Forests are brought down for lumber, the hills gutted for coal, and Morgan's chosen family is caught in the middle of it all, forced to run, assimilate, or respond with violent protest. Indigenous Americans are driven from the plains to make way for 'civilization' and commerce. The spreading industrial world encroaches on Arthur Morgan's small band of outlaws and social underdogs, an imperfect but loyal, loving, and self-sustaining community.Ĭapitalism is reducing humans to their value as resources. Red Dead Redemption 2's story mode follows the dying days of the wild west. Morgan trailĮvery pretty vista is something to lose through Arthur's eyes. RDR2, the best western game and one of the best open world games I've ever played released with enough stability issues to make it a difficult recommendation until everything is completely smoothed out. Rockstar's best story and characters yet intermittently filtered through a slideshow of frame hitches and freezes, finally addressed over a week after launch. It's why I'm especially disappointed it debuted on PC in a somewhat busted state.įor every unrehearsed multiplayer adventure, there are a couple disconnects or crashes to desktop. I already knew it from playing days worth of the console version. It's hard to believe RDR2 is so deep and wide and is also a cohesive, playable thing. Like how my friends' characters flinch when I fire a gun near them, how animal carcasses decompose over time, how NPCs react to a muddy or bloody outfit accordingly, how busting through a doorway scares everyone on the other side. The mind-boggling detail making up the massive world of RDR2 speaks to the creative force of a development team with an acute, obsessive dedication to realism (and all the money and time necessary to make it happen). Anytime I pay attention and look closely, RDR2 rewards my curiosity. Some wolf tracks marked the snow in the same direction.

I heard the clap of a gunshot in the distance. Just hours before corpse-bowling I went on a solo hike through snowy forests, stepping in the long shadows cast across the snow by the rising moon.

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