Game Tech: Redemption in harsh wild west

By Ronan Jennings

Redemption comes in many forms. It can come by simple apology. It can come in an act of contrition. It can come by second chance, an opportunity to put things right. Red Dead Redemption 2, the astonishing release from Rockstar Games, might be all of those things.

Redemption comes in many forms. It can come by simple apology. It can come in an act of contrition. It can come by second chance, an opportunity to put things right. Red Dead Redemption 2, the astonishing release from Rockstar Games, might be all of those things.

Rockstar made their name from the wonderful, but artistically vacuous Grand Theft Auto series, a collection of incredible open worlds whose only purpose was to let players wreak havoc in them. Red Dead Redemption 2 has the opposite effect — this is a game where the open world wreaks havoc with you, in which players learn the real meaning of the ‘wild’ west.

The tale of Arthur Morgan and his gang is not a happy one. Set against the backdrop of the rise of industrial America, bells are tolling for outlaws and cowboys everywhere. Arthur and his vagabond family are beginning to suffer —on the run from the Pinkertons and lacking food and money, they can see the final curtain drawing. But their leader, Dutch, won’t give up. He believes one last score will change everything.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the developers deliver their story of sombre degradation through the world itself and the sheer toll it takes on the player. Rockstar have not created a world centred around you, like in Grand Theft Auto or even the previous Red Dead games.

Instead, they have created a true simulation of the old west — a dirty, awful, glorious, deadly place in which cowboys and outlaws were on the outside as the world moved on.

This is evident from the earliest stages in the game, where Arthur is confined to a cabin and where even seeing your surroundings is difficult, with the interior only lit by candlelight. The developers eschew all sense of normal gaming comforts and make you squint — this is how the world was back then.

“Rockstar Games is proud to announce that the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2 has achieved the single-biggest opening weekend in the history of entertainment”.

Yes! A massive deserved congrats ladies and gentlemen @RockstarGames 🙏 pic.twitter.com/gcNEwrwIvw

— GTABase.com (@GTABase) October 30, 2018

When Arthur loses his horse, a ‘magical whistle’ won’t call it back like before; you’ll have to walk back to its location or steal something else. When the gang set up camp, they aren’t braying for luxuries or money — they just need Arthur to hunt some food so they have enough to eat.

Every action in Red Dead Redemption 2 carries the weight of these themes. Rockstar didn’t want to create a world of fantasy for players, but a world of harsh reality. A world in which players can never truly ‘win’, because the writing is on the wall for Arthur and those he calls family, from the first shot fired.

Instead, all Arthur can do is survive, exist in the moment, fight back against the inevitable in a world full of mud and beauty and strangers.

If this doesn’t sound fun, that’s half the point. The world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is packed with satisfying goals and objectives and shootouts, but it’s also slow, deliberate, and full of meaning.

It’s a work of art in motion, a statement about the old west that you feel through a stumble in the mud or a chance encounter, rather than sit back and observe. It’s a magnificent statement on what gaming is capable of and a moment of true redemption from the industry’s most ambitious developer.

NEW DEPTHS

Meanwhile, Ireland’s Sean Murray, of Hello Games, continues his redemption story with the latest update for No Man’s Sky. The Abyss expansion adds underwater biomes to the space-faring game, taking players from the depths of space to the depths of the sea.

You can now dive into oceans on any planet you discover and search for underwater life and resources there. A submarine has been added to the game, along with giant deep-sea monsters. Worth diving into.

COLLECTIVE FUN

Gaming is full of inhospitable environments, with Fallout’s nuclear-devastated world one of the worst. At least in Fallout 76, you can finally have some company in the wastelands, as Bethesda launch their first multiplayer Fallout game.

The Beta is now live, with thousands of players taking their first collective steps into the radiated deserts of West Virginia. Early reports indicate that Fallout 76 is exactly what one would expect — a watered down version of the single-player games tailored for teamwork and online fun.

We’ll let you know what the real fallout is like in the weeks to come.