So is Red Dead Redemption 2 the best game ever? Or at least the best game made this century? Or at least game of the year?
Well, maybe the game of the year… But I can think of lots of better games from the past (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Zelda BOTW).
Red Dead Redemption 2 (hereafter called RDR2) is an ambitious, beautiful open world game, but its fun factor is seriously lacking. While the banditry and robbing trains and shooting up towns is fun, much of the game isn’t. Mostly, it involves chores: chop the wood, hunt for food, collect skins, brush the horse, feed the horse, don’t eat too much or you’ll get fat. I already have a job, so why do I want another one that I pay to do?
The map is huge and magnificent, but the size will become apparent when you need your horse and it is off somewhere in the middle of the map (I took the train to the big city, then when I got back, my horse, which I’d hitched at the train station, was off somewhere I’d never been). And you can’t just grab another horse, because then you’ll get a bounty on your head. While this horse-calling issue is perhaps more realistic than Geralt being able to summon Roach just about anywhere, it doesn’t add to the fun and does add to the tedium.
On the other hand, the voice acting is great, and you can talk to nearly anyone in the game, sometimes with interesting results. The game and details are amazing – I’ve yet to see any pop-in like most large-scale games have. The textures are fantastic and most of the motion is close enough to look real. The HDR support on my PS4 Pro isn’t great – Horizon: Zero Dawn and Elder Scrolls Online are much better at HDR. Everything in RDR2 looks a little dull, like an Instagram filter is in constant use.
So will I keep playing? Probably, but I’ll try to avoid the chores if I can.