Red Dead Redemption 2 is a Masterpiece

Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) is easily the most hyped game of last year. It is a game set in 1899 in the wild west and follows protagonist Arthur Morgan and his gang of outlaws as they run from the law. Rockstar, the developer of games like Red Dead Redemption and the GTA series, takes their time to make their games, but when they come out they are, as a rule, exceptional. So when RDR2 was announced, the excitement was off the charts. If you paid any attention to gaming media between the first trailer in October of 2016 and when the game finally game out two years later, you probably heard something about it. And if you've paid any attention to gaming media, or even internet forums like reddit, then you've definitely heard of it. So what is it that everyone is raving about? Why is RDR2 so popular? And does it live up to the hype? I'm going to be doing this article a little differently compared to most of mine. Instead of grading each of the elements of gameplay, I'm going to look at what made this game so popular, what it means for the gaming industry, and then some final opinions that will essentially be a summary of my normal review style. Before I start, I want to make two disclaimers/statements. The first is that I have not completed the storyline of RDR2. I'm about two thirds of the way through, and I had hoped to complete it before I wrote this, but schoolwork got in the way. I'll write some final thoughts once I have completed it. The second disclaimer is that this is exclusively about the story mode.

The first part of RDR2's popularity is RDR. RDR was a masterpiece. It combined an incredible storyline with an open world that gave you more choices than conventional games like Call Of Duty. While open world games are a staple of the modern gaming inventory, back in 2008 (the release of RDR), open world was still pretty new, largely due to recent innovations in processing power. Rockstar wrote an incredible story line that followed John Marston as he hunted down his ex-gang of outlaws. The entire game is made higher stakes by the fact that the Pinkerton that Marston is working for has threatened to kill his wife if he doesn't accomplish his task. This storyline, combined with the aforementioned open world, made RDR the masterpiece that it was (95% on Metacritic). So when Rockstar announced that RDR2 was coming, the hype would've been incredible if they had announced this any time after RDR's release, but the hype was hugely magnified by the fact that Rockstar waited until eight years after the release of RDR to announce RDR2, and spent another two years on development. By the time that RDR2 came out, it would've had a lot of hype even if Rockstar didn't advertise it heavily (which they did). This high hype and heavy advertising is dangerous, of course; if your game doesn't turn out as well as you advertise, customers won't be happy, and unhappy customers tell potential customers, and that harms sales. But RDR2 doesn't rely on the hype created by Rockstar and RDR for it. It makes its own name.

Is Red Dead Redemption 2 good. If you came here to answer that question, you clearly haven't played it. I won't say a ton about it, as I think that the beauty of this game lies in finding everything for yourself, but I will say this: if you are looking for a good game look no further. RDR2 is a masterpiece with an incredible story line, a beautiful world, solid core of gameplay. But what does this masterpiece mean for the industry? In case you haven'y been paying much attention to the world of gaming lately (it's ok, not everyone lives and breathes off of it), then you might not be aware of what's going on right now. We are in a AAA crisis right now. Well respected development studios like Bethesda, alongside bigger corporations like EA and Ubisoft, are ruining their games. Bethesda's most recent release, Fallout 76, practically killed a well-established and well-respected series of video games in the Fallout series by being openly greedy, broken, and downright not fun. Games like Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the new one, there's two SWB2s) openly grab for your money and make no qualms about it. AAA developers and publishers are turning in a disturbingly anti consumer direction, and gamers aren't too happy about it. This crisis deserves its own article (which it will get) but the question is this: Rockstar has a reputation for greed, and yet RDR2 is one of the most respected games in the industry right now. So what does RDR2 prove? Well, the base game isn't greedy at all. There are no loot boxes, no micro transactions, nothing like that. Instead, its a work of art that relies exclusively on its merits to make money (RDO notwithstanding). Rockstar has proven one thing: you don't have to take advantage of customers to make money. In addition, it has really proved that single player campaigns are still popular. EA infamously made a statement that such games were no longer popular, and that they would be leaning towards multipayer games in response. Rockstar has broken that belief, and hopefully RDR2 is followed by more single player campaign masterpieces like it by both Rockstar and other companies.

RDR2 is an incredible game, and proves that you can work in the old way while still innovating and making money. It's a must-buy for anyone who likes video games or the wild west. It's a lesson to the gaming industry, and a case study in near perfection.