For nearly three years now, Red Dead Redemption 2 has offered up a multi-faceted take on what being an outlaw during the turn of the 19th century was like. Part cowboy tale and part wildlife simulator, few games can claim to be as densely packed with minutia as Red Dead Redemption 2 is. It's those small details that make Red Dead Redemption 2 compelling even to this day.
No matter where players go, Red Dead Redemption 2 will offer up a small slice of reality to soak in. These brief moments are strung together frequently enough that it makes the entire world feel vibrant and authentic, even though that authenticity breaks down when players try to speed through. But, as evidenced by the prolonged first chapter, Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't meant to be sped through, it's meant to be sipped.
Ask players what the most memorable portion of Red Dead Redemption 2 is, and there will be a broad selection of answers, most of them underlined by one of the story's better moments. Being able to nail so many moments in a story that can take a few dozen hours to complete is no easy task, but they hardly make up what will keep Red Dead Redemption 2 relevant for the next decade. Instead, that honor belongs to how Red Dead Redemption 2 handles its world.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Nature Details
The lone cowboy wandering through the countryside isn't new, it's one of the most predominant tropes offered up by westerns. For Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar had to create a compelling enough character and compelling enough world to keep players engaged while performing an admittedly boring activity – traveling from one destination to the next.
Red Dead Redemption 2's map is big, but even that feels like an understatement. Its breadth is necessary to drive home what Red Dead is trying to accomplish – tell an authentic story in an authentic world – but that breadth works against it while traveling long stretches of land. That is, unless, players slow down and take a moment to smell the roses.
Those roses don't always smell so sweet – sometimes content like Red Dead Redemption 2's murder mystery is a gruesome distraction. More often than not, though, Red Dead is offering players the chance to get lost in nature, and it's when players are lost that the magic can happen. Players will stumble across deer with their antlers locked up after fighting, they'll see predators catch prey, and countless other small things that bring the world to life.
Red Dead Redemption 2's world is built to break up the monotony of travel with moments like those, but catching them requires players to slow down and take everything in. Ironically, speeding through the game makes it feel slower than it is, and at the cost of all of those memorable little moments to boot. It can be tempting to hop on a horse and ride as fast as possible to a new location, but taking a moment to drink in the world is a refreshing way to spend time.
Red Dead Redemption 2 City Details
Not content with just the natural world, Red Dead Redemption 2's cities pack in their own share of details. Things are a bit different here, though, because each town, hamlet, and city is unique in its own way, coming in different sizes with a variety of services and distractions for players to partake in. Even the people are different, offering a mix of city dwellers and small t0wn villagers depending on where the player is.
While that is a detail worth admiring in itself, there are other things that players may never happen upon if they aren't observant, the sort of small detail that can only be gleaned by players that stop and enjoy their environment. One of the most recent examples of this concerns Red Dead Redemption 2's blind beggar who, as it turns out, isn't really blind. Pointing a gun at the beggar will prompt some hidden dialogue, almost as a pat on the shoulder for the few players that would think to do so.
It makes sense in the context of the world, even though Red Dead Redemption doesn't utilize its cities as well as it does its natural environments. However, it still rewards players with unique moments that can turn a conventional stroll into a story worth swapping with a friend. It's a unique touch for a massive game, and one that other developers would do well to replicate.
However, the detail in Red Dead Redemption 2 highlights one of its most glaring issues: the lack of freedom inside of its missions. For a world stuffed top to bottom with things to discover, Red Dead Redemption 2 forces players to complete objectives in excruciatingly specific ways. Creative solutions are often met with failure, and that's not a good way to treat players.
That matters because it discourages players from exploring outside of main missions. Think of it like training an animal, where breaking free of a mission's specific completion requirements is like a dog peeing in the house. Keep punishing the dog, and eventually, its behavior is going to change in all scenarios. It's not the best direct comparison, but players shouldn't be treated like they've done something wrong whenever they try to think for themselves.
It's a problem that can be fixed, but not through a simple patch. Rather, it would take a Red Dead Redemption 3 with more open missions structures to really address issue, or allowing players to go wild during new missions in Red Dead Online. It's still not enough to distract from the mind-numbing amount of detail found elsewhere in the game, but it certainly detracts from the experience.
Red Dead Redemption 2Â is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
