Can You Conduct A Census In Red Dead Redemption 2? – YouTube
Other townsfolk proved trickier to sample because Rockstar uses random spawns to populate the map. To neutralize that randomness, Austin subdivided the town into blocks and monitored specific time windows so he could capture a representative cross-section of NPCs. The method was laborious, but it produced a meaningful dataset.
His results suggest Red Dead Redemption 2 models life in a frontier town surprisingly well. For example, he recorded an unemployment rate of about 4.5% — higher than a cited national figure of 1.8% for the US in 1907, but still closer than many would expect. Job distribution and relative wealth within Valentine follow believable patterns, although precise historical comparisons are difficult that far back.
One notable historical mismatch is dental health: characters tend to have more complete sets of teeth than would have been typical, since missing teeth were common in that era. Still, that’s a minor shortcoming amid an otherwise faithful recreation.
“Right down to the micro-details you’d expect to find in a historical census, Red Dead Redemption 2 offers an impressively authentic slice of American life,” Any Austin remarks at the video’s close. It’ll be fascinating to see what insights he uncovers when he applies the same technique to GTA 6.
Source: gamesradar.com
