Resting On (Almost) Perfect Laurels // Red Dead Redemption 2 - Luke Stephens

it's time it's time to do a critique it's time to do a critique which everybody loves right I hope so I'm singing a song and it's wasn't part of the gag everything's okay now sometimes people ask me why I have like a drink while I make these critiques and the answer is because I need to enjoy this - you enjoy watching them these are very difficult to make they take a long time I'm sitting here for like three to four hours shooting one critique like this so I might as well have some liquid talent as I say to make the video more interesting I also just realized that South Park is on behind me oops yes my friends it is finally here the Red Dead Redemption to critique we've all been long awaiting it's happening Red Dead Redemption - had a lot to live up to and in my estimation it was the most highly anticipated game of 2018 and that's saying something considering that it was also the same year that the new God of War reboot launched it's pretty remarkable that it was the most hyped game of that year and really for most people the most hyped game of several past years this game is the newest release from rockstar the same guys that made la Noir and Grand Theft Auto 5 & 4 these guys are the kings of open-world games it's been a long time since we got something from them 2013 to be exact so this new release was highly highly anticipated now I've talked about Red Dead Redemption 2 in other videos and smaller formats 10-minute video here 20 minute video here and I've linked those down below if you want to go and read them I'm not gonna rehash a lot of the stuff that I covered in those videos but we are going to deep dive into what the game does how it works why it works in this video now it should probably go without saying but I am going to spoil pretty much everything in this video I'm not gonna talk about a lot of them a new show within the game because again I'm assuming that you've already played it because I'm going to be spoiling everything so we're not going to be discussing like the graphics or the sound design or how the controls work in little bitty instances because to me that seems more necessary in a review style video which would come out right around the time of the release that's not what this video is this video is breaking down why the game works the way that it does why those choices were made by the development team and whether or not they were good decisions try to break it down and figure out how it works if you've seen these videos before for other games I've covered then you'll know exactly what to expect but if you're new that's pretty much what we're doing I should also communicate that I went through to full run throughs of Red Dead Redemption 2 in preparation for this video one run where I kept Arthur super shaggy that was my first run-through it didn't have him shaved I think at all after the first like 45 minutes of the game and you can tell by the end and then the second playthrough I kept him relatively clean shaved and skipped through a lot of the dialogue sequences because I had already seen it before and just focused on the gameplay exploration that type of thing and this is part of the reason that this video has taken so long and I'm gonna put a little timecode here so that if you don't want to hear any of this you can skip forward to where the video technically starts but I do just want to stress this video wouldn't be possible without the supporters on patreon all of those names are listed down in the description box below they got to see this video a full week before everybody else and if you want to see other critiques like this one on upcoming games full week before everybody else you can support me on patreon it's only $1.00 to support and it really does help it means the world gives me a reasonable and steady income that I can rely upon to pay rent so that if YouTube you know screws me over I'm not going to starve let's imagine that you also get some cool perks like you get your name in the description box based on the level that you donate to you can also have your name in the ending credits of the video or you can get a straight-up shout-out as of this point nobody has reached that tier so maybe you'll be the first and you're gonna be a the lone person or entity that's called out in the next critique you never know point being these videos take a long time to make I have roughly 127 hours of footage that I've had to sift through to create this video that you're about to watch and then I have to write a script and I have to go through everything that I want to discuss and I have to edit it and re-edit it that takes about a week and then I go through and I have to actually shoot it like this which can take three four or five six hours of shooting then I have to cut that all of that together into something that's watchable watch it multiple times edit it make sure it's polished and consistent and consumable I suppose it takes a lot of work and it's unfortunately not free for me and maybe free for you to watch it but it's not free for me does take a lot of time a lot of effort and this equipment isn't free either so if you want to watch it for free absolutely you can do that that's why YouTube exists but if you want to support me on patreon to help financially keep these videos coming I would HIGHLY appreciate it and I'm sure all of the viewers who are not able to support financially would also appreciate that support but with all that said let's jump right into it when I was trying to figure out what we should discuss first with regards to read that ramped into I tried to figure out if we should first talk about the games world or for we should talk about the characters or we should talk about the overarching story or maybe the developmental past and history of Red Dead Redemption and how it got started but to me I think the core and the soul of this game has to do with its characters that's what makes the game feel alive that's what gives the game meaning is these individuals that live within this world and are so believable relatable and they keep you going they give you the drive to continue playing for what is for some people an 80 plus our campaign they're like Guinness for youtubers now in my estimation the game tells basically four stories it tells the stories of Arthur morgan dutch van der Linde john marston and then the world and the characters who are extraneous to it that all interact with each other and give it context feeling and emotion and each of these four stories are completely intertwined they're not monoliths they don't stand as their own pillars of entertainment that you can engage with when you see fit they all work together and you start with certain emotions and feeling towards certain characters and then as the story progresses as you progress through the game and as Arthur progresses through his life you progress through your opinions and emotions towards these characters just the way that Arthur is and honestly all of the dialogue all of the conversations and most of the story beats are expert leaned on they really need to give the riders over at Rockstar bonuses because this is pretty damn impressive especially when you consider that they had to keep this quality up for 80 plus hours of campaign not to mention all of the side content which probably takes it up to 100 to 120 hours plus of content all of which is expertly written and there's never a moment when you feel as though okay they gave that to the Internet it always feels high-quality and well done now redemption as you would expect with a game called Red Dead Redemption plays a pivotal role in all of these characters stories in the story of the world in the society that's trying to tame it and is overcoming the wilderness and what they deemed to be savages in favor of a new world whose which is brighter and controlled by capitalism and all of the intelligent people from the east and then it also is told with regards to Arthur and his story of redemption trying to atone for his sins especially after he learns of his diagnosis and then it's also told with John Marston trying to become the father that his wife and son expect from him especially in the epilogue we see this story really branch out broaden and become what you would expect the only character who doesn't really seek Redemption at least throughout the overwhelming majority 99.9 percent of the game will be Dutch van der Linde and it's really interesting because Dutch is set up especially by the end of the game as the antagonist he's the one that's primarily getting in the way of the protagonist Arthur Morgan and John Marston he's getting in the way of their success in their progress and what they want to achieve but when you start the game you don't realize he's the antagonist and neither does Arthur and really it takes until you hit chapter 5 before you even start to consider the Dutch might not have your best interests at heart that he might just be a self-absorbed narcissistic only out for his own self-aggrandizement and the reason that I say 99.9% of the time Dutch is not concerned with redemption in the same way that John Marston and Arthur Morgan are is because he's not he's only looking out for his own best interests and his own self interests until the very very end of the game at the end of the epilogue part two right before the credits roll the final time up until the point he's been completely self-absorbed but it's at that point he steps out and he listens to john marston and he actually shoots Micah and just walks away leaving his treasure leaving everything to you and it is in a weird way a sort of apology to John Marston and to arthur morgan and everybody that he harmed he's just sort of walking away from everything he gained all of the things that he had been fighting for all those years and he says fine I guess you're right I I wasn't who I thought I was I wasn't who you thought I was take it and so I guess the point is is that at the end of the day even Dutch sought this sort of Red Dead Redemption in the form of killing Micah but he didn't seek it for the overwhelming majority of the story that's why I really considered the end of red dead redemption to to be a very happy ending despite the fact that Arthur's dead and everybody is leaving and separates from each other it really is a happy ending because even the antagonist sought Redemption in his own bloody weird way and this is why I think it's important that we sit back and really appreciate what Rockstar was able to do here specifically their writers it's not easy to interweave all of these characters together in the world together where they all interact and conflict and then become peaceful allies and then conflict again it's not easy to do this especially when they all have the same core desire which is to seek Redemption for past crimes and ills and sins that they've committed it's not easy to do but they do it so expertly that you barely even notice it's going on but I want to deep dive into this a little bit more so we're gonna analyze each of these stories one by one and sort of break apart how they work and why they work let's start with the wild the world of Red Dead Redemption - and figure out what makes it tick what makes it work I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the world of red and redemption - works why it feels so freeing why it feels so open and accepting why it feels as though you can do everything in anything even though it's actually highly constrained and this is something we've seen before with Rockstar Games they actually have pretty constrained worlds but they build them in such a way where it feels alive and breathing and as though it's something place where you could actually go and live and explore when I say this I'm mainly thinking of a world like the one they built for la noir Los Angeles in the late 1940s it really feels like a living breathing place not because the world itself is a huge open world where you can fly planes around you can do whatever you want but rather because all of the characters that you interact with live and breathe in that world and their actions and their beliefs everything is informed by that world and it's incredibly engrossing they were actually able to achieve a lot of the same things with Red Dead Redemption too and I don't think we should downplay the significance of that to make a world that's actually highly constrained because it is a video game after all and make it feel as though it is utterly unconstrained is really a remarkable feat it's almost like a weird sort of Stockholm Syndrome but in the place of the victim we have the player and in the case of the higher up or the authority figure in question we have the world of Red Dead Redemption to where the player starts believing that it's a living breathing world even though it is just a world in a video game that's fairly straightforward there's not a whole lot of site activity sprinkling the land there are dynamic encounters there's things that you can find and do but it's not as as densely packed as for instance the world of an assassin's creed Odyssey but I don't think it should be in fact I would actually argue that because the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is less crowded and dense and actually comes off feeling more alive allow me to explain I've made a plethora of videos analysing what we call the density of an open world and what we do is we go through just exploring a games world and we break down how often an event of interest quote-unquote occurs so basically if we're riding through a large open field how often something catches our eye that makes us think oh that's interesting or in effect alters the direction that we were going changes the way that we were thinking or at least our thought process in some form or fashion and then what we do is we chart through how often that happens I mark down the amount of time between each of those occurrences we plot them on a chart and then we take the standard deviation we do a lot of regression analysis and we break down what the meantime is between each of these moments of interests so that you can figure out roughly how dense the world is that you're exploring a game such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey has things happening every 20 seconds in some areas or even less than that effectively as you're exploring you're constantly inundated with new bright flashy thing here bright flashy thing there it's constantly hitting you so you are effectively never quote-unquote bored you're never left alone with their thoughts you're never left alone to do your own thing they always try to keep it light and fresh to the point where you can't just explore and just ride your horse there's always something catching your eye there's always something to do in the world of Red Dead Redemption to the time in-between moments of interest and interesting things happening can even be quadrupled that amount so eighty seconds to even two minutes between moments of interest or occurrences of something that changes your thought process and for many people I think they would look at that and assume that the game would be more boring there aren't as many things changing your thought process or in effect garnering your attention and therefore it must be less interesting or more boring because you're left alone with your thoughts more and I think that this is a dangerous assumption to make to me the important thing to stress is the fact that the game is allowing you to be alone with your thoughts to be alone in this field all by yourself exploring the world as you see fit and for some people who have played the game it does come off as boring quote-unquote they simply don't connect with the world they don't respond to it in the same way but I do encourage you if you've had that problem and maybe you're watching this video because it didn't connect with you in the same way that you would hope to and maybe you're watching this video to figure out why that's the reason why likely because the world is much more spread out it's not trying to be as densely packed as in Odyssey but it's doing that for a very particular reason it's doing that for a reason that was chosen specifically by the game directors because it changes the way that you the player interact with the world instead of thinking of the world as serving you you're trying to figure out a way to grab and force your way into the world to interact with it if you want to go hunting in Assassin's Creed Odyssey you're just going around shooting whatever you want to shoot because there's everything everywhere if you have an arrow you basically shoot at any direction you're gonna hit something in Red Dead Redemption - you have to put out bait you have to go and you have to hide in a particular area and then you have to wait for a particular time of day and then they might come by or even in some cases you can leave a rotting carcass on the back of your horse or dump it in a field and then predators are gonna come and find their way to it because the world is living and breathing it dynamic in that way it sounds weird but I do think you have to condition yourself a little bit in order to play these games quote-unquote correctly and when I say playing a game correctly I don't mean that if you play it in a slightly more aggressive way or a slightly more creative way that you're playing it wrong and you're not going to have a good experience or that you're a bad person if you play it the quote/unquote wrong way but I think it is fair to say that developers do have a particular play style in mind for instance with Red Dead Redemption - it's pretty clear that these guys were trying to create a world that you interacted with that you explored at your own pace and at your own leisure and in doing that you get adjusted to this slower pace of life the same pace of life that Arthur or John Marston would be accustomed to living in the Wild West and I will just say it is funny we're talking about like 20 seconds versus 80 seconds it's still a pretty small amount of time compared to the real world but in video game time that's like years that's ages 20 seconds in Assassin's Creed Odyssey feels like a little bit of a weight between interesting things happening and so when you play it in Red Dead Redemption - when you have like a minute two minutes between interesting things happening it can feel as though you're serving a life sentence but you know I've said it before and I'll say it again many times throughout this video the world of Red Dead Redemption - is a reflection of its narrative its narrative informs the world in-floor forms the narrative informs the world and the world informs the narrative and they all interact with each other in a beautiful harmonious way that you rarely see in open old games especially in 2018-2019 knock on wood for cyberpunk right I think that's what now even though the world's reddit redemption to an assassin's Creed Odyssey are both unbelievably massive for a video game part of the reason that Odysseys map feels a lot smaller is because it's so dense so once again you're never left alone with your thoughts thinking wow this map is huge there's always something that's occurring except for when you're sailing on the ocean but even then there's still ships that come and try to attack you there's still animal sightings that you can encounter there's always something and I think it just comes down to a difference in philosophy when it comes to building an open-world some of these developers want to make it as densely packed as it possibly can so that it seems as alive as it possibly can when Red Dead Redemption 2 looks at it more in a realistic sense where it says part of realism is that interesting things don't happen that often and when they do they're exceptional because they are an exception they aren't normal which is why you remember them why these random encounters that you can have stick out in your mind because they didn't happen all the time in the game whereas if you were constantly encountering these weird kooky and crazy characters on the side of the road it would lose its potency you would build up a tolerance to it effectively and lastly I think one of the things that the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 does so well that needs to be lauded and praised is the fact that rarely do you think to yourself I am playing a game it always feels as though you're exploring an actual world an actual place and to be honest if you told me that they copied meter 4 meter tree for tree a section of the north western state of Colorado I would probably believe you because it is so well and clearly concisely and carefully crafted every Rock every stone that they've put in here seems to have a purpose and seems to have landed there as the result of some natural process it doesn't feel as though it was crafted for my entertainment even larger set pieces like this one still feel as though they are naturally occurring it doesn't feel out of place it feels as though you're exploring a world that's real now of course something that helps with this would be the graphics would be the way that they actually render these scenes and the nature they're in the way that they handle fog the way that they handle depth of field everything about the rendering engine within red dead redemption is phenomenal and deserves all of the praise that it received except for the HDR I was a premium TV salesman for a little over a year a little while back and I got to deal with some of the most expensive TVs the money could possibly buy a $60,000 z9 D from Sony I'd work and I actually received a premium OLED from Sony for my time working with them and I can attest and confirm that the HDR in this game is an absolute travesty it's not HDR it's just not like I don't know what to tell you it's just not I don't know how the rage engine which is the engine they're using for Red Dead Redemption two handles upgrades later on in development but it seems as though they worked for so long and so hard on the engine for Red Dead Redemption to to get these images to get this quality brought up that by the time they realized they needed to add an actual HDR support that it wasn't just a gimmick it was something that people expected it was too late and they couldn't change it and perhaps it's just the way that they handle lighting perhaps it's the way that they calculate color space I don't know whatever it is they need to figure it out before they move on with their next release I mean some reports are saying we could get Grand Theft Auto 6 sometime in the next year and a half to two years which is pretty quick for a fundamental turnaround like that if you have to reprogram the way that your engine calculates light you should do that sooner rather than later both all that said let's move on to Arthur and Dutch I'm gonna cover these two fairly close together because they are inextricably tied and length too they interact with each other more than any two characters in the entire game they inform each other's decisions and that's what I'm gonna do I ran out of words simply put Arthur Morgan's life and story is one evolution and then eventually Redemption at the start of the story he's not seeking redemption in any way he doesn't have a problem with the way that he's living his life or with the things that he's doing he's simply working and living in a gang because that's what he does he sees this group of thieves and murderers and scoundrels as his family and he's doing what he's doing to protect them he doesn't feel bad about it he only starts to have second thoughts once he realizes that he's been diagnosed with tuberculosis and that Dutch is not the man that he thought he was it sort of takes the blinders off and he starts to rethink a lot of the things that he has been doing for years and years and years effectively his story goes like this he starts out as a petty criminal in the service of a gang leader that he idolizes and thinks the world of then he continues and he gains rapport with the gang leader eventually becoming effectively his right-hand man and then he starts to have doubts he starts to realize that his leader might not be as perfect as he thought he was and then he realizes downright that his idol doesn't actually care about him and that his idol is a fraud and it's just been using him for his own self-aggrandizement and then he realizes that he needs to atone for his sins and that he needs to turn his life around and change the way he's been doing everything before his time runs out and I think that's the important point the very last one which is that Arthur by the time the game ends has become the man that he wanted Dutch to be for all of those years he's become the idol that he sought and he's evolved to that point and in the process of that evolution he's gained Redemption now when we come to Dutch it's a slightly different conversation and I love Arthur Morgan and I love Arthur as a character but Dutch always seems to steal the show whenever he Hunters on to screen he just is fascinating and I'm not entirely sure why a lot of it has to do with his performance likely a lot of it has to do with the sort of mystical power and confidence that he exudes whoever directed the actor behind Dutch vanderlin I'm actually I'm gonna look up his name Benjamin Byron Davis he plays Dutch mandolin high praise my friend he's not my friend wish she was regardless high praise this guy absolutely nails it and in some bizarre way is able to captivate the audience that's playing this video game in the same way that the characters on screen are captivated by his pure charisma and confidence it really is impressive and I think the directors behind his performance also should be praised because they were able to direct him in this way where his performance actually reflected that charisma because again it's not easy to bring that charisma through the camera on to screen and to make the viewers actually feel the same way as the characters and so across the board phenomenal job now I'm gonna throw out some details about Dutchess early life because I think it informs his character and I just find it interesting I had to do some digging to figure out all of this so you might not be aware but regardless here you go Dutch was actually born back in 1855 to a British mother and a Dutch father and he looked up to his father pretty hardcore he thought that he was the manly man he really looked up to this guy and respected him and wanted to be like him until his father died during the Civil War fighting for the Union in what was likely the Battle of Gettysburg its heavily implied but it's not outright stated at least that I was able to find if you can find it for sure or if I'm wrong call me out in the comments section below one of the interesting little tidbits is that Dutch actually became fairly bigoted towards southerners in general once his father was killed during this battle because once again fighting for the Union against the south his father's killed he looked at southerners as being responsible for his father's death and this is seen and reflected in his performance that the entire game actually encourage you if you're going to do a second playthrough keep an eye out whenever somebody with a southern accent comes along in a scene Dutch actually responds to them in a much more crude and harsh manner than people who come up to him with a foreign accent or with a sort of more pompous northerner accent it's a small detail but it's really fascinating once again it just goes to show the amount of forethought that these writers put into the characters so that when they gave the actors these one sheets which if you're not familiar with acting in these types of formats basically what happens you show up on the day of shooting after you've gotten the part and either on the day of shooting or a week before sometime before they'll give you a 1 sheet which basically goes through the character roughly as they see him currently or see her currently and you are to read through it and bring your own interpretation based on the background and all of the things that they tell you about the characters so for something like Dutch they would go through and they would say hey he was born in 1855 his father fought for the north and then he died in this battle now he is working in a gang and he's doing this that and the other and then the actor looks at that and says okay his father died in this battle well he's likely becoming more bigoted toward southerners he sees the southerners as responsible for his father's death so he's not gonna like southerners and maybe that's just something he accepts that he just doesn't like southerners and that's just it and that's going to form this decision in this decision and every time I interact with a southerner I'm going to have a little bit more doubt and I'm gonna look at them a little bit down I'm not gonna I'm not gonna hold them to the same height as somebody from New York for instance and it's it's utterly fascinating because once again all of this is inferred off of just some smaller details that they received from directors and writers and that informs everything that comes after in an 80 plus our experience that was shot over the course of several years it's really impressive regardless beyond all of this dutch decided to run away from home after his father died he didn't get along with his mother just in general it seems like he didn't have a lot of luck with women early on in his life and for whatever reason he just didn't connect with his mom so he ran away from home he started a life of crime eventually he met Hosea and they decided to form a gang together which Arthur John Micah Abigail all of those people would eventually join and at one point it's not exactly specified when or how this happened but they decided to join up with Como Driscoll and his gang of brothers and weird inbred sisters and they work with them for a little while they robbed trains together they do all sorts of stuff together it just seems to be a business partnership in effect even though it's crime so they partner up they robbed some train together they do some stuff again it's not specified for how long this goes on or exactly why would happen next happen next but what happened is Dutch vanderlin killed kool Moe Driscoll's brother or at least one of them calm didn't like this and so he went and killed Duchess lover like I said it's not entirely clear how or why this happened why Dutch felt the need to kill the brother there's some hints here and there that it was a tussle that they got into an argument or it was a mistake blah Dee Bloo - blah blah but it's not heavily implied what is clear is that kool Moe Driscoll he even has a line where he says that he didn't care for that brother very much and then Dutch responds with I cared for Annabelle very much I am sorry about your brother yeah I never liked him much I liked you always love ladies Dutch van der Linde that's why you're a bad person because I actually love this girl I cared about her deeply and you took her from me or as you didn't even care about your brother but you took the one thing I truly loved from me in retaliation and that sparks this whole fight and and this whole rivalry that starts and ensues after that and informs much of the game's actions and movements throughout the narrative throughout the whole first and second acts and actually technically ushers in everything up until the first phase of the ending of the game and a quest that's titled goodbye dear friend now one thing I actually find very very interesting and this might seem like a total non sequitur but you'll see why I'm bringing it up in a minute is the choice of the game's opening I've talked about this a little bit before in a previous video but I'm gonna bring it up now because once again I think it's important and that is that the reason that they opened the game with the gang already on the run as opposed to showing what happened in Blackwater what happened with the failed robbery what happened with Dutch killing the woman who seemingly didn't deserve it or have it coming in any way shape or form choosing not to show the player that is a very tactical choice because it sets up the uncertainty that Arthur is also feeling because Arthur didn't see a lot of the events that transpired during that robbery so the player comes into the story with the same uncertainty that Arthur had even though it might have been a really cool opening cinematic to show this robbery taking place to show what actually happened they purposely chose not to start that way and to instead start the game in a very solemn way running away in a snowstorm because it sets the player in the same shoes as Arthur so that as they experience the story and in these early chapters they don't have an unfair advantage over Arthur they don't have an unfair advantage over anybody in the story they don't know anything beyond what the player character actually knows furthermore at the beginning of the game Arthur and pretty much the entire game have these blinders on they can't see that what Dutch is doing doesn't make a whole lot of sense that this guy doesn't have any credibility that this guy has led them from failure to failure to failure from death to death to death and that he shouldn't be followed he shouldn't be trusted whatsoever but they continued to follow him because they have these blinders it's this cult of personality that's surrounding him and so by choosing to start the game in a time where there isn't anything happening and when you just see Dutch for all of his charismatic and gravitas that he brings to the table that puts the player once again in a position where they are expected and sort of encouraged to go along with the herd in the same way than all of the gang members Arthur John Abigail everybody is expected to go now what can't be denied is that Dutch is only interested in furthering his own interests he is a narcissist through and through and this is reflected not just in dialogue and scenes that we see with him but even in his area of the camp everybody else is sleeping in smaller tents or is sleeping just outside on a rucksack next to the fire but Dutch has a very large tent and he's got a nice bed in there he's got a Victrola he's got a lot of very nice things that are expensive it's because he's vain it's because he's selfish he could be using that money to help the gang which is what he claims to be doing but instead he just uses it for his own comfort and pleasure and all throughout the game Dutch is constantly talking about his selflessness he's constantly talking about the fact that he is doing what's best for the gang and that's all he's ever done especially in Chapter five when you're in Guam oh when you actually see the relationship between Arthur and Dutch start to fall apart you still see Dutch claiming that everything he's doing even the messed up stuff that seems indefensible he still defends it by saying that he's doing it for the good of the group and it seems to be his get-out-of-jail-free card whenever he does anything that's bad or that's questionable he can just pull out the card where he says I did it for the group you don't understand I have a master plan you just need some goddamn faith and then you have to just give up and stop questioning him otherwise he gets upset or he gets disappointed in you and once again because it's a cult of personality all you can do is be like well I don't want to upset him okay I guess he is right I'm doubting him and I should have more faith what am i doing of course you're an idiot that's what should happen but it doesn't and everybody's just sort of smiles and nods until Arthur starts to snap out of it and then eventually Sadie starts to snap out of it but to be fair Sadie was probably smart to it way before everybody else she just has that air about her now let's actually look at an example this is in Chapter five which we're gonna discuss for a moment because I think it's actually the pivotal moment of the story this happens in the roughly middle of chapter five when you're in Guam ah everything's gone bad and the game has taken a little bit of a shift you went from exploring the Wild West collecting a lot of money feeling as though you're all that and a bag of chips and then everything comes collapsing down you're on the run some members of your gang died while you were trying to escape and then your ship sinks and you crash on this island you become a prisoner you escape as a prisoner and now you're trying to rescue some of the members of your gang before getting off the island once and for all and going back home where you can potentially regain some of your losses this moment occurs during the quest to kind and benevolent despot which is probably one of the most important quests during the entirety of the main story's narrative not because of anything that happens graphically or in terms of gameplay but because of the discussions and what it means for the characters that engage in them and so here's the clip Hey hi so what's the play well I found the cave hair cool spoke of and also a guide she's up ahead I think we can trust her follow me the entrance is along here just watch your footing [Music] so what do we do and we get hug here well I'm gonna get the hell out of here man set sail for the one place ain't nobody gonna be expecting us get everybody together and get ourselves back on course where would that be place we just escaped from you want to go back to San Denis if it was you got left you'd want us to go back I'd want it but I wouldn't expect it's the point ain't no one gonna expect it we come back from the dead gather everyone and we leave before anyone realizes we've even resurrected an insect bite you or something cuz you gone friend we look like what we are watch this run on the run but with the women a change of clothes but we required or a gang of pilgrims or something whatever you say will punch a penniless fugitives on some Caribbean dump sneaking through the caves while two of our best men got shot back home how could I doubt you Dutch you got no idea ours no idea at all I will do whatever it takes for us to survive I guess that's what I'm afraid of hold on Wow Lauria wareness noches beam it off the money the gold diamond oh it's genuine yo mama familes happy though that goal right there this last bit of gold I have in my pocket from the bank the rest of it is the bottom of the sea exactly you know Foose are one of the sellers Bronte pointed out to us at the party in San Denis yeah you're right I knew I've heard that name before so I met up with Lee on that situation with the workers is Delvin captured you tied up beaten poor bastards no it's me he's sure this hurt few fellas ain't just using us almost certainly but he's the best chance we have right now getting out of this place won't be long before someone figures out who we are and sends word to the US so what happened with John and that bank he survived unlike dear Jose and Lenny the only one they took alive why is that already on the roof an Abigail I presume she was able to slip away in time what are you talking about you know the past few weeks the apparent superficial chaos I begin to wonder maybe for somebody this is all going exactly to plan Oh still ain't sure what you saying Dutch with ink I gotta see ya the door is stopped you all have to live pardon me my queen first come help me with this just lifting okay then this way see then you pay more okay more just a second hey more pay now Jesus Lucy Dutch what was that horrible old crone but she killed him she was gonna betray us Arthur couldn't you tell well I got some Spanish she was you keep killing folk Dutch I'm just trying to make sure that some of us survive Arthur now shall we proceed I guess listen some you think I want any of this I don't know of course I don't but I made a pledge to you all we would survive no matter what so how did you know she was gonna put trace what'd she say it was in her eyes in the way she was leading us but you said you knew Spanish I know human beings Orton you're gonna strangle me next I'm doing the best I can so Dutch and Arthur are helped by this women they go through the tunnel the woman asked for more money Dutch says no and proceeds to just strangle her and bash her head on the ladder killing her and Arthur's a little shocked by this and to be honest the player is likely shocked by this too because it seems so disproportional and out of the blue like you're a massive dude you could have just pushed her to the side sure she pulled a knife on you but once you grabbed her and hit her head on the the ladder you were probably okay you probably weren't in that much danger but it reflects not just what Dutch was doing perhaps it was just a sort of moment of weakness perhaps he just snapped and got scared and angry and hit her head one too many times and perhaps that's what it was but that's not really what the moment is about that's not what this whole interaction is about what it's about is the conversation that comes afterwards where Dutch instead of accepting responsibility like I don't know what came over me I it just happened he instead claims to be holier than thou that he's the savior that he just did that thing in front of Arthur for the good of the group and that questioning him is to be questioning effectively the savior of the group and that's unfair and he shouldn't do that and Arthur for this one time he just like back black in black in blackboard yeah unlike back in black water Arthur was here to see this one and he saw very clearly the Dutch was in the wrong he just messed up that was a mistake that was a bad thing that he just did perhaps downright even immoral sure she pulled a knife on you but I think you got like you lost your cool man I think you lost your cool but no instead of saying that he claims the higher status and says that if you questioned me then you aren't believing in the one person that can save you and I think that that is the pivotal and titular moment of this whole moment this is why Dutch in this case is the kind and benevolent despot as described in the title of the quest and I guess this is the time when I should say that Red Dead Redemption 2 actually has some really really funny and interesting and informative quest titles which are not just there to title the quest whatever it may be like John goes to buy apples they're actually written in a way where they can inform you a little bit more and give you more information to figure out what actually is going on in the quest in terms of broader themes just like with this one it's titled a good and benevolent despot and despot is actually defined through merriam-webster as quote unquote a ruler with absolute power and authority and or one exercising power tyrannically or a person exercising absolute power in a brutal or oppressive way and quote and that is it changes the way that you look at the quest once you realize Dutch considers himself a good and benevolent despot who considers himself yeah a tyrant probably his way or the highway like he is the master commander he is the one you obey but he's good and he's moral and you should follow him Dutch is a tyrant in perhaps he even accepts it but he doesn't accept that it all hinges on his perception of what is moral and what is immoral and the second that somebody sees his his lack of morality and can call it out he no longer has any power over them because he's just a tyrant at that point he's lost his credibility as the good and benevolent despot point being while this seemed to come out of nowhere two players end to Arthur once you actually sit back and you start thinking about some of the things that you know specifically about Blackwater you start to realize that this is the way that Dutch has likely always been or at least has been for a very very long time and that you just didn't see it you just weren't there for it or you trusted him too much this is the guy that you've been following and that you were idolizing all this time and you just didn't realize it and let's just say after this everything starts to collapse in terms of the story in terms of the relationships in a good way it starts to collapse in terms of everything that these characters believed in and thought was true is crumbling because Dutch's actions because of the way everything is going and so they all start to fight for themselves and that's when the chaos really erupts and the story starts to pick up pace and they start working with each other even though they don't trust each other and some really interesting moments come in it can even lead to some pretty funny moments when Dutch is claiming to be the victim as he always does he's always the guy that's just trying to do right by the gang he just wants to help everybody but in reality he's murdering and slaying hundreds of people for his own benefit while claiming he's doing it for other people he's always the victim he's never responsible for anything he does and because of this the story is just as much about John and Sadie and Arthur and the whole gang realizing that Dutch is not the man they thought he was as it is about Dutchess mental collapse and the collapse of the gang in general it's pretty fascinating towards the end because you get to see a lot of people having these big moments of realization and I think you even can see it with Dutch where he realizes perhaps he isn't the man that he thought he was but he starts to live in denial and he starts to not deny it and reject it he gets depressed and he still claims he's the victim but he starts to lash out at people as a result as the line in the sequence I just played for you shows where Dutch starts to question John starts to question maybe his loyalty implying perhaps John or some other gang members were giving tips to the police giving them information that led to the collapse of the game once again it wasn't that Dutch was reckless it was that somebody betrayed him and here I also just want to say some reviewers and critics have said that chapter 5 is a waste of a chapter and that it's a waste of time it could be cut from the game and the game would be no different I'm not going to name these people because I don't like to get into these drama spats if you've watched a lot of reviews for Red Dead I'm sure you can figure out who they are point being I think that's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard and if you said that then you should probably stop making YouTube videos ok maybe not to that extent but I would argue that chapter 5 is the single most important chapter narrative Lee speaking perhaps not in terms of gameplay of course but terms of the narrative which I would argue is the whole point of this game to begin with I think it's the most important chapter Bar None and I especially find it interesting in terms of the broader themes again Dutch is constantly talking about how he wants to get his group live independently away from society and civilization and technology he wants to live alone on a desolate Island and he says as many many times he wants to go to Tahiti or one of those islands and just live out the rest of his days happy and peaceful in this tropical island living off the land and fighting for himself in an independent fashion and in this chapter he actually gets to do that he goes to a tropical island and is away from all responsibilities he could just live out his days here instead of going back to the mainland but instead he decides that he needs to go back because again it's the pride it's never going to be good enough for him and if you think it's just a coincidence that they land during this crash on a tropical island that mirrors a lot of the things that Dutch was talking about with Tahiti and the eventual escape he would make there I don't think that that's a coincidence point of all of this being I love Arthur and I love Dutch and they interact together and such and fascinating an interesting way not just because of the writing but because of the performance is because of the acting everything that they did it was absolutely phenomenal and they deserve all of the praise and awards that they've received to this point and you may be thinking Luke this is supposed to be a critique you're supposed to be criticizing this game pretty heavily why aren't you doing so yet and I am going to get into some heavy criticisms here in a few minutes but when we're talking about the narrative that's what this game does so well and that's why this game is one of the highest-rated games of all time ever released period signed sealed delivered see you in the morning it's ridiculously well done as a narrative experience it's only once the gameplay starts coming in that you start to encounter some real issues with the way that the game is built but let's discuss John Marston for a minute you interact with John throughout the majority of the story he's in a lot of the quests he's in a lot of the main story missions that you go on but you really get seemed shine of course during the epilogue after arthur has died and you get to play through several hours of the with just you and John trying to become a good and wholesome person do right by your family and live the life that Arthur wanted to but has said many many times he said he couldn't no matter how hard he tried that just wasn't going to be the man he was going to be never was going to be the farmer he never was going to have the normal life it just wasn't in the cards for him so at the very least if Arthur could give something to John to help him to live out that life he he would and as we saw at the end of the game he did at least depending on the choice that you made and I will say this I know a lot of people skipped the epilogue they got to Arthur's death and they just felt like they had seen everything they needed to see especially when they realized that they wouldn't be playing as Arthur in the epilogue and that they'd be going through a whole nother series of stories but I would highly encourage you to do so I think it's actually very well done even though it's quite different like I said it's a huge shift from the main game instead of playing as a pillaging pirating Hobgoblin I'm not sure what that is instead of all that you play as John Marston trying to be the father and the husband that his family expects him to be and it's such a shift that it's kind of hard to quantify and it's very intentionally shifted in that way it's no coincidence that a lot of the gameplay that you were becoming accustomed to is not present in these chapters it's not only not present it's not permissible they don't even allow you to go through a lot of the same sequences and to do a lot of the same stuff and so when some people say that this epilogue is quote unquote boring I wouldn't necessarily disagree I would agree that it's more boring compared to the main game but I would actually argue that that's the entire point they made it to be less interesting so that you feel the same way that John Marston feels John Marston just lived a entire life technically as an outlaw running around robbing trains going and doing all sorts of crazy stuff robbing banks and and steamships now you're going through your life feeding cows milking cows scooping up manure shoeing horses it is far interesting but that's the point you feel the same way that John feels you're doing these mundane tasks building fences and stuff and you just want to get back out there and do that which you used to do the more exciting and dangerous stuff that's what's quote-unquote fun to both the player and to John Marston and that's why inevitably by the end of the epilogue you will slide into those same old habits and start doing the same stuff that you did before which I would argue is why you should give it a play it just because you will end up seeing some really nice bookends for the story and if you care about John Marston at all or if you intend to go back through and play the original game I think you should I think it's a good idea furthermore some people will ask why the game didn't just end on Arthur's death and why they had to add this whole epilogue in and of course the easy answer is just that the story hadn't been fully told there was a lot of empty space that they wanted to fill and if they wanted to milk it for a narrative DLC they could have done that you know you pay 20 bucks and you get to play through the epilogue chapters they could have done that but instead they chose to give it to players for free allow them to go through the whole story from start to finish and play the the narrative the way that the writers felt that you should to get the book into the story because again it's not just a story about Arthur it's a story about Arthur's legacy it's a story about the gangs legacy more than anything and you could argue that it's a story that's just as much about Dutch as it is about Arthur himself even though you're playing as Arthur Dutch is at the heart of everything that you're doing and I think it's also important to point out that they didn't call it chapter 7 they didn't call it chapter 6 point 9 they called it epilogue because I think they accepted that a good number of people were going to reach Arthur's death and we're just going to put it down and not bother completing the rest of it they just would say you know what that was a good place I feel happy with where I got to and to be honest I think if you play through the six chapters and got to Arthur's death and you felt like that was all you needed to see that's okay I don't think that you're missing out on the experience of Red Dead Redemption - I would argue you're missing out on a core piece of it a major piece of it that I think is going to really help you process a lot of the things that happen in the main game and it's going to make you feel much better about Arthur's death but if you don't I guess I can forgive you someday it's all by the time that the epilogue ends you are John Marston father ranch owner you are a successful father everything's going well for you you've solved all the problems that you had with Dutch and with the gang and mica everything's good happy and lucky you're debt-free and you can just explore you can just go and do whatever you want and you get to live in this world without a lot of the pressures that Arthur had and in some ways I think you get to live the life that Arthur wanted you to going back to our earlier discussion of the lack of density within the world of Red Dead Redemption - you have a lot of time to just sit and think about what just happened about all of those 80 hours that you were playing the game when you're riding through the hills of the the map as John Marston just exploring and seeing what tickles your fancy and while you're doing that you tend to think a lot about Arthur's history Arthur's impact what he asked John to do in his final moments what he expected and his overall legacy and again I think that that's something that's really special that's not something that a video game is typically able to do but it's something that's only possible when they allow you to be alone with your thoughts for more than 20 seconds if they let you ride for minutes on end just thinking just riding along the road doing whatever you're gonna do and I will just say one of the little attention to detail things that I saw that I absolutely loved is you know how you're exploring the world Arthur will take out his notebook and I'll sketch out a landmark or something he saw that was interesting and then I'll write a little poem or note about it something like that at the end of the game of course he gave John that notebook and so John has that notebook as he explores and if you encounter certain objects or landmarks that Arthur didn't explore or find while he was alive and while you were playing as Arthur he'll actually sketch it out - and he'll the note but John has horrible handwriting and is not a very good drawer or artist at all and so you actually see a difference as you're flipping through the pages you'll see Arthur's drawings which are really clean and beautiful and then you'll see John Marsten's which are all just chicken scratch and terrible drawings it's actually really cute and endearing touch because you can kind of see like father and then son effectively where you're seeing him echo a lot of the things that his father figure was trying to teach him and do it's just adorable I love it and the last character I wasn't gonna do this but the last character I want to mention just because I think she's awesome is Sadie I don't know what it is again I think it's performance I think it's writing I think it's her place in the story but she's just loveable and endearing and you can't get enough of her once you start interacting with her and I think that she's one of the most important and interesting characters in the entirety of the game and it's actually surprising that we don't get to see more of her given how much they build her up honestly she's probably my favorite side character she's reckless crazy and honestly she has every reason to be especially when you realize which I didn't at first that this is the same girl that you rescue in the opening sequence of the game from the house fire I realized it like an hour and a half in but I didn't realize it at first and given her history where she watched her husband get murdered then she hid in a wine cellar as those same people that murdered her husband ransacked her house and were staying there and then she eventually fights her way out encounters Myka sets her own house on fire burning all of her memories leaving her dead husband behind she has reason to be upset and a little uh a little crazy she's the first truly innocent character that you encounter and she chooses to join you and your gang she mourns her hubby until Clemens point in the chapter where you're hanging out there when she eventually convinces Arthur to let her go with him on errands at which point Arthur agrees lets her come along they get in a gunfight she shines and does a great job and sadie is born after this point she sticks with Arthur through thick and thin she follows him through everything and tends to side with him during any sort of discussion or debate where she could have the option of disagreeing or siding with Dutch or the gang she always sides with Arthur and eventually with John after Arthur is gone and you get to encounter her all the way through the end of the epilogue another reason to play through it if you haven't where she's gravely injured and I will just say I was really scared she was gonna die thank God she doesn't she survives and goes on her way we don't really get to see what she does or where she goes it's implied that she goes off with you know living a new life somewhere else as a bounty hunter or what have you honestly everything about her character just makes me want to see more of her maybe we will who knows maybe Red Dead Redemption 3 it's coming along quick right next year maybe point being the narrative is expertly handled and deserves all of the praise that's been levied against it including all of mine I'd like to think and I think that the narrative is the single most important part of the game which is good because we're gonna talk about the gameplay next which is by far the weakest point so the gameplay this is where the game really starts to falter not because it's terrible just because it doesn't live up to the same quality standard that the narrative set forth and so it makes it very clear that this is a narrative game first and that the gameplay leaves a fair bit to be desired now at the core of the gameplay loop within red dead redemption 2 is of course the gunplay which is very well done to be perfectly honest all of the guns feel unique all the guns feel highly customisable as you can take them to gun shops and change them to your own liking which frankly isn't very expensive once you get a few hours into the game so you can deck out all of your guns to be solid gold as I did because I'm flashy or you can keep them pretty rustic just focus on functionality whatever you want to do the customization options are there now one of the big things with shooting with in Red Dead Redemption - and the original Red Dead Redemption is of course the Deadeye mechanic which is effectively the mechanic that allows you to go into slow mode and then actually pinpoint where you want your shots to land and go based on certain weak points etc and all of this feels pretty good you know it never feels particularly difficult I don't remember any time while I was playing through Red Dead Redemption to where I felt as though I needed to drop the difficulty or I needed an easy mode or I needed something like that it always felt pretty well balanced and whenever I got in over my head it was because I was being stupid the game is actually pretty well balanced in that way in terms of the way that the actual guns work I would say it's pretty forgiving especially for the time period it's set in and how rough you are on these weapons the fact that you don't have more completely missed shots because your gun was dirty or because it was wet or whatever it may be I I think it's understandable that they made those choices because once again it is a video game and I don't think most people would be having quote-unquote fun if they were to take out their sniper rifle for the big shot they aim pull the trigger and it doesn't work because they happen to walk through a swamp 45 minutes before that sequence I understand why they chose not to do that and that's kind of the case with all of these sort of shooter style games but for the setting especially with all the realism that they took all throughout the rest of the game you would have expected a little bit more put into these elements sure there's cleaning mechanics there's things where you have to keep your guns up kept in order to use them properly but it certainly doesn't punish the player as much as you would expect for having a dirty gun as it would be in the real life it's not as punishing as the rest of the game or the world is with other sins that you may commit there's also an auto lock on mechanic for the shooting which is really helpful during horse chases and rides and things where you can just quickly tap the left trigger even if you're playing on Xbox or Playstation it works with both and then it kind of takes it out and then it zooms back in locks on to the nearest enemy usually centered right on their chest and then with just a slight adjustment up you can easily get a head shot so it turns into this sort of left trigger fire motion that you get pretty used to it just turns into muscle memory where it's headshot headshot headshot pretty easily and I criticized this back with the original Red Dead Redemption but my core contention was that I didn't know what to do instead because if they didn't have this snap-on mechanic then it wouldn't work when you're riding on the back of a horse it just doesn't work to have to try to do it manually with the right joystick it just doesn't work the same way and so to have this little bit of levity would be very helpful and I think is highly appreciated for most players and I think it's just a necessary evil in order to get a game like this working especially because you don't want to be frustrated so much by the controls that you can't absorb the broader message of what's going on with the story or even get through a sequence because it's so gimmicky and finicky with how you're trying to maneuver it and it would lead to them putting less enemies on screen because they need to make sure that the threat is manageable and everything would start to follow as a result of that slight change so I'm ok with it again I think it's just a necessary evil but with regards to the gameplay loop itself it's actually fairly straightforward depending on how you choose to play the game it can actually shift if you're going through narrative sequences it's going to be go to mission marker go through the quest and most of the quests are going to be made up in the same way as the second option which is go off play by yourself and then end up doing the same thing you would do in the missions which is that you end up going to some destination where something interesting is happening you engage with the characters or the animals that are there you end up getting into a gunfight of some sort or some sort of physical altercation once that has ceased and the waters have calmed and settled you loot whatever you can and then you leave to another location and you rinse and repeat it's fairly straightforward again people criticize this gameplay loop is excessively simple and that's true that most Red Dead Redemption 2 quests are going to end up being just go here shoot these people and then come back or go here shoot these people grab this item and then bring back or this person and then bring them back to this location and while that seems highly simple again there's not a whole lot else that you can do with the formula and the characters that they have and once again I I don't think that it's fair to simplify it quite to that extent because part of what informs this whole gameplay loop to begin with is the narrative when you're listening to those discussions that are forming what you're doing and why you're doing it it's not going to seem as bland or as boring as you would otherwise expect but on the flip side I can see the argument where people say that the quest design is just not highly creative it has you doing a lot of the same stuff over and over and over again and I do agree with that they needed to shake it up and they needed to do some things differently but I wouldn't say that it's a mortal flaw that kills the game I wouldn't say that at all in fact we're actually gonna talk about the broader structure of all of these quests in a minute where the game really takes off and where I think the core gameplay loop lies is in that second option I laid out earlier which is when you go off and you try to make your own missions when you go out and you try to do your own things such as hunting trying to collect as many pelts as you can to raise money to go and get a new steed or a new and better saddle or a bunch of clothes and outfits a bunch of flashy guns that's when the game really takes off when you take matters into your own hands in addition to going on the story quests and doing what the narrative expects you to do so hunting fishing trapping exploring this is where the game stops being just an open-world shooter and instead becomes an open-world narrative sandbox and I know that distinction seems small but it's pretty significant when you actually think about the implications because you're allowed to make your own experience in the sandbox you aren't really allowed to make your own experience in the strict open-world shooter which has guide rails for you go on even though it's open-world if you're just bouncing between main quest marker domain quest marker main quest marker it's effectively just one giant level that has a bunch of quests in it that you're interacting with as opposed to an open-world that you can explore interact with that happens to have quest markers throughout it again small distinction but it's got big implications and I will say these moments where you're just exploring can be some of the most memorable and interesting in the entire 80 hours Plus that you spend playing the game there's so much to find here I'm sure I've only found half of the things that are crammed within this map even though they're very stretched out it's still pretty dense when you look at it on one of those maps that like IGN has assembled with all of the mini markers that are placed on the map it's pretty impressive like I found a Bigfoot carcass as well as a Bigfoot in a cave there's even houses with asteroids crashed through the roof and incestuous siblings Turab there really is a ton here you just have to go out and try to find it my main criticism here is actually that the game's narrative is so well developed especially after a few hours you really start to get engaged with it that rarely did I want to meander for a few hours to do my own thing I just wanted to progress through the story that I was so highly engaged in now give me don't get me wrong it's a good problem to have but still a lot of people aren't going to get to do any of these things such as hunting exploring and trapping until after the game is over 80 hours after the fact and to me that just seems like most people are probably gonna get to that point and think that they just have experienced everything the game has to offer or they'll be fatigued and they just got through this 80 hour experience and they just want to wash their hands and be done with it that's okay - I totally understand that but I think that they are missing out a little bit point being I think that the game could have done more to encourage players to do their own thing maybe you hide Mission spawn points and force players to explore I don't know you'd have to randomize it so that players don't just Google where the next mission spawn point is because then that kind of defeats the point of immersion within a game world I'm sure that they could think of something where you encourage the player to explore and allow them to understand that they don't need to rush through the story in the same way that I felt obligated to not not that it's a bad thing I enjoyed of course going through the story one mission after the other but it was because I felt as though the story needed to progress I thought that it was interesting and that the story was moving along and so I wanted to go through and figure out what happened next it's like when you're super engaged in a show on Hulu or Netflix and you just want to see the next episode no matter what it takes you're gonna see the next episode even though like you should probably take some time in-between otherwise it's not gonna be the same you want to know what happens next so you just hit next thing and go through it and it loses some of that potency because again you become desensitized to it your tolerance builds and it's just not as special as it was before quick little thing these longer videos I don't know if you can tell I can feel it but as these like four or five six hours shooting sessions go on I can really feel my voice start to change and shift and it always gets deeper and more raw I don't know if that's nice on your ear or if you can even hear a difference or tell I I don't know I can feel it but the only real way to fix is to stretch filming these things out over two three four days and just do an hour a day or something but that's not really an option because that would take even longer to make these videos than they already take so yeah I guess it's a necessary evil at this point now if we shift gears a little bit one of the best things that can happen in any sort of open-world narrative experience is when the narrative informs the gameplay and vice versa they're so interconnected that they seem to change the way that each other works so that it feels as though it's not just independent mechanics as a part of a larger entertainment product but rather that this is a living breathing world that has actual consequences for actions and things that happen within the story the narrative can even be stupid but if the narrative can change the way that the game functions it is inherently more interesting than a game where the antithesis is is true for instance look at hell-blade Santa's sacrifice I've actually done a critique of Hell BladeCenter was sacrificed before so if you want to hear me talk about this game for an hour which it's like a seven hour game so I spend like a seventh of the time that you could have been playing the game talking about regardless if you want to see that video all of it link down below now quick little spoiler warning I know you didn't expect me to talk about hell-blade so if you haven't played it yet or if you plan on playing it and this is going to make you angry if I spoil it just get forward I'll have a little timestamp here so that you can jump ahead so spoiler warning out of the way there is a moment in the game where Senna WA who deals with mental illness of course has a mental break and has to find her way through a spooky and scary labyrinth without sight and this is reflected in the way the game actually has you control her you the player also lose your sight and have to navigate by way of your hearing exclusively and considering the fact that they have what they call by aural audio that's used in the recording of the game and in the way that the game renders audio with headphones on it actually feels as though you are cinema it's not the typical game sound it's a completely different experience and I think that you should try it just for that weird different experience they also have voices that help guide you which are the voices with in cinemas head and the way that they recorded it makes it sound as though they're actually coming from inside your mind it's it's bizarre but it's really really cool at the same time and so as you explore this dark and spooky hallway you have to do it effectively by closing your eyes and just focusing on the audio walking through this hallway trying to avoid the monsters and the creeping sounds trusting your hearing in the same exact way that Senna would does and initially it's terrifying because you're utterly vulnerable you're closing your eyes you're just listening but once again the narrative is informing the gameplay the narrative is making you feel the same way that the character within the game is feeling and that's one of those magical things that games can do that no other medium can do in the same way it actually forces you to empathize with them putting your feet in their shoes because it makes you feel the same exact way now when Red Dead Redemption - does this it shifts not just small sequences such as a single hallway that you have to explore and get through it shifts entire themes macro ideas within the story the narrative in the characters lives think about when Arthur finds out that he has tuberculosis it changes his health and stamina gauges to the point where he's incapable of the same level of cardio and as the game carries on he deteriorates it begins to play in control like that which he is a sick and dying cowboy way past his prime or look at the opening during the opening Rockstar wanted to reinforce the feeling of being on the run not having a home and the human desire to belong to a family and so you run from Camp to camp trying to find a place to settle you protect and serve the people of your community and you also have to be very discreet while in some towns in order to reduce suspicion or a look at the epilogue which we mentioned earlier where in John's life seems to be super boring and uninteresting and the game seems to be super boring and uninteresting at that moment but once again it forces the player to feel the same way that John Marston feels like I've said before I'm sure there's a term for this some term that a scientist thought up at some point I've called this game play empathy before I I don't know if that terms been used before but I think it's appropriate because by way of and by means of game play they force you to feel and empathize with the character feeling the same things that they're feeling seeing the same things they're seeing and I think it's one of those magical things that video games can do that no other artistic medium can but with that said let's shift the discussion a little bit towards the broader quest design within the game it's one of the most commonly criticized things surrounding Red Dead Redemption too and I have some thoughts now I'm actually going to take a slightly different approach to this discussion then a lot of other critics have taken and that is to look at what we should have expected with Rockstar coming in to Red Dead Redemption to of course the last game that we received from Rockstar was Grand Theft Auto 5 and so a lot of people assume that the quest structure in the way that they designed these quests would take a lot from Grand Theft Auto 5 because after all that was the last game that they had grand theft auto's quests are highly freedom based highly focused on in autonomy and sovereignty with many varied options in the later game branching character choices etc by the way I'm gonna be doing a full critique of Grand Theft Auto 5 sometime in the near future make sure to subscribe if you want to see it and also check out my patreon if you want to see it a full week before everybody else yay and to be honest this quest structure seems to make sense for Grand Theft Auto I mean when you consider the fact that you have cars planes helicopters mountains in ocean and the sky it's literally the limit the sky is the limit there's also a ton of minigames which is something that Red Dead Redemption 2 takes from Grand Theft Auto 5 and the previous Red Dead Redemption there's a lot of little things you can do such as poker you can play the five finger shove a knife between your cracks game I think that's what it's called and that's broadly what grand theft auto 5 has to offer it's highly freedom based it's focused on individuals coming up with their own clever solutions to complex problems and it encourages that sort of creative gameplay and I think that's what a lot of people expected out of Red Dead Redemption too but I don't actually think that this is the best comparison I actually think the better comparison would be to look at a game that Rockstar published back in 2011 it's not a game that they developed but it's actually a game that they had a lot of influence over it's one of my favorites of all time of course I'm talking about la Noir I also did a full critique of this game too I'll have it linked down below if you want to check it out this game is very very linear it does have some branching in terms of the case options if you convict the wrong person or indict the wrong person it can shift sort of but it's set up in effect in blocks and stages so if you think about it destination aid to be you can have a long string between the two points you can take whichever path you want to but you're still gonna end up a destination B because the two ends of the string are attached there and then if you go B to C same thing long rope and then it ends up in the same spot but you still feel as you go from A to B to C to D to e you still feel as though you are having some sort of freedom you just don't realize that they're controlling your experience overall that's broadly the structure of le noir like I said most people thought that grand theft auto 5 was going to be the most direct comparison because it came out the most recently and it's the last game that they worked on but I think that that was a mistake I think le noir is the game that they took probably more from in addition of course to the original Red Dead Redemption but it does seem to me that a lot of the questing structure a lot of the way that they designed these interactions follow the rough structure of la noir the main reason why I think that this comparison is flawed comparing it to grand theft auto 5 and why comparing to la noir is more accurate has to do with this setting and it's actually the same reason that I've said Red Dead online is at a major disadvantage compared to grand theft auto online that's because when you have access to cars planes boats yachts motorcycles dirt bikes ATVs helicopters jets bazookas sniper rifles not to mention a massive metropolis designed to be explored and to mess around and your gameplay experience is going to be highly dynamic when you have those things on the contrary when you're playing in the setting of a Red Dead Redemption - you are highly constrained by definition by the setting because you are dealing with horses older rifles an untamed wilderness and there's just less room for craziness when you have la effectively in the form of Los Santos versus barren wilderness of course there's going to be differences in terms of what you can do and how you can play in it now I say constrained purposely because it isn't by definition a bad thing sure a modern setting allows for a lot of possibilities as you'd expect but a Wild West setting also grants a lot of possibilities to the developers might not be as explosive as a car chase with a bazooka and grenade launcher through Los Santos but it still is interesting and there still is the potential for a lot of really interesting set pieces and highly explosive moments with a lot of fire but it also allows for a level of immersion that you can't in Grand Theft Auto 5 at least in my opinion I think you can get much more immersed in the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 than in the world of Grand Theft Auto 5 simply by way of the absurdity that is inherent to Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto in general it's not a bad thing that they're absurd and the way that they design and structure everything it's a fact of the games and that's why a lot of people love the games including myself but it means that you're not going to get as engrossed in the narrative as you will with Red Dead Redemption 2 again there are different franchises they're different games they're trying to achieve different things and so what this effectively looks like is that Red Dead Redemption 's quests have a lot of dialogue and backstories building to either a singular shootout sequence to finish the mission or a fetch and return sequence where we're asked to acquire some person or thing and move it from one location to another and this may seem overly simple so I'm gonna use a couple of actual examples in pouring forth oil a story mission the gang is trying to organize a train heist that's based on information that you can acquire in Valentine John has the brilliant idea that you can take a bunch of oil spread it on the tracks and in turn make the driver stop and so you are tasked with helping acquire the oil you go to find an oil tanker you steal it and then you bring it to a previously agreed-upon location you have the exposition travel acquisition and then we complete the fetch quest and sometimes a quest can have the same sort of overall structure but I add a big set piece in order to spice it up and make it seem as though it's not the same thing that you've done a hundred times over earlier in the game I guess that's not really even a criticism it's just an observation that they tend to do this a lot I'm not complaining that they spice up these repetitive quests with large set pieces that's a good thing and I think they should do it because it does actually do what it seeks to do it distracts the player makes them realize they're not actually doing the same thing that they've done a thousand times over as does all of the dialogue that can happen during these missions for example look at the quest my last boy eagle flies shows up with a bunch of his buddies asks for your help overthrowing the factory in the heartland oil fields and then his two father rain falls begs him not to go because he's his quote/unquote last boy and that it would be useless because he can't win in the end but eagle flies being young doesn't care leaves anyway Arthur writes to try and stop the reckless eagle flies you engage in a massive shootout and then return eagle flies to his father after you find him mortally wounded because he decided to help you when Dutch didn't again it's the same overall quest that we've seen before it's effectively a fetch quest it's just instead of fetching an oil tanker you're fetching a person and instead of bringing them back to a predetermined location you're bringing him all the way back because he's injured so you can't just talk him out of it and there's a large shootout that keeps it exciting but in this case there's a large set-piece and there's a lot of very important story beats that happens which once again breaks up the overall quest so you don't feel as though you're just going on a fetch quest it feels as though you're actually going and doing something important which again you are so I'm not really criticizing the fact that they've shaken it up I'm just observing and pointing out that the quests are incredibly similar or repetitive all the way throughout the game they just flash them up in different ways with different coats of paint so you don't realize it's the same thing to me it seems like the quest that we're talking about the overall structure is like the canvas yes all the canvases or can buy whatever it is are the same it's just a matter a matter of how much paint you put on it how you put it on it what image you imprint on it to turn it from just to plain canvas into something more special they're using the same rough outline but they're dressing it up so that it becomes something different is the outline the same yes but it's the end product very different also yes so it's not a direct criticism it's just an observation pointing out that these quests are very very similar it's just a matter of set dressing furthermore the game does a really good job of interconnecting everything that's within it so for example in the affirmation quest my last boy at the end your vision goes and artha actually falls off of his horse once again his health is declining he's becoming sick and he just becomes light head it falls off his horse and then he's rescued by a family who brings him into their home helps him become healthy again I guess saves his life presumably and this family is actually a family you encountered earlier in the game during the quest a strange kindness it's the German family that you rescued when you first started playing the game and it's something that probably not a lot of people are even going to notice until it's pointed out to them that this is the same family that rescued you sure they have a little line here and there you saved us we're saving you now something along those lines but still it's it's a small detail it's something that they didn't need to do they could have had anybody any family find him and pick him up and it would have been fine but instead they have all of it interconnected so again you see as though this is sort of a Redemption it's it's an actual reflection of the overall broader story your actions do have consequences and can come back to either bite you or help you in the end another example is whenever you help anybody during these dynamic encounters that can happen throughout the world you can see them again in town if you saved some guy who was trapped under his horse you can see him outside of a tavern talk with him and he'll buy you a shot of whiskey just for helping him out so you get whiskey for free and it's those little things that help the world feel even more alive that helped the gameplay feel worth it engaging in because again your decisions have an impact in the broader world another smaller detail that's been mentioned before but I still find really really interesting and well-done is the fact that you can actually see the moment that Arthur catches tuberculosis it's during the quest money-lending in other sins I believe part 3 when he actually goes to receive money from a farmer who is very sick and hasn't been able to raise the crops I suppose in order to sell and repay his debt and when Arthur comes and interacts with him the guy actually gets very angry because Arthur is beating him up spits in his face and in that moment he's become infected he's in contact with the to Burke and it's it's just such a small detail because again if you just saw that Arthur got tuberculosis I and many other people just accept that yeah he got tuberculosis this is the Wild West that happened all the time in every movie it seems like before 1915 set before 1950 you see somebody caught into their hand or or handkerchief or something and it gets all red and it's dripping and everybody just kind of accepts that oh they're gonna be dead in a week oh well it's just like part of life at that point so I think a lot of people just accepted it bar none as just something that happens I know I did cuz I wasn't thinking back to that one time I encountered some person who coughed it's a detail they didn't need to include but they chose to include it and I think that's what separates these developers and and the the writers of this game separates them from everybody else because again they didn't need to nobody would have criticized them if they hadn't done this but they chose to nobody would have freaked out and said well I wish we had seen the moment that Arthur caught tuberculosis nobody would have said that because nobody would have cared they didn't know that they wanted to see it until you gave it to them all of these things make the game feel alive make it feel polished and make it feel worth exploring and all of this brings me to the broader discussion of the game's legacy and this is always the hardest part of any critique because it's still to be written it's still happening and it's something we're gonna see over the course of the next decade what games take from this game what games don't take from this game what developers feel as though are the core lessons to be garnered from it and what they feel like should be left behind and what's outdated what's not worth carrying forward into the next generation of games and so it's tough to discuss it's tough to figure out exactly what to say but I do have some thoughts Red Dead Redemption to is without a doubt one of the best narrative games I have ever played and I don't have any doubts or reservations about that I stand behind that statement and I think many people who have played the game would also stand behind that statement the elephant in the room of course is that Red Dead Redemption too did not get my Game of the Year award it went to God of War and that's mainly because God of War is an exceptional game in its right and to me it seemed as though Red Dead Redemption too played it safe and sure it had one of the greatest narratives I think that's ever been put into a videogame period if not downright the best but they didn't take a lot of risks they didn't change the formula they made a rockstar game and in many cases the Rockstar game that many people expected them to make and they didn't really surprise anybody everybody expects rockstar to be one of the best and to do the narrative in a fantastic way especially with regards to Red Dead Redemption and that franchise and they delivered they did exactly what we wanted them to but they didn't change the formula that didn't reinvent the wheel they didn't reinvent much of anything and I think the core question is did they need to is Rockstar just so far ahead of everybody else that an outdated Rockstar game is still way ahead of everybody else's open-world game and that's something that I don't think is quite fair I think there are elements as we've said throughout this video where Red Dead Redemption too could improve it and where Rockstar could improve the the gameplay and the gameplay loop and the way that they've structured it and they way that they encourage players to explore the worlds but still it's it's undeniable that Rockstar is at the cutting edge and even when they make an outdated game it's still one of the best games ever made and so I guess the single takeaway for me if I had to summarize it in one sentence it would be that Red Dead Redemption 2 is predictably amazing it's exactly what we expected it to be which is both a good thing and a bad thing it's it's a good thing because we expected excellence we expected one of the best narrative games ever made and we got it it's bad because they didn't do anything risky they didn't take any chances they didn't do anything revolutionary which is part of what's made rock star rock star rock star is the studio they are because they stood behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise which everybody told them to abandon because of all the bad press everybody told them that it wasn't worth engaging it they have engaged in many other franchises which the broader press has told them to avoid but they stick to their guns and they do these risky things even though everybody's telling them it's not going to work you shouldn't believe in that project it's a waste of time blah blah blah it ends up working and that's what separates Rockstar and so while this game is predictably amazing it also is lacking part of what makes Rockstar one of the best studios on the planet and that is their risk-taking and their ability to just take the leap of faith off of the cliff and prove to everybody that they can fly even though nobody believed that they could and so while Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the greatest games I have ever played without a doubt in my mind I think Rockstar could have done more I think they could have taken more risks and I think they could have done something even more amazing which is saying something but that's all from me thank you for watching honestly and truly this video has taken just over six and a half hours to film in this cold dark and somehow also hot room not to mention the months of work that went into it before we even sat down to film it today and the hours and days and potentially weeks of work that will go on after this has been filmed to get it actually ready to be published for patrons and viewers like yourself so the fact that you've watched it this far through if you've gotten to this point honestly thank you you are what make all of this possible and and worth it I really do appreciate it I'm gonna go get some sleep and I hope you enjoyed the video if you liked it hit the like button maybe share it with your friends consider subscribing and if you want to see more videos like this and want to see them a week before everybody else patreon thank you I love you all bye you

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 513,215

Keywords: luke stephens

Id: rEbwtWaUJm4

Length: 95min 19sec (5719 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2019