Red Dead Redemption Proves Rockstar’s Biggest Flaw Is A Choice
Superior to every GTA in one crucial way.
Revisiting Red Dead Redemption on the Nintendo Switch 2 has been the perfect opportunity to reminisce on everything it does so well. Its open world is barren yet fascinating and rewarding to explore. It has a memorable central cast of rogues and freaks typical of a Rockstar game. John Marston is as captivating as ever, especially after playing the 2018 prequel. Red Dead holds up remarkably well even 15 years later, and remains a benchmark for Rockstar’s ascension to the top of the industry.
But what stands out to me the most on this most recent playthrough is how well-written and sincere Red Dead Redemption is, especially compared to the developer’s other big blockbuster franchise. And less than a year away from Grand Theft Auto 6, replaying Red Dead has me hopeful that Rockstar will look to its masterpiece from 2010 instead of the franchise’s uneven history.
What works in Red Dead Redemption’s favor is its unorthodox setting. Instead of taking place at the height of the legendary wild west period in the 1800s, Red Dead takes place firmly at its end. The game begins in 1911, a time when the U.S. government is solidifying its control over Western states following its rapid post-Civil War expansion. Marston, a former outlaw who’s turned a new leaf (an opportunity afforded to him by Red Dead Redemption 2’s Arthur Morgan), is forced to pay for his sins by hunting down his fellow gang members in hiding for the U.S. government. If he’s able to do it, the government will return his wife, son, and home to him, after which he can live out the rest of his life.
The first four hours of Red Dead are very lowkey. You’re carrying out menial tasks on a farm for a woman who saved your life. You’re helping a sheriff from the local town round up criminals. And occasionally lending a hand to some of the scheming characters in the area who may hold vital information about the man you’re hunting down first.
But what makes this slow start so gripping is the game’s writing and directing. There’s a warmth and consideration to all of the interactions Marston has early on. There are extended silences between characters, the kind I imagine were very common before screens and radio filled dead air. Even when two characters are butting heads, it’s less about crude snark meant to make a player laugh. It’s about more subtle elements of conversation, with one person trying to exert power and knowledge over the other. It’s these intangibles that make Red Dead’s characters like Bonnie McFarland, Leigh Johnson, and Abigail Marston so memorable.
Games have been written well for ages. Go back to the golden age of PC gaming in the mid to late ‘90s, and you’ll find that titles like Deus Ex, the Fallout series, and the iconic LucasArts adventure games set the bar for the medium long before their higher fidelity descendants would get all the mainstream credit. So when I praise Red Dead’s writing, it’s not a comparison to other games as much as it is to Rockstar’s other games.
Red Dead Redemption’s slow start manages to pull the player along with its stellar writing and directing.
For every great story moment in older Grand Theft Auto games, there are about a dozen that make me embarrassed to play them out loud. This goes beyond them being products of their time, as even the most recent game in the GTA series (which was released three years after Red Dead Redemption) is riddled with unfunny jokes, regurgitated diatribes you’ve heard dozens of times from the worst men you know, and pervy innuendos that even a teenage boy would find a little much. GTA has never been consistently great at satire. It was just the biggest, most fun game bothering to try this kind of humor at all.
When I play Red Dead Redemption, however, it shows a different side of Rockstar. It’s proof that they can write dialogue that isn’t grating. They can do world-building that isn’t smirking at the player the entire time or trying to shoehorn in heavy-handed, surface-level commentary on the world. There’s a sincerity to the original Red Dead that is sorely missing from every GTA game. That sincerity is something I’m happy carried over to its 2018 sequel, a game that deserves all the accolades it gets for weaving an excellent story together with incredibly well-written characters.
To me, revisiting Red Dead Redemption has provided proof that the biggest flaw haunting Rockstar’s most popular franchise is a choice, and has been for at least a decade and a half. I just hope that during the long and troubled development of Grand Theft Auto 6, Rockstar sees its western classic as a guiding light over its ultra-successful but poorly-aged predecessor.
