Reviewing Red Dead Redemption 2 a 12 months after its console launch is like taking place upon a frontier homestead after it’s been attacked by bandits. It’s a game that has been subjected to each take underneath the solar, and stripped to the bone by web vultures; each final secret dug up, each mechanic scalped and scrutinised, till no magic stays. I, adopting the function of world-weary sheriff, look upon this crime scene and mutter underneath my breath, “what in tarnation happened here?” A deputy pipes up: “SEO, boss. F**kin’ SEO.” (My interior dialogue is written, after all, by David ‘Deadwood’ Milch.)
I actually arrive on the PC model with 80 hours of Xbox One grit in my boots, however this received’t be the case for everybody. I imply, the concept of constructing it a 12 months with out having RDR2 completely spoiled appears unattainable – nevertheless it should apply to somebody. What surprises me, with this PC launch, is simply how a lot a lick of paint can re-imbue such well-trodden floor with a refreshed sense of surprise. And if you happen to did make it right here all harmless and unspoiled, you might be in for the definitive model of the definitive Rockstar game, warts and all. So let’s fake we haven’t already waded by means of the swamp that’s The RDR2 Discourse, if just for the size of time it takes me to let you know wot I believe.
As talked about already, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve performed each quest, executed a Planet Zoo’s price of legendary animals, and eaten an ungodly quantity of tinned peaches. The latter has no bearing on my completion proportion, however I simply love doing it, if solely to remind myself that somebody needed to mo-cap scarfing down a can of Del Monte. I drew the road on the needle-in-a-haystack drudgery of attempting to find Native American dreamcatchers in a digital wilderness as huge as any I’ve explored. I don’t hate myself that a lot. And in addition to, after a few of the heinous stuff I’ve executed in RDR2, it will be unwise to smash something which may maintain away the nightmares.
The 12 months is 1899. Rock Paper Shotgun is celebrating its 26th anniversary, however for Arthur Morgan and the opposite members of Dutch van der Linde’s gang, issues are much less peachy. Well, technically, they’re very peachy. As I’ve already inferred, tinned fruit is nearly bulging from the cabinets of fin de siècle America (and on that word, RDR2’s obsession with interactive sideboards makes it really feel like Shenmue in a Stetson). But alas, Dutch’s gang is cottoning on to the very fact it’ll take greater than dessert to maintain them alive. A job gone improper has pushed the group into exile, the place they’re dreaming hungrily of the one huge rating that might put all their troubles behind them. So begins a complete lot of driving to dots on the map and capturing all the pieces there.
But what rides! And what dots! And what capturing! I usually really feel like Rockstar’s designers use mission journey to indicate off their favorite routes: paths that creep you down skinny canyons earlier than slapping you within the face with a vista on the finish, or rolling plains that look wonderful with seven bandits driving in a variety formation throughout them. Start layering on climate, and even easy A-to-B chat turns into a technical showcase, with characters elevating their voices as blizzards separate them, or hushing their banter as rain masks a stealthy method. And for as soon as, missions know when to close up, too, with longer rides throughout the map minimize mercifully quick with cinematic interludes.
Missions see Rockstar proceed their unusual behavior of constructing huge playgrounds after which briefly penning you in with stern aims within the identify of cinematic storytelling. There’s no room for interpretation or improvisation on this parade of financial institution robberies, assassinations, jailbreaks and double crosses. It’s not a criticism, as such; whereas the shadowy hand of the director is at all times there, there’s at the least a readability to aims that you just didn’t at all times get in Rockstar’s earlier games. Rarely did I discover myself unintentionally leaving my required stage place and failing. And the advantage of sustaining that puppeteer’s grip is that they’ll orchestrate motion of an depth hardly ever seen in open world games.
The result’s much more missions that match the drama of GTAV’s standout heists: superbly paced setpieces that thrum with nervous power as you saunter previous oblivious NPCs, after which segue by means of explosive violence into chaotic getaways. There’s an particularly good stint in Saint Denis – New Orleans by one other identify, and the map’s most populated metropolis – the place winding streets and teeming folks utterly change the power of the duties at hand. Graduating from podunk cities and plantations to a spot with this many witnesses, and so few avenues of escape, helps offers this substantial act a definite flavour, one thing Rockstar have struggled to conjure up to now.
And when it does all go improper for Arthur, out come these marvelous weapons. I’m no gun nut, however I like the way in which RDR2’s arsenal balances the extreme and the sluggish: there’s actual heft and energy in the way in which lead thumps enemies to the bottom, however on the similar time, chamber limitations demand deliberation. These are weapons that ask you to carry your nerve as you line up a shot, and in doing so flip you into Lee Van Cleef, methodically unbuckling his rifle from his horse as his doomed goal gallops off in For A Few Dollars More. (Arthur additionally unpacks his on-foot loadout from his horse, which, whereas cumbersome, exhibits off some near-pornographic holstering animations). It’s fight that makes a role-player of me: the show-off who favours his ivory dealt with revolver over one thing extra heavy responsibility, simply because it’s cooler.
And as a lot as RDR2’s story wrings its fingers concerning the toll that violence exacts on an individual’s soul, it’s additionally a game that delights in heads evaporating on the finish of a shotgun. I’m not going to lie: quite a lot of these things nonetheless speaks to my interior 13-year-old. There’s some staggering gore modelling. We’re speaking bullet holes precisely mapped to our bodies, spurting crimson stuff like an overenthusiastically squeezed ketchup bottle. It’s gnarly! But it additionally has the slapstick unpredictability of the Euphoria engine, which sends ragdoll corpses tumbling down stairs like Jackie Chan, or knocks them from the saddle the place, with one foot nonetheless hooked within the stirrup, they’re dragged throughout the prairie by their bolting steed. And although RDR2 is rarely a tough game, once you do chew the bullet, the spontaneity of the gunfights makes them simple and fulfilling to replay.
As a lot as I like the cause-and-effect of RDR2’s fight, nonetheless, I totally acknowledge the restrictions that flip others off. There’s actually no escalation to gunplay. From begin to end there’s one enemy kind – human (and the odd attacking carnivore) – and every of these is killed with a shot to the top. This in flip results in a dependence on the sluggish movement ‘dead eye’ mode, which helps you to drag fight to a crawl, and calmly put six rounds by means of six skulls. Factor within the generosity with which the game fingers over gadgets that replenish useless eye, and there’s hardly ever a second you don’t have it as a crutch. As fights get larger, it’s very simple to fall right into a cycle of slow-mo, shoot, chew tobacco, slow-mo, shoot, chew tobacco; and sure, on this mild, gunfights can bleed collectively. It’s positively extra evident if you happen to mainline the story, the place nearly all of the fight resides.
It’s in fight that you just really feel one of many clearer advantages of RDR2’s journey to PC. Mouse aiming is an apparent boon to any sharpshooter – intention help does quite a lot of heavy lifting with default controller settings – and it’s particularly pleasing in useless eye mode, the place you ‘paint’ targets onto slow-mo physique components earlier than rattling out photographs in real-time. The flipside to that is that it takes longer to study the important thing bindings. RDR2 is already a large number of context delicate actions on controller (mapping ‘talk’ and ‘aim gun’ to the identical set off was… a daring transfer) and the unfold of keys takes much more getting used to. Oh, and positively change the horse digital camera to ‘horse relative’, to free its directional steering out of your mouse intention – failing to take action is a recipe for a crumpled horseflesh catastrophe if ever there was one.
The larger PC revelation is the development to first-person perspective, which, because of the mouse and a slicker body fee, now handles like a viable FPS. On console you nearly needed to drag your in-head view across the display screen, such was the sludginess of Arthur’s turning circle. It felt like taking part in by means of a GoPro hooked up to a third-person avatar. Some of that disconnect between physique and eyes nonetheless exists – when climbing rocks or driving a horse, I felt like a child being heaved round by a guardian – however for on-foot exploration and gunfights, it’s a tremendous showcase for PC’s improved textures and Rockstar’s ludicrous consideration to element. I nonetheless suppose the grandeur of the panorama is best appreciated in third-person, however I’ve spent far more of my replay in first particular person than I anticipated to.
The particular person strengths of first- and third-person digital camera modes communicate to the precise magic of RDR2’s visuals; few games impress like this on each a micro and macro degree. In your quick neighborhood you may have a world teeming with life: the density and variety of natural world, the reactive surfaces (shoot somebody in mud, and the way in which the physique sinks into the goop is extraordinary), the minute element of interval set dressing. Christ, the very fact you’ll be able to go into a store and freely manhandle particular person gadgets on the cabinets makes it extra interactive than some outlets I’ve been to in actual life (and reinforces my ‘Shenmue in a Stetson’ take). But take a step again and also you’re within the panorama: that pristine, untouched wilderness, basking in daylight, whipped by storms and vanishing into probably the most life like fog ever dedicated to pixels.
Of course, this was true of the console model, too. What PC brings to the combination is a way of completeness, filling in what few gaps did exist – and a few I didn’t realise existed till now. Much of it’s down to attract distance: the sense that the grass blankets the world, slightly than being magicked underneath your toes, or the sight of bushes and cacti dotting the horizon, giving clifftop vistas much more majesty. To be sincere, no single visible setting jumps out as having a game-changing impact, though I did should dial down volumetric lighting and temporal anti-aliasing to get the game to a secure 60 frames at 1440p on an RTX 2080. But even with these on, we’re speaking granular enhancements over what was already a surprising showcase (at the least on Xbox One X, the place I performed it).
Far extra essential is that soar in body fee, which greater than justifies the settings that should be sacrificed to succeed in it. (Katharine affords far better analysis of this than I ever might, however to my eyes, the game dazzles at a mixture of medium and excessive settings, so don’t really feel put out if extremely is past your card). At 60 frames, RDR2 simply feels extra alive, capturing the breezy sway of nature, or the play of the sunshine because it cracks by means of treetops. Does it reinvent the game for many who’ve performed it earlier than? Probably not. But it enables you to revel within the constancy of the world Rockstar constructed, from cutscenes the place total character histories are caught in a facial features, proper right down to the lowliest NPC farmer performing extra bespoke animations than may be present in standalone farming games. I’m amazed at how taken I’m with it all of the second time round.
It’s additionally price mentioning right here that the launch has been mired with technical issues, from the Rockstar Game Launcher crashing, to frequent in-game crashes. I didn’t encounter this myself, however I do know that Katharine has but to get the game to work on her PC. Buying on the Epic Game Store nonetheless pushes you thru the Rockstar launcher, too, so don’t count on that simple workaround. It’s a disappointing state of affairs, and I hope the kinks get ironed out in time for the later Steam launch.
Coming to RDR2 with a love of world-watching is essential as, for me at the least, this was the extra attention-grabbing a part of the game. RDR2 is a game of two distinct halves: the cinematic story you may have little management over, and the sandbox the place you rob trains after which spend your haul on sizzling baths and good hats, since you’re a gentleman thief, dammit. These two sides are consistently butting collectively. All the whereas the game’s story of spiralling despair and rigidity is working onerous to promote you on how dire your scenario is, it has to deal with the truth that you’ll be able to piss off and go herb amassing for 5 hours. This is extra keenly felt within the remaining third of the game, the place Arthur’s character arc takes an pressing new course, however the game nonetheless has to accommodate my want to catch a legendary trout. None of that is ruinous, and it’s frequent to many open world adventures, nevertheless it results in a way of a game at odds with itself.
Weirdly, nonetheless, it does handle to hit a candy spot on this entrance, for some time at the least. Just a couple of hours in, the place you’re studying the ropes, there’s real time for leisure constructed into the narrative, and time spent away from camp appears like much less of an affront to the drive of the story. It’s right here that the world opens up and its many actions make themselves recognized: looking, fishing, playing, theft, treasure looking, horse wrangling, and about 9 million extra cowboy hobbies. Most of them are given the depth of a standalone game, with the potential to eat up tens of hours of game time apiece. Some may be loved with fellow gang members as elective actions, too, filling out the backstories of the solid and investing you in lives that may be minimize shockingly quick. Race by means of the primary marketing campaign and also you received’t simply miss out on quite a lot of color: when the our bodies begin to pile up, it’ll imply a lot much less.
These early hours are additionally the one time the place the game’s financial system capabilities. You’re immediately confronted with shops promoting fancy duds and glossy weapons, however you haven’t any cash with which to purchase them. It’s right here that you just really feel the tingle of your legal impulses – you’ll be able to simply rob and steal your solution to riches, proper? Sure, however you must steadiness the urge to violence towards the rising bounties in your head – and the bounty hunters that include them – which you’re nonetheless too poor to repay. It makes for some positive dilemmas.
Once you progress additional within the story, nonetheless, you’re incomes a lot dosh from mission rewards which you could shrug off bounties, and your complete regulation and order system of the game fizzles out. It’s a terrific disgrace, as a few of my favorite RDR2 moments got here from my want to decorate myself as a dapper, Cy Tolliver-esque bastard, and the atrocious, equally Cy Tolliver-esque issues I did in an effort to afford to take action. Like I mentioned: no dreamcatcher destruction for me.
One of the pleasures of revisiting the game on PC, then, is rediscovering that great early game, and people 30 or so lighthearted hours earlier than issues acquired bleak for Dutch and co. It feels nearer to being a role-playing game than earlier Rockstar sandboxes, regardless of repeating lots of their methods. Stranger facet missions or randomly spawned occasions that pull you in to quick narratives really feel extra natural within the countryside than they ever did in Los Santos. Weirdly, the extra direct nods to RPGs – crafting, or levelling up your ‘core’ stats – don’t actually issue into my considering; they’re fairly fussy makes an attempt at including depth, and may be simply ignored. This is role-playing within the sense of costume up and make consider; a visit to Westworld, simply with out Ed Harris being an asshole and spoiling your enjoyable.
And if you happen to do wish to play with the Ed Harrises of the world, Red Dead Online beckons. This is a possible resolution to that freedom/story rigidity outlined above, because it repurposes RDR2’s world for a much more freeform expertise. Yes, it has the story framing seen in GTA Online, and meatier co-op duties that draw strangers right into a mini posse, nevertheless it’s additionally a way more becoming setting for bumping into strangers (as much as 32 on one map) and making your personal enjoyable. Or, based mostly on my restricted time with it, getting lassoed, hogtied, and shotgunned within the head. I significantly like the way in which it treats facet actions as uneven occasions. For instance, the wagon you’re defending from AI bandits may also turn out to be a goal for different human gamers, otherwise you may uncover bounty targets being protected by human bodyguards. It’s a enjoyable manner of bringing surprises, and a little bit of emergent storytelling, into freeform actions.
Of course, solely time will inform if it grows into the identical behemoth as GTA Online. Still, it stands the perfect likelihood of doing so on PC, the place GTA clearly flourished. I’d like to see the identical role-playing servers emerge right here that emerged there; I’m simply much more concerned with tales to be instructed on this world than dirty Los Santos. Expect far more multiplayer noodling on Rock Paper Shotgun within the weeks to return.
So, Red Dead Redemption 2, then. Mostly good, typically dangerous, by no means ugly. A prequel to a narrative that by no means made it to PC and which, actually, makes me jealous of individuals coming to it for the primary time. But at the same time as somebody who has spent an enormous period of time on this world, it’s a visit I’m very happy to be taking once more. A staggering technical achievement; a deliciously gooey shooter; probably the most correct mud simulator outdoors of precise mud; a terrific advert for the therapeutic energy of peaches. However you method Red Dead Redemption 2, there’s one thing to impress right here. And on PC, it’s at its most spectacular.
