Red Dead Redemption 2 has finally arrived on the Xbox Game Pass, and let me tell you, buddy, there is hardly a better deal right now than getting to enjoy this masterpiece for free. And I will not mince words here, I believe that the story mode for Red Dead Redemption 2 is an outright masterpiece and a landmark title of the medium.
You may have noted I specified “story mode,” but we’ll get to that later.
I do want to take a minute to tell those of you who somehow missed the news, this game has made a huge mark on the art form of video games. The level of detail is at times almost confounding, taking an astonishing amount of man-hours to add things like animal testicle temperature physics. Did we need that? Was anyone asking for that? Probably not, but now we know it’s possible, and it does serve to show the level of craft at work in this title. The level of graphical detail on hardware that is well past its prime is impressive alone to me. There is weight and gravity to every single physical item and movement. You feel every heavy step you take, trudging through the snow as it crunches underfoot, every lunging swing of a punch and its cracking connection, the guns feel heavy and powerful. The amount of detail in the physics and sound design gives everything such a tangible and tactile feeling, it’s captivating.
Then you add in the incredible story. It’s slow and epic like the best of moody western films, telling a fascinating tale of a group of outlaws at the end of their rope, and how the fear and pressure of a changing world can break them all in different and at times, quite devastating ways. It is a level of storytelling found rarely outside of RPGs and narrative adventure titles but is often found within the titles of Rockstar Games’ library. But it feels more mature. It feels like the teams that have been writing the ridiculousness of the Grand Theft Autos, and the tragic but pulpy original Red Dead Redemption, but grown-up. There is still the same brand of cynical satire found in past titles, but the themes of facing our moralities and mortalities are told with a more somber tone. I really can’t express the emotional connection I had to Arthur and certain members of the gang by the end. It was a satisfying journey that everyone who respects and appreciates the art form of video games should experience.
That is if you have the time. I cannot possibly be hyperbolic enough when I say there is barely enough time in eternity to fully complete this game.
The amazing weight of each step is, in the sense of movement controls, a snail’s pace, as Arthur moves the way a two hundred pound suede-wrapped, iron-loaded, forty-something beast of a man would move on a hot day in the swamps. It’s impressive in theory but can make for a slog when you only have so much time to play. The story that is so beautifully touching and well crafted, can miss a lot of pieces when you don’t have the time to spend standing around in camp and listening to ambient conversations. The amount and quality of dialogue in this game is stellar, nearly unrivaled in this genre I would argue, but even worse than a thirty-minute cutscene you could replay from a menu, is a thirty-minute impromptu conversation in a camp, that can’t be triggered again without a second playthrough.
The missions can be quite long too, and as Rockstar games are want to do, the checkpoints are not always the most forgiving. And considering again that Arthur moves like an oaf, can be tossed from his horse in so many meme-able ways, and the missions span the massive map or involve many lengthy shootouts, it can be quite hard to budget your time for the giant set pieces.
All of these things that make Red Dead Redemption 2 one of the most captivating titles of all time, can make it one of the most difficult to enjoy with budgeted time. So maybe I’m advocating for less quality in games, or for developers to stop striving to push the boundaries of storytelling in the artform? Maybe we’re taking a bit of a dark path here. So let’s punch down on Red Dead Online for a moment.
So the lumbering weight of the story mode is making it all a big chore (so is being asked to do literal chores, actually), it would seem like the naturally more free-form online mode could be an alternative to enjoying the world Rockstar has crafted. It could be presumed that the pseudo-MMORPG wing of the Red Dead family, which is offering a more arcade-y option both in gameplay and game modes, as well as a more laid back free roam option, would be exactly the right choice for the time-deprived.
It would if it worked….
The Beta for Red Dead Online began in November of 2018 (on the day before my birthday), and it was a bit of a mess. It wasn’t quite the debacle of the Grand Theft Auto Online launch, but it was certainly not smooth. Even if you didn’t get constantly disconnected, there wasn’t anything to do. Deathmatch modes with maps you couldn’t select and a couple of story missions. Cut to now, and if you’ve managed to do the few things they’ve added over the last couple of years, there’s very little to do, and still the disconnections. Even a quick trip to your camp just to eat a stew, may be impossible due to the game disconnecting once loaded, loading but the camp not appearing, or outright just not loading at all.
Watching that revolver icon spin forever….
Honestly, when the online has worked, I’ve had an insane amount of fun, and I’m not even a multiplayer guy. I love fishing in the game, and the moonshine stuff is fun (when I’m not kicked mid delivery), but it never lives up to what it could be. Even stripping the story away, you have an incredibly detailed and beautiful map, with luscious wildlife, delightful secrets, and a fashion catalog. Telling me I can make a little ginger gunslinger hermit, who makes stew, fishes for fun, and hunts treasure as a career and passion, is like reading a page from my diary. But if neither the animals nor the stewpot shows up when they should, you’re doing it wrong.
And now that the new console generation looms over the horizon, and especially in light of the current pandemic, I don’t see them doing it right. It’s no secret the Red Dead Online is nowhere near the cash cow that GTA Online has been, and with the continued issues (and reviews like this), the player base isn’t exactly skyrocketing. I’ve been off and on for a few months at a time since beta, and I can say that there have been moments of clarity, bits of time where it’s a well-oiled machine. But it never lasts. With one new fix returns another old issue. It honestly has felt as much like it has to be a struggle for the developers as it has been for the player base.
So, yeah, straight up you should absolutely play the main story mode of Red Dead Redemption 2. I cannot be the first person to tell you that, and I certainly won’t be the last. But consider your time. It probably could be enjoyed in short bursts, if you’re someone who focuses on a single title at a time. This, like a Witcher 3, the Assasin’s Creed Odyssey, or your Elder Scrolls, is a forever game. You could get a lot of mileage out of milking this title. But if you’re not, or you have a hard time being a patient gamer (which is fine, we need our twitch shooters of the world), it may very well be something you honestly wouldn’t enjoy. But if you’re fine with all of that, maybe you have some extra time in your home for some reason, and you have the Xbox Game Pass, there are few better deals in the West.