Red Dead Redemption 2 review (PS4)
I do not own the above image. Please don’t sue me for $1.3 million, 2K. I make no money from this.
I’m not gonna lie, when I first bought Red Dead Redemption 2 I felt ashamed whenever I had to tell anyone about it. Not just because I’d leapt upon the zeitgeist bandwagon like all the other sheeple, or because it was a day-one purchase and only babies, fanboys, and other idiots (me) buy games on the first day of release anymore, but because Dan Houser’s tone-deaf bragging about ‘100-hour work weeks’ amid a flurry of similar controversy, and the numerous damning reports of Rockstar’s work culture up to and including leaving people who worked on the game uncredited if they weren’t there at the completion of the product made me absolutely rage. Say what you like about the issues, I’m sure you’ve all got your opinions, but it seems there’s not a single developer/publisher that can help themselves but to court controversy by mistreating some human demographic one way or another, even less so if they’re in some way related to 2K (formally known by their extended title ‘2Kunty 2Kare’), and I think that’s absolutely disgracefuul. I feel like I betrayed myself when I handed my money to Rockstar the way I did. I fed this filthy machine in a way could only have been topped had I pre-ordered it, and I have to be honest, this sour feeling has stuck with me for a while. Maybe it’s because the elements of jankiness and strange, inconsistent design are so prevalent that despite the thousands of hours of overwork and the dozens or hundreds of lives that were made measurably worse in its production, the game isn’t even close to being Rockstar’s best release, and despite that, the Houser brothers will pocket nearly half a billion dollars between them and their rabid fanbase will tear apart anyone that doesn’t rate the game a perfect one-zero, and I contributed my money towards this ill-gotten end.
I think part of the problem is that some fatigue is setting in in a way similar to that of the Assassin’s Creed series. All the tropes of Rockstar open world games are all here, made worse by the fact that this game resembles its predecessor far more than the GTA sequels resembled theirs. There are massive differences between GTA V and IV, and between IV and San Andreas, but in most ways Red Dead Redemption 2 just feels exactly like a bigger, fancier Red Dead Redemption. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing - the original game’s formula was more-or-less watertight - but it does leave you feeling like you’re retreading ground in a way that is leaving me feeling noticeably tired.
But I’m coming on strong here. I suppose it’s to manage expectations, because the working conditions of any manufacturer are important, and I’m not going to ignore all the game’s flaws just to prove that I am indeed an acolyte of the church of Dan Houser and that nothing he can do will be wrong in my eyes as long as he pours enough time and money and tales of obscene, mythical effort into his latest game. But this doesn’t mean that I think the game isn’t a good, even great game. The ceiling for Rockstar’s efforts is high, and even if it isn’t their best complete experience, it is one of their most detailed worlds, and the glut of things to do in that world, and the depth to which you can do those things does ultimately make this a singular, stand-out experience. So before I go into more detail about the game’s flaws, let’s say a few good things.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is the numerical sequel and narrative prequel of Red Dead Redemption, set twelve years prior, when John Marston was running with Dutch’s gang instead of trying to kill them. You take on the role of a different member of the gang - Arthur Morgan - they flee from the law after a deal gone wrong. Dutch seems to be losing his edge, having shot and killed a girl in circumstances that no-one can seem to confirm as accidental. The gang’s belief in him is shaken as their situation goes from bad to worse, losing a few members to a lawman’s gun and ending up stranded atop a mountain amidst a horrific snowstorm. But after the thaw, the gang find themselves a place to set camp nearby the small township of Valentine, and set themselves about rebuilding their fortunes in order to continue their journey west with the hope of buying some property and living a truly free life.
I’ve had quite a few discussions with my girlfriend about the nature of 'Westerns’ since I started playing this game. She claims to hate the genre, either for it’s comically pulpy John Wayne antics, or for its otherwise doom-and-gloom existential stories. I, for one, found my love for it in the fiction of Cormac McCarthy, and his dark, picturesque take on seeking meaning in a life defined by its traumas and a world without compassion or pity; where luck is transient at best, and one’s existence is inescapably confined by one’s flaws. I respect the genre for its commitment to exploring harsh, sometimes nihilistic realities, and for finding a strange sense of beauty in that nihilism - men with nothing finding themselves in touch with the natural world in a way the rest of us invariably miss out on. And this is a world that we forget existed barely over a hundred years ago - a world in which, if you didn’t kill your own food, you didn’t eat; a world in which giving a stranger the benefit of the doubt could mean the end of your life. Industrialisation changed this for a lot of people as steam engines brought mass transit to previously isolated places and the invention of the telegraph meant that your past could outpace you, but on the borders of civilisation existed the last hope of the lawless.
This boundary is where Dutch’s gang find themselves trapped, out of money, low on provisions, and chased by the laws of a society that is steadily taming the last remaining wildlands of the US territory. Where RDR1 followed a man trying to move beyond the grip of his past, RDR2 looks upon a man who instead struggles with the walls of past and future closing in upon him, for time remaining static is the only way his lifestyle, and by extension he himself, can exist. The outlaw way is out of date and no-longer spoken about with any tone of reverence of legend. Whereas before he and his gang existed from day-to-day with nothing to tie them down, they’re now increasingly bothered by a past full of infractions that they can’t leave behind, heading into a future that doesn’t want them. This is the first Rockstar game that works as a reverse-power fantasy: the more missions you complete, the more you find yourself detested by the inhabitants of the country, and the more isolated you become. Arthur knows that the best of his years are long behind him, and amongst his friends he sees those with their wits about them withering away, and those without wits lying stinking in a haze of booze. Some of the most interesting parts of the game’s ambient narrative involve seeing the way characters like John and Abigail Marston used to be - emotional, immature, and having not yet acquired the world-weariness that grips Arthur Morgan here, and will grip Marston in the future. In those two characters trailing behind him, and in others ahead of him, Arthur can see his past and his future laid out already, and so his thoughts, when extending beyond his tendency towards knee-jerk aggression, are tinged with a sadness and a sense of yearning for some kind of small meaning left ahead. One gets the feeling very early on that he never really expects to live another day, and when the next day comes, it’s simply one more in between him and something of a release in death. The horrors of a life of violence wear a man down, no matter how accustomed to it he may become.
From this frame of reference we get to view a landscape that is, like Arthur Morgan, seemingly at odds with itself. From rocky escarpments you can sit and contemplate the stunning beauty of Rockstar’s most lifelike and vibrant gameworld ever, right up until the crowing of a steam train interrupts your thoughts as it comes chugging past throwing gouts of black smoke into the trees. The dirt tracks that wind through the forests are well-traveled by others, and it’s easier than ever to be spotted committing a crime by the frequent passers-by that make their way past. Attempts at stalking animals are frequently interrupted by strangers wandering past, and the mark of humankind is starting to be indelibly imprinted on nature as lumberyards, quarries, and townships cut into the otherwise pristine wilderness. The attention to detail is exquisite, and it is in the details that the game presents its greatest gift to the medium. Skinned animals leave bloodstains over the player’s shoulder or the back of your horse, which are washed off down the river if you submerge yourself. Your horse gets spooked by large predators or snakes or dead animals, and must be calmed down lest it tosses you and flees. Newer horses will become agitated at gunshots, whereas older, more experienced horses don’t. Hawks swoop down and attack rabbits. Opossums play dead when frightened. Every ambient sound, as far as I can tell, comes from some kind of source - be it plant, animal, or machine. There is one single location in the game in which you stand under a natural rock archway, and the wind sounds different within it. NPCs comment on almost every player-state including whether it’s morning, noon, or night, whether you’re dirty or bloodied, whether you’re carrying game with you, and will treat you differently depending on how much trouble you’ve historically caused in a given camp, town, or region - you can pat away your bounty, but you can’t buy people’s forgiveness. You can interact with near everyone, and the things you say to them and the things they say to you are always related to one-another. Shooting weapons in populated areas will either spook people or outright turn them against you. Shooting lanterns can set a whole campsite afire, and the fire will destroy any items it engulfs. A bout of rain will douse the fire, freeze you if the temperature drops, or bring heavy, impenetrable mists upon the local area. The time of day, and geographic location affects the temperature, which will in turn affect your health if you aren’t dressed for the climate. And the list goes on and on. The interactivity, the visuals, the sound design, the weather effects, the size and scope are all phenomenal. From a technical standpoint, Red Dead Redemption is something of a masterpiece, and for the amount of systems interacting with one another here, the polish is astounding. THIS is where money should be going for AAA releases - into QA - because anything less than this level of polish in such an expensive game is near inexcusable for companies with budgets this high. I suppose that’s one thing about console exclusives - less variation in the system means the developers have an easier time accounting for bugs, but picking up and playing Red Dead took me back to the good ol’ days of the first two Playstations, when games HAD to work on release, otherwise the developers were fucked.
It’s one of those games where you have to readjust your expectations when playing it, as you’ll come in expecting to be able to cheat the system in certain ways - to set enemies on fire and still be able to loot them, for instance, or to piss a character off, and be able to come back after a period of time and have them reset - but in RDR2, this is not the case. Your actions often have permanent repercussions, teaching harsh, and sometimes frustrating lessons to those that break the rules, and reinforcing a focus in the design on recreating the slow and cumbersome way of life in a time and place largely untouched by modern conveniences. Every time you skin an animal it takes time, and once you’ve finished you have to travel to your horse and put the skin atop it. If your horse should fall at any point, the carcasses and furs it carries will fall off and you’ll have to put them back on. This makes something as simple as navigating the world an experience in which you must learn to pace yourself, as trying to belt through a forest will more often than not end with you slamming headlong into a tree, damaging both you and your steed, and you having to collect all your things again. It’s an interesting direction for the game to take, given the fact that typical Rockstar audiences are going to be used to blazing heedlessly from one end of the world to the other, but it’s one that forces the player into adopting, at least in part, an appreciation for the measured way of life in which these people live.
But it is here, in these specifics, and in this encouraged slow-pacing that the game finds its biggest flaw. The controls are, at their worst, utterly, incomprehensibly terrible. Sometimes you just want to turn and face the other direction, but your character has a turning circle, so if you’re on a precipice any attempt to backtrack will send him walking off the edge and into oblivion. Your horse is not you, and it will often move in a direction contrary to that which you intend it to, sometimes because you’ve told it to do something it doesn’t want to, but sometimes because the contextual controls have simply wigged out on you. So when you’re trying to turn your horse around so you can follow a carriage only to have it go mental and leap headlong into the side of the carriage, and forcing the carriage to race screaming off into the distance as the occupants shoot at you, it feels like the game is out to fuck with you. This is made even worse given the staggering over-complication of the inputs that often map two very different functions to the same button, where the only variable is a context that the game decides for you. For example, the button for reloading is the same as the button for melee combat, and the only difference between these two actions is how close to someone you’re standing. So when I was about to win $20 from a man challenging me to a shooting contest and I pressed the button to reload, I smacked him in the face with the butt of my rifle instead, and he pulled his gun on me. This forced me into reloading an old save frantically before the game autosaved over my mistake, and given that the event in question was a random encounter, I couldn’t do it again until the game decided it was ready to let me, which was hours later. Another time I had saved a woman from death at the hands of some degenerate bandits who had murdered her husband. As I was looting the bandit corpses she asked me to give her a ride to safety, except as she was saying that sentence, I was standing over a bandit but looking at her dead husband, and although I cancelled the action before I managed to loot him, the game already registered its own incorrect interpretation of my intentions, the woman cursed at me, and she fled.
In short, RDR2′s controls are so imprecise, confusing, and inconsistent that they can, and will, ruin entire missions for you. They can make whole areas completely inaccessible simply because you forgot that ‘accelerate’ in this game isn’t ‘R2′ like in the GTA games. So you hop on a horse, press R2, and accidentally hipfire your pistol, sending the entire encampment hostile, and charging you with trespassing every single time you take a step inside its boundaries. This happened to me, and because the game autosaved immediately following this action, I had to retread two hours of playtime just to get myself back to that point so I could finish the given mission, and I don’t recall a time in which I’ve been more frustrated with a Rockstar game. I can take it if it’s something I’m responsible for. If I've chosen to loot a person in a crowded place without considering that I was going to be charged with a crime, I’ll take that hit. But with RDR2, the mistakes are far more often the fault of the game itself, or of its convoluted control system, and that is indescribably aggravating. In most cases, L2 aims your weapon and R2 shoots. But when you’re in a shop, that button combination is required to merely raise your weapon, so in certain contexts even the simple act of unholstering becomes a nightmarish mix of anxiety and confusion in which you’re not sure if you’re about to the thing you want to do, or if you’re about to shoot someone in the face and have to reload. It’s at the point now where every time I want to commit an action I have to stare at the contextual controls in the corner of the screen and think deeply about what I’m about to do, and it shouldn’t be that damn hard. The button to skin an animal shouldn’t be the same as the button to get on your horse, meaning that if your prize is too close to your ride, you have to either spend thirty seconds trying to figure out how to get it to identify that you’re trying to skin the animal, or get on the horse and ride it away, get off, return, skin the animal, then walk all the way back over to your horse to put the skin on it. Sometimes you have to be pointing the camera at an item to pick it up, other times you have to point your character at it, and other times you just have to be in the general vicinity. There’s no consistency, and the game seems to demand the most pedantic input requirements of the situations in which you’re dealing with the most finicky, small items. In trying to craft a control system that compliments the game’s immersive qualities, they’ve created a control system that is directly responsible for pulling you out of the experience, and one that is behind almost every single one of the game’s most frustrating moments. It’s a staggering oversight, or perhaps a crippling error of judgement, that they let this remain the way it is. And while I thought it sounded like a petty concern in reviews I’d read before I bought the game, it single-handedly dropped my opinion of the game down a few notches. Because controls shouldn’t be a thing you need to continually think about when you play, but here, they are a constant thorn in the player’s side.
But it’s not just in terms of the controls in which the game's internal rules are deeply inconsistent; across the board, the rules of play are tweaked and manipulated in a way that can’t always be predicted. You can take part in a train robbery in which you enforce theft and kill guards without effect, and yet joining your gang in actively taking items from people somehow nets you an honour penalty. You can shoot a dozen lawman in a mission without a problem, but shoot one otherwise and you get an honour penalty. Looting aggressors is okay, until it isn’t. Kidnapping is not okay until it is. This unequal treatment of its systems extends to game mechanics. Your horse can carry every one of the three dozen weapons you’ve bought, yet it will only travel to you in real time if you walk away from it. You can sprint through the streets of almost any location in the game, other than your gang’s camp, where you spend a lot of time, and must walk at a crawl no matter what you’re doing. You will freeze if you don’t wear enough clothes in cold areas, but you can swim in frozen lakes forever if you like. Minigames allow you to skip certain meaningless segments, but not other, longer, equally meaningless segments, and the ability to skip at all differs depending on the game. Some things you have to endure, and others you don’t, and for every two things that happen that make sense, there is one thing that doesn’t. I don’t mean to criticise the game for not getting every conceivable thing right, but this is where the game crosses the invisible line between immersive design and clumsy design. And perhaps it’s because this is the first time they’ve really gone all-in on something like this that it leaves RDR2 feeling like a lesser game in a lot of ways than anything the company has released in a decade. GTA IV is awkward, at times, but it’s rarely inconvenient. The vehicle physics are slidey, but the car doesn’t unpredictably flip itself because you accidentally hit the brake button which is also the ‘flip car’ button if you’re not holding L2. There’s almost never a time in GTA V when something happens that makes you feel like the game has just screwed you, or in which you find yourself thrust into an unexpected situation you can’t get out of. In contrast, RDR2 will often drop you into encounters in which you’ve ruined the experience long before you even realise what you were supposed to be doing, or you’ve been charged with a bounty because you pressed the right button in the wrong context. This is not good game design. And it pains me to say, because there are so many ways in which Rockstar have gone above and beyond in terms of what they’ve delivered here, and yet in some of the most basic, entry-level aspects, the game is starkly lacking.
Yes, this is a strongly negative perspective to take on what is, for the largest part, an enjoyable experience, but in my playthrough I found that the relatively frequent high points never reached the extremes of the more-than-occasional low points, and an enjoyable experience marked by some truly rage inducing flaws that almost always occurred because of the game’s frequently clumsy design is not an experience I’m prepared to rave about. I play this game every day, almost impulsively. I am desperate to explore its world more. But I am not looking forward to the next time its gameplay makes me want to put my fist through the TV screen, and Red Dead Redemption 2 makes me want to do that at least once every time I pick the controller up. So while the game could be viewed through a certain lens as a superb addition to the genre, I don’t think that there will be many fanboys left singing it unequivocal praise after their initial ‘an attack against this game is an attack against me’ phase wears off. Most of the hype came from the nostalgia - Rockstar didn’t do a lot of ‘promising’ (2K just sued an outlet for $1.3 million for leaking spoilers in February in a tasteless strong-arm move against games journalists), and I think that is in part because this game is an experiment. It’s an experiment to create the closest approximation to a real world that has likely ever been attempted, a world that responds realistically and sometimes unpredictably to the player. It’s an experiment to try and craft a game that is both threatening and accessible, thrusting the player, often against their will, into dangerous situations, thereby imitating an agency in their non-player characters that has not been managed before. But at the end of the day, I do wonder whether or not they will conclude that the result was worth the effort. The sheer amount of time and money invested into predicting, scripting, recording, and programming all the little instances of variation and life into the game render the moments when the curtain is lifted all the more glaring. It’s like the uncanny valley of programming. No matter how many times Siri gives you a lifelike and helpful answer, you’re always going to remember the times she said she didn’t understand a simple question you asked her. It is the same here.
In short, yes, I recommend the game. Maybe not for full price, although that’s largely for ethical reasons. Perhaps if the controls were more elegant, and there was more consistency to the mechanics and some more quality-of-life tweaks I’d rave about it. The potential is there for it to have been their best release. But when you get your hands on it, you’ll see what I mean almost immediately - Red Dead Redemption 2 is a very impressive effort, detailed to an almost unprecedented extent, and beautiful, but it is not a cultural touchstone. It’s a sequel to a cultural touchstone, and one that was crafted under dubious circumstances, and with some dubious design choices.
P.S. Were I a better writer I’d have fit this into the main body, but it’s worth mentioning that the entire game can be played in 1st person, and after tweaking some of the display options this became the only way I wanted to play. Navigation becomes that much easier when you can clearly identify and look at the things you want to interact with, the dozens of tiny collectibles become far easier to recognise in the environment from a first person perspective, and something about seeing the world through the first person made travel far more palatable - I wasn’t simply a character impatient to get from A to B, I was me, journeying through a vast and realistic wilderness. You do lose a bit in not being able to see yourself, especially with all the character-customisation options on hand, but you gain a lot in terms of how this change in perspective smooths some of the design wrinkles out. In the end, it made me lament all the more that the game isn’t available on PC, and I can only imagine what the game could have been if they’d just wholly embraced it as an FPS.
