One of the worst games ever made. (RDR2 Analysis)

[Tighty-Whitey]

This post is split into two parts due to the length of the initial post. Here we will be analyzing the game with an aim to educate unexperienced with RDR2 people, potential players who are willing to buy the game and raise caution.

Part 1

I’ve played this game for 200 hours after its release on Rockstar Games Launcher and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is well certainly one of the worst games ever made and I’ll delve deeper into the subject to explain core reasons. On this hub we were discussing many problems that this game has and while I’ve presented most obvious flaws that are detrimental to the game as it lacks game design vital to a game that you would consider fun or interesting, there are still people confusing this interactive movie and a videogame that defines what it means to be a game.

Let’s start off by saying that we can easily classify this game as an interactive movie, because that’s what it’s trying to be. The game in its missions has narrow objectives where you cannot avoid the main intended by the developers path. It is clearly an intentional decision that shows that the game puts story first, graphics second and gameplay last. In order to tell the «convincing» (for sensitive individuals) story, the game uses visuals and motion capture animations (many people still can’t figure out that those are not manual animations, this is just the expensive equipment) the game tries to tell the edgy «Wild West» story, from the way the camera is used, the angles set, color and lighting blending into a cinematic movie-like experience where the characters’ mood and phrases directly replicate that «Wild West» edge, such as typical Dutch phrases and monologues, as well as his tone. It’s edgy not in a youthful, typical sense, but rather the edge you expect from an old wild west action movie. The story, (we will be avoiding spoilers) however, has a lot of exposition which creates an illusion that the story has a lot more to it rather than simple «everyday» or criminal life situations, as it contains a lot of dialogue within the camp. In reality, the story is quite simple, it only intentionally creates more and more exposition which results into redundant story, especially near the end of the game. It contains a lot of fillers resulted out of narrative hitting every rock in order to lengthen the story, (to justify high development costs for the game) such as Guarma inclusion which is supposed to show Dutch and the gang life getting out of control, focus and showing the unplanning, self-confident nature of Dutch which is apparent very quickly outside of Guarma section of the game where the plan only consists out of potential end destination and lacks everything else, as he gathers and keeps the gang around due to charisma and false hope in the good outcome. Regardless, time wears cowboys out and may turn skilled gunmen into maniacs. The story entirely focuses on «failure» as its primary aspect in order to set up events for RDR1.

However, when the game wants «a new linear location» outside of the open world (akin to Liberty City in GTA:SA and North Yankton in GTA 5) it hits every rock in order to get it there just to make the game longer with the hopes of diluting events. The story is entirely built on redundant filler events generating multiple uninteresting antagonists as well as a typical high-school bully Micah who lacks motivation to do things he does. (same goes for a bunch, but not all of GTA antagonists) The story has a lot of characters outside of the gang (even inside with forgettable female characters) that are uninteresting to follow. The «fans» of RDR2, many of them are guaranteed to not even remember all the female characters within the gang which tells us a lot about how uninteresting characters are and tells us a lot about the pretentiousness of a certain portion of the community when it comes to this aspect.

Within many story sections, especially in Chapter 5, player nearly completely loses the control over the character. The story quickly turns annoying, it’s meaningless and does not generate or prompt the viewer with anything important to the story. Those are the events that are happening for the sake of happening and they constantly take the control away from the player. If the game tries to kill off characters, it does it yet again by hitting every rock to get it to RDR1’s story. Some deaths can be sudden and imagined «out of thin air» just to get rid of them some way. The writers were sitting and thinking «how do we get rid of every single character» to get the story to the events of the first game and it becomes apparent. The story has a lot of content in terms of dialogues and situations, but nearly all of them are about nothing and tell us almost nothing. They would have been entertaining, had the writers understood the comedy apart from toilet jokes in GTA 5. However, the gang cutscenes in the camp is where the majority of the development time regarding story went. Anything outside of it has nowhere near the same amount of depth, character interactions and dialogues. O’Driscoll gang everywhere has a bunch of «dummy» NPCs that are uninteresting and bland as a rock contrary to the Dutch’s gang. Nothing gets character development outside of the gang characters, only they have personalities, but everything else is either typical absurd derived from GTA or are extremely simple in nature. In reality, the story is simply a restructured narrative from GTA:SA with renamed, redesigned characters and mildly reshaped events to be more dramatic in line with the typical «Wild West».

The story is clearly targeted at the majority (which is evident) and the majority obviously rarely cares about actual good, informative stories, because they won’t pay attention to anything of the kind either way, as such stories are not targeted for the majority. RDR2’s story is simple, with a simple protagonist that generates sympathy from certain players only because the player is seeing events from his point of view. If you were to show the life and the events of an unlikable character to generate reasons for why he does the things he does, it may fool the player to think that the character is a good guy. This is one of those cases and players clearly were not able to understand such a simple storytelling technique. It is a simple, narrow cowboy who does unlikable things and gets obvious repercussions the player sees coming but is not able to make him avoid due to a near total lack of player agency. Because the game does not care about the gameplay, it only cares about imposing the story that drags on the player.

Player is not able to carve their own way to play missions, as they fail if they avoid the main path. This is the issue derived from GTA 4 and 5, but it got even more restrictive. The gameplay in games of Rockstar devolved in favor of movie-like experience which is detrimental to player creativity, but since players are usually not creative and do not experiment or do things the way they want, they prefer watching an uninteresting story, this does not seem to be a problem for many players, so they encourage more boring games. It is evident that players who praise RDR2 are either simply not good at videogames or want no gameplay apart from simple relaxation. The game is designed for using gamepad on a couch, performing relaxing, repetitive actions. Every mission is one long cutscene that eventually devolves into a «thing failing or going wrong» (the «failure» concept is the story premise as described earlier) and killing many «bad guys». In some cases it’s extremely unrealistic and main character, as well as his companion may stand in the open in front of many enemies standing above them and yet the main characters still easily survive and kill everyone. Replayability is entirely harmed as a result also.

If we were to skip the cutscenes in RDR2 we’ll see how much gameplay we actually have and that’s not much. Some missions introduce almost no gameplay, many of them are riding a horse, watching many cutscenes and pressing a few buttons in ways that have already been done before by games. (such as first introduction to Colm) The game does not introduce actual gameplay in those missions, gameplay is not this game’s focus. If we were to skip cutscenes in, say, GTA: San Andreas, it wouldn’t hurt the gameplay, as missions there are actually entertaining and don’t resolve around creating a bunch of motion capped animations to tell the movie story without complementing the gameplay. This is why the game is bad, as the story is not the game that you play when you have no direct involvement and agency to it.

If gameplay requires player to avoid the markers and play outside of the story because the missions do not entertain the player with gameplay, then the story is detrimental to gameplay and it always is when it’s «story first, gameplay second». It directly tells you that it prioritizes story, the gameplay is literally bad by design. It doesn’t change what the game is and doesn’t matter if you like the story or you think you like the «game», it won’t change the game aspect of this game being literally bad. The reception to the game is a result of players’ bias due to love to certain characters, not because they loved its sluggish gameplay. Talking about sluggish gameplay, it is designed with an input lag, as there is a fairly long delay between character’s actions. Not only are the actions slow and player is encouraged to see them every time, but it takes time to set them in motion. This results into tedious gameplay. If the story is the reason why you play videogames, why not watch a movie instead? And that’s exactly what RDR2 is, an interactive movie. In terms of choices that the player can make, if they were to kill a certain NPC in the open world, then such an NPC will respawn which ruins immersion. Rockstar does not understand immersion apart from the basic graphical and musical ambience stereotypes.

Even outside of the story, the gameplay is nearly non-existent. If you were to try and commit in-game crimes, there will be hordes of bounty hunters spreading across the map because the game forces the player to play a certain way even in the open-world which is a heavy contradiction to the whole idea. It continuously spams bounties which prevents the player agency even in the open world, as the mechanic is too punishing and witnesses appear inconsistently and can "spot" the player unfairly and artificially. Developers failed to blur the lines between the main story and side missions. (It was the goal to blur the lines, as stated by Rob Nelson) It resolves around finding more cutscenes in side missions or generic «help» random encounters where the player is supposed to help a certain NPC. It is forced and happens quite a lot, they even repeat time and time again. If you help that NPC, then they will spawn in a nearby town and offer you a «free item» in the shop. They do it many times, which is unrealistic and expecting the same outcome every time is repetitive and unrealistic, also extremely lazy on devs' part. The game technically has almost no opportunities apart from typical minigames we’ve seen since GTA 4. It has a more advanced hunting than in GTA 5, also fishing, but hunting involves the player «skinning» an animal, murdering hundreds of in-game animals and leaving them, as they are left rotting in the grass. Hunting in this game is for «completionists» who would run around the open world in games like AC: Odyssey and clear hundreds of outposts while performing same fetch quests. This is who this gameplay mechanic is made for. Any opportunities (barely any) the game offers are all boring and it’s more interesting to rather do nothing or living a real life than playing this game. It’s simply not fun and not intended to be. This whole RDR2’s «good gameplay» fallacy is spread by players who didn’t know any better and bought into this game’s graphics because apart from graphics and a bunch of animals, as well as simple, repetitive random events, the game barely has anything. In terms of exploration, there are a few landmarks that can be interesting, but only few and far between. For the money spent on developing GTA games and RDR2, the world is nowhere near as alive as it should be.

Some people think that the world is «alive» because animals eat animals and birds grab fish from the water. Only what those people don’t realize is that those are simple mini-cutscenes, scripts with «OnLook» trigger that trigger when the player is looking a certain direction. Those things don’t casually happen, if you were to spawn animals arbitrary, then they will perform Skyrim on one another. Those situations are not real animal A.I, just triggers. Devs didn’t even bother and gave Marston the same body as Arthur, just with a different face because they didn’t care that much. Their «care» gets too much credit, in reality the game is made very carelessly, even though it somewhat functions, just had a lot of money thrown at it. If the player does not care about the story, then the player should be able to carve the story his own way by making choices and finishing missions the way they see fit, but since the game is a linear interactive movie, there is no such possibility. This is largely why the game is boring. Open world is boring, lacks dynamic quite a lot and because of how sluggish the gameplay is, it’s a chore to play.

[CyanCatMan]

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

You're literally shooting at someone on your side with your passive aggresiveness instead of actually doing something useful No wonder trolls keep winning. Just for that, i'm not reporting the baiter.

So your just gonna perpetuate the issue? How is that any better again?

[Tighty-Whitey]

Publicado originalmente por 38 Red:

I agree with your sentiment on this being an interactive movie, far too many Triple A games desire to play out like that and Red dead 2 is one of them. So much so, that the game will a have you fail a mission unless you play the way developers intended, and the realistic aspect of the game tends to bog down the experience.

I still enjoy this game for what is it worth, but another problem I would like to mention is the overall world size, it's way too big and this game wants you collecting a variety of items and completing a ridiculous amount of challenges as compared to its predecessor. Worst of all, it's not like you can even complete these tasks at the start as you have to get to the epilogue or find some exploit within missions to complete them.

The animations of the player character are detailed, so much so, it's a chore to do anything. I feel like it takes forever just for Arthur to skin an animal or pick up a can of beans from a counter, compare this to something like Skyrim; a game that came out over a decade ago, and you can just take items off dead bodies or containers the moment you press a button.

Overall I would disagree with your opinion on the story, while chapter 5 feels unnecessary and short to be included; Red Dead Redemption 2 has a detailed cast of characters and surprises that make you wonder what is going to happen next.

The issue with this game is not the significant focus on story, there is an entire genre of games that focus specifically on that (Adventure games).

once you go off the rails in rdr2 - this is the actual issue that moves from one rockstar game to the other. not only just rockstar game, but across many different games that are trying to be movie-like. same thing with rdr2, which is why as a game, it's nowhere near one of the best.

[SadPlatty©]

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

Publicado originalmente por CyanCatMan:

They don't want that, they want recognition. So good job bait taker!
Maybe if you report them properly we can see this fixed.

You're literally shooting at someone on your side with your passive aggresiveness instead of actually doing something useful No wonder trolls keep winning. Just for that, i'm not reporting the baiter.

TBH - it probably doesn't matter; they basically are demonstrating Valve either won't or can't stop it from happening.

As I paraphrased elsewhere :
"It's a service problem"

Honestly though - it's a problem with AI/bot mods still being in their infancy possibly, and unable to do research - but exclusively rely on post content and a series of checks. Put together a "no-no words" list and you in theory could be invincible.

[Khal'cynee]

Publicado originalmente por SadPlatty©:

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

because most people haven't even played rdr1 and don't do parallels. they played rdr2 because it had the most PR and more budget than predecessor because it was made after gta 5's success.

Not like being released around 10 years later had anything to do with this also.

This is like saying Fallout 3's success wasn't related to FO1/2, but explicitly because Bethesda had much more money to advertise the game. While I would subscribe to Fallout 5 being big explicitly thanks to the TV show or FO:Online (I don't care to get the name right MMOs are garbage IMO), or TES:6 being big thanks to how bad Starfield was ("they can't have another bad release, right?" oh, how this has been the case since Oblivion, or more proper, HL2 and Morrowind).

Tell me the one about how "Dragon's Dogma 2" is bad because nobody seems to like any of the features, or has problems with almost everything, but other DEVs thought it was an amazing reminder that "gamer's don't know what they want all the time". Sure something like the languages in the game wasn't leveraged too much, but it was an interesting concept we got to try out that may get expanded on later via DLC or another IP. Dragon's Plague is also one of my favorite "post 2020" new features; nuking people for constantly switching Pawns is hilarious.

Every bethesda game is a downgrade to its predecessor since fallout 3, its exactly the same problem
look at skyrim, a lot of people praising this joke of a game, meanwhile a lots of old angry nerds fan of morrowind are pissed off because bethesda no longer do RPG but casual adventure game instead
bethesda and rockstar are doing the same, they can milk people because they have a good reputation because in a long time ago they revolutionned video games with bangers, but every release is another disapointment for the OG fans...

[SadPlatty©]

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

once you go off the rails in rdr2

You can't do this in a movie

[Tighty-Whitey]

Publicado originalmente por SadPlatty©:

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

once you go off the rails in rdr2

You can't do this in a movie :PrettyMadonna:

which is why you are unable to do this in rdr2.

[AlonsoTheQuatty]

Publicado originalmente por CyanCatMan:

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

You're literally shooting at someone on your side with your passive aggresiveness instead of actually doing something useful No wonder trolls keep winning. Just for that, i'm not reporting the baiter.

So your just gonna perpetuate the issue? How is that any better again?

My argument is do not sh!t on your teammates hands, it's unproductive for your cause and just creates a divide. the perpetuation is created mainly because you don't play nice with teammates, when there is really no need for hostility. it's a general problem in fact, society has that going on, applies to a lot of things mainly.

[CyanCatMan]

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

My argument is do not sh!t on your teammates hands, it's unproductive for your cause and just creates a divide. the perpetuation is created mainly because you don't play nice with teammates, when there is really no need for hostility. it's a general problem in fact, society has that going on, applies to a lot of things mainly.

But it's the truth though.
Your perpetuating it on your own actions, in turn your projecting and acting what your preaching against.

If you cannot take responsibility then what are you?

[SadPlatty©]

Publicado originalmente por Khal'cynee:

- snip -

You are not wrong - another perfect example being "Callisto Protocol", a game from a start-up.

How did they sell that again? OH YEAH!
"From the mind that brought you Dead Space"


I had fun though once I stopped thinking about it like Dead Space and more like what "Bully" is to GTA

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

which is why you are unable to do this in rdr2.

Funny - your post claimed otherwise LOL

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

once you go off the rails in rdr2 - this is the actual issue that moves from one rockstar game to the other. not only just rockstar game, but across many different games that are trying to be movie-like. same thing with rdr2, which is why as a game, it's nowhere near one of the best.

[Tighty-Whitey]

Publicado originalmente por SadPlatty©:

Publicado originalmente por Khal'cynee:

- snip -

You are not wrong - another perfect example being "Callisto Protocol", a game from a start-up.

How did they sell that again? OH YEAH!
"From the mind that brought you Dead Space"

:BL3Facepalm:
I had fun though once I stopped thinking about it like Dead Space and more like what "Bully" is to GTA

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

which is why you are unable to do this in rdr2.

Funny - your post claimed otherwise LOL

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

once you go off the rails in rdr2 - this is the actual issue that moves from one rockstar game to the other. not only just rockstar game, but across many different games that are trying to be movie-like. same thing with rdr2, which is why as a game, it's nowhere near one of the best.

once you go off the rails. but you can't go off the rails because everything beyond rails triggers a mission failure in rdr2 before you are able to leave the rails. if you don't want to be educated about rdr2's flaws and aren't experienced with the game, then i won't be here to explain it to you if learning isn't what you want.

[AlonsoTheQuatty]

Publicado originalmente por CyanCatMan:

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

My argument is do not sh!t on your teammates hands, it's unproductive for your cause and just creates a divide. the perpetuation is created mainly because you don't play nice with teammates, when there is really no need for hostility. it's a general problem in fact, society has that going on, applies to a lot of things mainly.

But it's the truth though.
Your perpetuating it on your own actions, in turn your projecting and acting what your preaching against.

If you cannot take responsibility then what are you?

where did i agree or disagree on me perpetuating anything? I know what i'm doing.

Consider the argument i've given you a life lesson.

[CyanCatMan]

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

where did i agree or disagree on me perpetuating anything? I know what i'm doing.

Consider the argument i've given you a life lesson.

There you go again, not accepting that your actions are making the problem worse.
It's not me who chose inaction.

[XOLiD]

Publicado originalmente por Tighty-Whitey:

you can't go off the rails because everything beyond rails triggers a mission failure in rdr2 before you are able to leave the rails.

Just like in pretty much every other story-driven game where the outcome(s) are predetermined by the story that's already been written for the player to experience. It's an entire genre of game that's existed since early video games in the 1980's.

[AlonsoTheQuatty]

Publicado originalmente por CyanCatMan:

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

where did i agree or disagree on me perpetuating anything? I know what i'm doing.

Consider the argument i've given you a life lesson.

There you go again, not accepting that your actions are making the problem worse.
It's not me who chose inaction.

Projecting and dismissing from you, im just telling you a basic fact that being hostile to your teammates makes you have less teammates. nothing complicated about that.

[CyanCatMan]

Publicado originalmente por AlonsoTheQuatty:

Projecting and dismissing from you, im just telling you a basic fact that being hostile to your teammates makes you have less teammates. nothing complicated about that.

Who are you again?
Your the one insulting me here and perpetuating the issues.

There is no moral high ground here. I'm just stating what your doing.