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Red Dead Redemption 2 subverts video game guidelines with among the best characters of all time was first printed on November 22, 2018.
This article accommodates huge ending spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2.
Red Dead Redemption is a narrative of atonement, however John Marston by no means needed to pay for his sins – he’s compelled by authorities brokers. Marston lived a foul life: he killed, he robbed, and he was typically out for himself. In his head, he deserved to depart all of it behind and stay a traditional life along with his spouse and son.
Red Dead Redemption 2 fleshes out Marston’s character, and we see him develop from a egocentric, considerably lazy outlaw right into a household man. But whereas Red Dead Redemption 2 does a incredible job of setting Marston up as the person we all know, Arthur Morgan’s journey is extra poignant.
Most open-world games begin us off with a personality at their weakest. Rather than rising them by way of the story, we see characters develop in energy by way of methods: improve timber provide higher skills, permitting us to tackle more and more more durable enemies. Red Dead Redemption 2 turns all of that on its head.
You begin the game as Arthur Morgan, gang chief Dutch Van der Linde’s proper hand man. You are the man everybody goes to with their issues. If somebody wants violence inflicted upon them, Morgan is the gang’s fists. He’s not the neatest particular person within the group – nor does he declare to be – however he makes an excellent blunt instrument and he’s virtually smart.
Morgan’s stamina and well being enhance as you play (you possibly can max out your stamina and well being reserves early on), however the first handful of chapters have you ever taking part in as a person at his bodily peak. He’s additionally at his most brutal. Morgan has a fierce loyalty to his chief and mentor, Van der Linde, and he isn’t afraid of inflicting ache on others to see his group thrive.
As the game attracts to an in depth, Morgan softens. An early scene sees Morgan amassing a debt from a sick man. You don’t realise it on the time, however this encounter seals our antihero’s destiny. He contracts tuberculosis, a illness unfold by way of the air when somebody ingests the blood or spit of an contaminated particular person – in Morgan’s case, it’s a person who he simply beat to a pulp over a measly mortgage.
It’s some time earlier than the illness takes maintain, however the data that his destiny is sealed alters Morgan’s psyche. Unlike Marston, he isn’t compelled to atone – he begins considering again on his life, mulling over what’s essential, contemplating how far blind loyalty ought to stretch. Those issues sow the seeds of doubt about Van der Linde, his delusions of grandeur, and his capability for empathy.
During the nineteenth century, tuberculosis grew to become often known as the ‘romantic disease’ as a result of the troubled had been mentioned to develop extra delicate as they edged in direction of the grave, and the gradual progress of the illness allowed them to get their affairs so as. I can’t consider one other video game the place you’re setting the world proper earlier than your demise.
You can see this character progress in Morgan’s journal. Depending on the place you’re within the story, the writing modifications, the pen strokes really feel extra rushed. It’s extra clearly seen in his persona, and you’ll see it in his gaunt, pale face, and skinny body. In one touching second, he admits that he’s scared.
Even your environment mirror Arthur’s journey. As the gang heads additional east (in direction of the civilisation they hate and away from the bountiful landscapes they crave), your camp loses key folks, and the surviving gang members retreat inwards. People cease trusting one another, and the setting displays this transformation, changing into gloomier with every new settlement.
Remember how Horseshoe Overlook lets you see proper throughout the plains under, into the wilds? Compare that to the camp in Chapter 6, nestled subsequent to a dank cave and soaked within the soot of the close by mining city. Rather than upgrading your lodgings because the game goes on, the camp – should you totally improve it – is nearly as good because it ever will get in Chapter 2.
Where most games are obsessive about our characters rising stronger, Red Dead Redemption 2 flips conventions on their head. It takes Morgan on a metaphysical journey of progress as his physique degrades, till he lastly succumbs to the illness whereas staring out in direction of the setting solar. These themes are what make Red Dead Redemption 2’s story one thing I’ll always remember, and it’s additionally what elevates Arthur Morgan into one of many all-time finest protagonists within the medium.
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