Playing A Game Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Thesis statement: Red Dead Redemption 2 is a $450 million (source) wildlife simulator.

I could go on, and on, and on, about how slowly RDR2 tends to move. Not in the same way as John Marston's story, that is, Arthur Morgan doesn't need to herd cattle or break horses for two hours before something interesting happens... but.

He does need to ride his horse from point A to B, for minutes at a time, in and between practically every mission. Sometimes the narrative scripting skips this ride, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a riding companion will provide dialog, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes there's a "fast travel" option at A to go directly to B, and usually there isn't.

And I could similarly go on and on and on about the absurd number of gameplay mechanics in RDR2 - 20 hours in, the game was still tutorializing new activities (like fishing!) - as well as how player-hostile the controls for those mechanics are.

Letters and books share inventory space with animal meat ... except when they don't, depending on which vendor you're talking to. Some guns need to be cocked inbetween shots, which is done with the fire button. Sometimes the aim button gives you dialog choices, and sometimes it points a gun, removing dialog choices. I missed a cutscene because the "run" button is the same as the "skip scene" button.

And don't get me started on how fidgety and fiddly position-sensitive button prompts can be.

And, I could continue going on!, about how these and other problems interfere with RDR2's storytelling -- from attempts at re-watching cinematics getting stuck on infinite loading screens, to the (spoilers) final story mission actively punishing attempted gameplay. ("Stay behind cover. You aren't meant to shoot [the guy] here.")

The story of Arthur Morgan and the Dutch van der Linde gang is good, but it's 20 hours of good story stretched out over 50 hours of actually playing it.

What's shocking about these various shortcomings is that they all sabotage the very "sandbox" formula that Rockstar is known for: optional activities are frustrating to play, exploring the map is overly laborious, and it's impossible to move through the story at your own pace. Like, literally, there are so many scenes where you can't run! and so many other scenes where NPCs yell that you're walking too slowly!

While Red Dead Redemption 2's story can be good, and its shooting can be fun, and its optional activities can be interesting, the game goes out of its way to prevent you from focusing too much on any of those.

Therein lies my conclusion: the only thing that it doesn't prevent you from focusing on, in fact, the thing it frequently forces you to focus on, is watching varmints and livestock and other cowboys run through the wilderness as you're on your way to some mission objective.

And the quality of those floral and faunal animations is top notch. So, for a wildlife simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2 is pretty great.

For an epic narrative, it's pretty good, except when it's slowing itself down; and for an open-world sandbox, it's simply not open enough.

Better than: Red Dead Redemption
Not as good as: Grand Theft Auto V
Hard to be sure, but probably better than: Grand Theft Auto IV, since this game at least has checkpoints.

Progress: Finished the epilogue.

Rating: Meh