An Epic In Any Medium
I intended this post to be a catch-all of recent works I’ve enjoyed, from the touching Stan & Ollie to the sharp The Kid Who Would Be King, but I found myself circling back to the one piece of entertainment that’s consumed the majority of my time lately: Rockstar Games’ Read Dead Redemption II. Though a sequel in name, the game is set in 1899, twelve years before 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, which had players assume the role of John Marston, a former outlaw who must hunt down members of his old gang to free his wife and son from federal agents. Red Dead II is the story of that gang’s dissolution, told from the perspective of outlaw Arthur Morgan.
I’ve played many an immersive video game before, including the first Red Dead and Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto V; I’ve also been bowled over by the excellent storytelling in games, like in Naughty Dog’s rollicking Uncharted series and their emotionally devastating survival drama The Last of Us. Red Dead Redemption II drops players into a world that feels massive and alive, and tells an epic story in the dwindling days of the Old West that delivers the kind of emotional journey usually reserved for epic films like The Godfather or The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s a masterpiece that, even after completing, I can’t quit. I want to keep living in Arthur’s boots, and I’ll do my best here to explain why.
The game’s story picks up as the Van der Linde Gang has retreated into the mountains after a ferry heist gone catastrophically wrong. We don’t witness or experience this failure, but the gang is clearly hurting as they tend to wounded and mourn a few men and women lost on the job. Everyone’s spirits are shaken, but Arthur has faith in gang leader Dutch van der Linde, who, despite being a criminal, is a charming dreamer who always has a plan for one last heist. Dutch and Arthur both see the modern world, embodied here by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, closing in on them. Red Dead II’s story sees the gang traverse multiple towns, states and terrains in an attempt to stay ahead of the Pinkertons, all the while plans continue to go wrong as they get into continually deeper trouble in search of the big score that will let them retire in peace. More people die, tensions mount, and allegiances are tested.
The core story being told in this game isn’t itself a revolutionary one, but when combined with the numerous side stories to engage with, as well as just its sheer length—a fairly complete playthrough of the story can take 60 to 75 hours—one can immerse so completely in Arthur’s story that character turns and changes that might feel pat in two hours instead feel organic. It’s an experience comparable to a series like Breaking Bad, where a viewer can start by seeing Walter White as a sympathetic and desperate figure, only to see him become a villain by the series’ end. Arthur’s story isn’t exactly that (I’ll expand on what I mean in a moment), but his—and by extension, your—relationships with other characters absolutely function as ever evolving pieces of the greater story. From Chapter I of the game to Chapter VI, my view of Dutch changed radically (and this was without my memory of his appearance in the first game); he’s the well-meaning mentor you so desperately want to keep trusting, but as things get darker, it gets increasingly harder to view Dutch’s plans as the best to follow.
One of the features of Red Dead II that helps immerse you in its world is the game’s honor system. In just about every interaction you, as Arthur, have with other characters, you have the freedom to choose how to act. You stumble upon a stranger who’s been bitten by a snake. Do you give him medicine? Suck out the venom? Kill and rob him? All up to you. That one act doesn’t really impact the story—though if you save him you’ll later see the grateful man in town, and he’ll let you buy a gun of your choice on his tab at the local smith—but the morality of these many, many actions pile up over the course of the game, and ultimately affect how your story ends. The destination is more or less the same no matter your choices, but the way you’re treated by strangers and the characters you know is all based on your actions, and it’s frankly surprising how bad it feels to do the wrong thing. After all, it’s just a game.
Rockstar does have some fun with the system (which I should note is not unique to this game, but rather superbly implemented in a way that feeds the narrative). In the game’s midsection, the gang is driven to the deep south, and the game doesn’t shy away from the racial politics of the time and place. One side mission finds Arthur doing a favor for a homeless man who claims to have been ruined in years past. You journey to his dilapidated old home to fetch a few personal items, including a ledger that logged the transactions of his once prosperous business. Well, that business ended with the Civil War, and Arthur is pretty disgusted with the old slave trader upon returning to him. Once Arthur curses him out and returns his belongings, you can leave the man be. I decided to hogtie him and drop him on his own campfire. Though not looking to score brownie points, the game nonetheless logged this action as “honorable.“ (Killing just about anybody else unprovoked outside of a story mission is considered a bad act).
This is exactly the kind of tongue in cheek dark humor for which Rockstar is known. Though Grand Theft Auto V is a much more overtly satirical experience than either Red Dead Redemption game, that same spirit is sprinkled throughout to add levity to the drama that Arthur Morgan’s story delivers. In one instance, I stumbled upon a late night cross burning; before I could jump in and punish the hooded men myself, they caught themselves on fire. Sometimes the joke can just be for you, as among the game’s many customizable features are your horses’ names. After my first horse, Indiana, died when I accidentally rode him off a cliff into a river (don’t ask, and also don’t ever try galloping at full speed through a dark forest), I decided to get creative. My next steeds were George Soros and Justice Ginsburg. In my current playthrough, I rely on my trusty David Souter. There’s no rhyme or reason to these choices (though I’m partial to a Simpsons joke about Souter), but it constantly amuses me to walk up to my horse and see one of those names onscreen. And don’t take those choices as a sign of disrespect; I briefly considered other names but decided I didn’t want to grow attached to anything named Sean Hannity.
Kidding aside, the fact that this game gets you to grow attached to your horses is kind of remarkable. You have to feed them, brush them, and as a result of that care, they are more agile and dependable. One of my few disappointments with Red Dead II is that it doesn’t allow you to adopt a dog, because it almost seems teasing when you get to encounter many throughout the game and only get to pet and praise them (I’m not joking). Interactions with animals and random bystanders is one of the joys of the game, and a key to making its vision of the frontier feel like more than pretty scenery. The other day, I trotted past a couple dogs playing with each other. They didn’t serve a purpose in Arthur’s story, nor were they doing something that directly affected my gameplay; they were just living creatures interacting naturally, and that level of detail is astounding when you realize someone actually had to program the game to do that. It’s above and beyond the call, but it’s what gives the game depth.
I can’t claim to be any kind of video game expert. I play a handful of them every year, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what makes good gameplay or controls versus bad. What I do know is good storytelling, and it’s hard to forget when a game does as good a job telling its story as Red Dead Redemption II. It’s a balancing act, because the game is jam-packed with scenes where all of the gameplay is just Arthur riding alongside a fellow gang member, talking about the latest plan. It’s well written and finely performed by the voice actors, but it’s tedious to play at times. What kept me engaged between the shootouts were the characters. Had their relationships not been compelling, I would have dreaded every cutscene (the animated movie bits between the playable parts), but instead I welcomed every chance I had to spend time with Arthur and his cohorts. It’s why I’m replaying the game now. It’s one thing to revisit a story, but it’s another entirely to feel like you can re-live it, and even change it, and that’s something Rockstar delivers on a scale I’ve never before experienced.