Red Dead Redemption 2

After a couple of false starts, I finally got going with RDR2 for real, and I’ve now been playing it for the last few weeks.

I was hoping to finish the game before Cyberpunk 2077 releases, but that’s starting to look unlikely, or rather downright impossible, especially since I refuse to rush a magnificent game like this. I like to take my time, including playing poker for hours on end. Since I generally don’t like playing two big games at the time (unless they’re on different systems) I will simply put RDR2 on a hiatus for a little while come CP77 — because I most certainly will play CP77 as soon as I possibly can, and exclusively for at least one run from start to finish.

As great as RDR2 is, it took a while to get into. Such a rich game, so much stuff to get a grip on. The control scheme alone took me multiple hours to feel confident with, and that’s just doing the main stuff. Fringe activities like tracking animals using eagle eye, I didn’t even touch for like 15 hours or so, except when required for a mission. And then there’s also a lot of gaming systems to get into, not to mention learning about the world and all the characters.

The missions aren’t that hard and they’re perfectly possible to complete without knowing what’s going on story or character-wise, but of much of the immersion and meaning come precisely from knowing those things, so it’s crucial to learn everything one can about the world, the characters and their history, their relationships, even the era and historical setting. That takes a while! It’s still unfolding with nearly every mission, so many characters, and each with their own personality and story. Much of it is delivered fairly subtly, e.g. in little snippets of small talk while doing a side-mission. That non-obligatory fishing trip with a member of the gang might seem kind of boring, but, well, the fishing itself could very well be — I didn’t particularly like that activity, or hunting for that matter — but chances are that the chat between the characters will have you learn something interesting.

So yes, you might need some patience to get into this game, but it’s very rewarding once you do.

Overall a stellar game, truly. Probably their best — definitely better than the first Red Dead Redemption — with GTV IV as the only real competitor.