“Red Dead Redemption 2″ or “Deliberate Actions: The Game”
You can’t do anything in Red Dead Redemption 2 without it feeling like it takes days for Arthur to get it over with, and that’s one of my favorite parts of the game so far. Games today are snappy and quick for a reason, we often have a ton of game to get through for the $60 or so we paid. Red Dead Redemption 2 thus far has disregarded that need to get us through content and expects players to just admire a horse ride, enjoy the sunset or thoroughly riddle that witness with bullets so he doesn’t go telling the law about the time I stole a pocket watch off a guy who totally shot at me first.
I adore everything about this honestly, it’s been a really long time since I’ve played a video game that’s encouraged me to slow down, even recent Bethesda open worlds have felt like a dash towards something, always another location to loot or quest to start just over the next hill. Sure Red Dead has a lot of that same DNA, there’s always someone getting into a fight, or some poor passerby needing help(Or again, a murdering) and some Bandit thinking he can fool me into following him to a broken wagon instead of just shooting him in the head unprovoked(Okay look, this is a game about Outlaws, let me have this uncharacteristic murder streak alright?) but it isn’t what defines the experience. It’s the times around the events that really brings you the player a memorable time.
When this game is over I’m not sure I’ll remember every twist and turn of the plot, guy I murdered in cold blood for a watch or epic set piece mission, but you can be damn sure I’ll remember everything around or between those things. Drifting lazily across the plains, slowly setting up camp under the stars to cook some dinner and strolling at that iconic Rockstar leisurely pace down a towns main street looking for trouble and or a place to sell all my stolen watches. It’s all so slow and deliberate, it’s such a hard left from what we’ve become used to from our video games today, especially the big open world content fests we’ve become accustomed to, but even still, it’s all something I welcome with open arms.
All this being said, I don’t want this slow pace to become the new norm, I could easily see this getting old fast if the next Assassins Creed expects me to sit down and manually sharpen my weapons, but in this game it feels right and like a needed slowing down of video games, at least for a little while. So rest your weary head a spell at my camp an-, say....nice watch you got there.












