Stelistu Posted November 26, 2018 Posted November 26, 2018 Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sprawling Western tale of loyalty, conviction, and the price of infamy, chronicling the inevitable collapse of a motley crew of Wild West holdouts kicking against the slow march of civilisation and industrialisation. Set in Rockstar’s most authentic and lived-in open world ever, there are so many things to do, so many people to meet, and so many places to explore it’s giddily overwhelming. Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t just Rockstar’s greatest achievement to date; it’s a game so lacking in compromise it’s tough to know where best to start discussing it. So let’s start at the beginning: It’s 1899 and American outlaws are an endangered species. Dutch van der Linde and his gang are on the run after a botched heist in the growing town of Blackwater and they’ve retreated high into the mountains where an atrocious blizzard is covering their escape. We slip into the spurs of Arthur Morgan, an exceedingly cool and capable outlaw who was found by Dutch as a boy and raised on the wrong side of the law, and settle in for a roughly 60-hour story. It’s a self-contained and linear introduction but it’s a clever one. The slick cinematics make a hell of first impression, embedding you in the gang and bringing you right up close to the characters who are doing their best to bellow over the howling wind. It also placed me in a distraction-free bubble while I learned some of Red Dead Redemption 2’s early controls and systems, which heightened the impact of having the full map open up to me a few hours later. The conditions on the mountain are almost claustrophobic, with visibility at a premium and thick snow trapping Arthur’s feet. Being set loose in the true open world after toughing it out in this intentionally oppressive environment really underscores the incredible feeling of freedom the full map offers.
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