still feels like a typical Rockstar game but they made the best possible version of their formula here. It might not be the most innovative game on the market but, there simply is no other game currently on the market, reaching this level of realism.
Why not go on a hunt?
In a world filled with distractions, one of my favorite things to do is to hunt. Red Dead Redemption 2 is filled with wildlife and if you act wrongly, you can even stir up the ecosystem. If you hunt down all the wolves, for example, you might give other species a good reason to procreate. Yet another example of how deep and realistic this game actually is. Now, back on the hunting.
Hunting down wild animals offers a lot of fun and is even better than most hunting simulators on the market. If you want to track down and kill your prey, you’ll need to plan ahead. You’ll need to pick the right gun, stand on the right side of the wind so the animal doesn’t smell you and above all, have a lot of patience. Killing your prey results in an instant reward but you’ll need to take your time for it. If you lose track of the animal, you can use your Eagle Eye to see where it went but the fun doesn’t stop there. If you want to make the most profit out of the skin, you’ll need a clean kill so you don’t ruin the skin. After the actual kill, you can do as you please. Will you sell the skin? Will you sell the animal as a whole? Will u use it to create new items? Again, the amount of freedom is crazy and you can always hunt down more animals the more you advance. It’s not the main attraction of the game, of course, but it’s amazing to see how much love and details went into this small fraction of the game.
And then, there’s the story
Until this point, I didn’t discuss the story and this alone should be a great indication of the scale. I won’t spoil the story here since discovering everything is actually one of the best things about the game. What you do need to know is that the story is very well written, it might even be the best story in a Rockstar game to date. The writers made sure you could connect to most characters by making them extremely human. These aren’t just outlaws, the characters all have a deeper layer and Arthur is the best example of this.
Besides shooting down animals and other men, he also likes to party and drink a bit too much from time to time. Although those moments don’t add something to the story, they are crucial for your connection with the character. Arthur is the most realistic character I’ve seen in ages and the way the story develops is filled with moments like this. There’s a great balance between those silly moments and the serious ones. The writing is on point and right from the start, you’ll want to know where this story will take you. Although it’s fun to discover the open world, finding out who it all ends is certainly equally as fun.
Let’s talk about the combat
Combat forms the other main aspect of the actual gameplay and it has some interesting improvements. At first sight, it’s a typical third-person shooter where taking cover is crucial for your survival. It’s clear to see the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption influences in the combat and if you’ve played a Rockstar game before, you know what to expect. Taking cover, aiming at your enemies and bringing them down is mostly the way combat evolves. Taking down several enemies at once isn’t impossible but thanks to the smart AI, you’ll need to fight to survive. The enemies learn and adapt from your skills and they’ll constantly try to flank or corner you.
When things get a bit too hectic, you can use your Dead Eye to attack the enemies in slow-motion. Combat is extremely fluid and thanks to the new weapon-wheel, you’ll get access to a lot of different weapons with just one push on the button. The game doesn’t lose the realism here either. Since you’re only human, you can’t carry around tons of weapons. Your bigger weapons are located on your horse and before every battle, you’ll need to think which weapons you’ll carry with you. This adds a surprisingly extra layer to the combat since planning ahead is crucial to come out alive.
But, it has it flaws
Saying that Red Dead Redemption 2 is a perfect game would be wrong for a technical point of view. Yes, the game still has some flaws and not everything is as perfect as you might think. There are some strange glitches, cinematic mode did kill my horse a couple of times, and the game could look better on PlayStation 4. Did I also mention that the controls are a bit clunky and your character doesn’t always respond the way you want him to? But are those really the things that we should take into consideration? I think not.
From a gameplay point of view, this truly is the pinnacle of open world games and there’s just no other game currently on the market reaching the same level of details. From the first moment you play it until the last second of your adventure, you’ll have a lot of fun and often question yourself if a game is really capable of pulling this off. The flaws are here but in my opinion, they don’t make the game worse.
Conclusion:
There’s no way around it, there simply is no other game on the market that does what Red Dead Redemption 2 does. Never before did we have such a realistic and huge open world to discover. Combine the numerous activities with the emotional rollercoaster of the story and you know you’re playing something entirely different here. Rockstar did it again, they did the impossible and created a game that will be relevant for years to come. A game like this deserves our perfect score without any second thoughts.
