Alright let's talk about cowboys. This is probably going to be needlessly long and boring (like the game, natch) and I don't expect people to read it but here it goes anyway. There will be spoilers.
The more I think on Red Dead Redemption 2 having finished it, the less I like it.
There's a lot that can be said about Red Dead Redemption 2 and all of it, I'm sure, is positive. The game is incredibly polished, almost impeccably detailed (for better or worse), and it is likely a landmark in open world game design. Rockstar has crafted an incredibly rich world that is easy to get immersed in with memorable locales and the feeling of wanting to know what's just over the horizon or what that plume of smoke in the distance is going to be (it's going to be gangs or a friendly guy or people who tell you to fuck off). What they haven't crafted is a fun game.
That's harsh and I'm sure those of you who are all in on the game are ready to say how much fun you're having and that's fine. This is an opinion and despite the way it is presented, I'm not trying to speak as the authority that dictates how you should and shouldn't enjoy something. But considering the game and its emphasizes I'm not sure that 'fun' was at the top of the list of things Rockstar wanted to accomplish.
Video games tend to provide the player with a near constant loop of stuff that either feels meaningful or rewards you in such a way to make you want to do another one. This is especially noticeable in open world games and action games or games with RPG elements. Take for example Spider-Man. You can barely swing for thirty seconds without a crime popping up or a thing to distract you from the main story. You do it, you get your bar filled up, and you're on your way. Some games have that satisfaction in a less obvious fashion. Dark Souls, for example, is a game pretty much built around small victories that, when accomplished, provides the player the motivation to keep going through to the next area. Most games have that in mind, making the player feel rewarded outside of the game as much as they are inside of it.
Red Dead Redemption 2 does the exact opposite.
From its opening moments it presents itself as a game that is less interested in meaningful progression and more in the often laborious nature of frontier life in the turn of the century America. One of the first things in the game you do is ransack a house and what would normally be a quick little animation in other games is a drawn out, meticulous process. Looting enemies in RDR2 takes twice as long as it does in other games. And it's not just that, while animation priority is all over the place in the game even something as intrinsically linked to video games as controlling it is an often grueling process. The game does a frankly terrible job at introducing one of its core systems: horse riding. Riding the horse rarely feels fun and going at galloping speeds rarely pays off given the obtuse and badly explained method of keeping higher speed while minimizing stamina loss of the horse. The default movement speed for Arthur is walking. Every single thing about the game is designed around going as slow as possible. Which, while deliberate, is not exactly fun.
Western films are often slow, sweeping narratives that build tone through inaction and score. Rockstar clearly goes for something in the style of Once Upon a Time in the West but the problem is that western films, while often long, are, by nature of being films, an inactive media. Games aren't, and the greatest sin a game can do is waste your time. RDR 2 commits this sin at every single opportunity. The game is at its absolute best when it's just a hunting game, a simulator of frontier life. Tracking the various animals, studying them, and getting the perfect clean kill on the three star deer is as satisfying the twentieth time as it is the first and it's not surprising that the hunting mechanic is the one that is most obviously linked to player progression. Every perfect pelt or animal part feeds into satchel upgrades or unique outfits while legendary creatures reward you with trinkets that provide passive buffs. It's just about the only aspect of the game that has any meaningful progression to it.
That ultimately the systems they introduce wind up being useless is just further proof of how much the game is interested in wasting your time.
So much of the game is spent not interacting with it to the point where it's easier to just put it on cinematic view since the way the game does fast travel is ultimately pointless and a further waste of time. To even fast travel you have to go back to camp and interact with a map and select your location when you'll be treated with sweeping cinematic shots of Arthur riding out in a more condensed version of normal travel with the cinematic mode on. Sure, there are stagecoaches and trains but you still have to ride to a town or station and go through the motions there. It's more realistic and, yes, immersive than just opening the map and selecting a location but it becomes an exercise in tedium when you have to go back to your camp at the southern point on the map when you've been out hunting up near Valentine and you've seen the same stretch of land five times over only this time you might encounter one of the five or so random events where the only difference is now it's a woman being carted off by the law instead of a guy or it's a Mexican challenging you to a shoot off instead of a white guy.
It comes off like RDR2 wants you to interact with its world as little as possible. It's more interested in having you look at its vast plains and murky swamps than in providing any sort of meaningful experience. Sure, you have the option of causing chaos and generally being an asshole but the game actively discourages this (doubly so in the story, more on that later) by jacking up prices and making it harder to actually travel around the place. The optional robberies not tied to character side missions are rarely worth the hassle. Maybe it's attempting to make some greater commentary on the inevitability of the outlaw way of life with how hollow and dull it is just shooting up a town or random pedestrians but the game isn't that clever. Because if it was the story wouldn't be so incredibly shallow and on the nose.
Look, it has to be said: Rockstar games aren't well written. The first Red Dead Redemption is remembered for its third act and ending more than anything else because three quarters of that game is spent having various characters telling John Marston that they'll tell him information "in due time". What Rockstar games do is take broad inspiration from different sources and slap it into an open world with their own twists on the narrative. GTA 3 is Goodfellas or any of those mafia type films, GTA Vice City may as well be Scarface fanfiction with a side of Miami Vice. San Andreas starts as Menace 2 Society with a side of New Jack City and To Live and Die in L.A. among many others. This is nothing new. Rockstar games have always worn their inspirations on their sleeves but the narratives in them have never been truly great; the moments have been.
Red Dead Redemption 2's narrative isn't particularly good nor is it well told and worst of all it has the lingering feeling of wanting to say something that's already been said so instead of trying to make a point it just references it. This is especially present in chapter three's rival family thing and chapter six where the most the game says about the Native Americans and the American government is essentially "Boy the natives sure did get fucked over." The characters in the gang are not given really any time to shine or develop organically beyond what they're introduced as. Charles and Sadie are clearly supposed to be the 'good' characters given that they get more screentime than most at the start and end respectively but Charles spends the duration of his introduction mission explaining that he's got Indian blood in him because that's the start and stop of his role in the game: he's got Indian blood so he's good at hunting and treats buffalo as sacred. Sadie gets it worse of all since her development essentially just happens. In the span of one mission she goes from angry onion cutter to trigger happy shooting cowgirl just because "My husband and I shared the work." Sure, that's fine, but what work did you guys do that turned you into a fearless gunslinger all of a sudden.
The game being a prequel doesn't immediately ruin the tension of scenes (though every single time John fucks up on a job it really doesn't work) nor should it mean that the new characters should just be forgotten about. But the game isn't interested in the gang much at all so much as it is with Dutch and Arthur and John - two characters that we already know a great deal about. The story of Dutch's descent into crazy town wasn't something that I left the first game needing and having played RDR 2? I still don't think it was needed considering it happens basically with the snap of fingers. Rather than use the opportunity to shine a light on the gang members or the underdeveloped characters from the first (like Javier), it just...doesn't. Javier in RDR 2 is barely a footnote and even more forgettable than in the first game - and he was really only 'memorable' in the first game because of his outlandish sombrero. None of the gang members really grow or develop or do anything beyond what they're introduced as. Sean is Irish so he gets drunk. Pearson cooks and was in the Navy. Bill is an idiot. Lenny is young and colored in a time and area where colored folk were still looked down on (something that never factors in and is yet more example of Rockstar saying nothing while trying to say something).
When the characters inevitably start dropping it's not treated as a somber moment and rarely, if ever, are you supposed to actually care. It's more just for the sudden shock factor because no matter when it happens, by the next mission everyone basically moves on and forgets about it. The story cares more about a kidnapped kid (that you know is going to be fine) then mourning its own characters. This wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't indicative of a larger problem with the game: that it's wasting your time.
The mission structure of the game is about as creatively bankrupt as can be. Ninety percent of the time the missions start with you talking to someone in the gang, they set up the job, you ride and talk on your horse, get to a place, and shoot people or steal things, then ride away while shooting people. It's an unsatisfying loop because of how similar and uninspired it all is. When every mission ends in a gunfight it makes missions feel like a chore. If the goal is to make the missions where there isn't a gunfight more memorable by association then maybe they should've come up with better mission structure overall. The shooting isn't even all that good so why so many missions just end in gunfights feels less like a conscious decision for fun and more "Well it's a Rockstar game so you have to shoot guns."
Chapter 5 of the game through to the end is one giant slog with the most heavy handed delivery of theme and message short of just having Arthur and other characters turn to the camera and say "Doing bad things is wrong!" In a game that wants to be subtle and sweeping in the visual and world design, that same subtlety is lost when it comes to the writing. They telegraph the ending down to the point where they do the comical touch of having voice over narration hit you over the head with what I'm sure they thought was deep, meaningful wisdom. It's eye-rollingly bad, especially given everything that led up to the ending bits.
The most interesting aspect of the ending bits of the game are its willingness to just say how ultimately pointless its own introduced mechanics and systems are. Your weight management? Your gang upgrades? Doesn't matter. Because Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game about wasting your time.
I have no doubt that Red Dead Redemption 2 will sweep GOTY awards and it is an incredibly polished game. It might even deserve to win those awards on technical merits alone. But the game just isn't fun except for when it's a western themed Cabella's game. It aspires to Sergio Leone heights but it's more on par with Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate.
I don't like Red Dead Redemption 2. I can't call it a bad game. I called it fascinating in a previous post and I stand by that assessment. It is a fascinating game that I never want to play again. Because who has all that time to waste?
