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Red Dead Redemption 2Credit: Rockstar Games
It’s easy to see how a GTA Online fan might be taken back. This is a developer known for rocket cars, jetpacks and all sorts of other manic, explosive insanity, and all of a sudden we’re back in the old west, where the horses most definitely do not have rockets on them. Red Dead Redemption 2 is not GTA in any way save the essential control schemes and setup: it is a slow, methodical ride through late-19th century America, and that’s taking some people time to get used to.
But we might also remember that the very first thing that Rockstar asks us to do in GTA Online is to buy car insurance, and we remember that this is sort of what this developer does.
It’s a topic of debate in these days following the release of one of the industry’s most-anticipated games for many years. Is Red Dead Redemption 2 too slow? Is the time it takes to loot a body or execute an elaborate skinning animation just too much? Does the glacial pace with which Arthur Morgan strolls through camp bog the game down? It’s a tough one because the game clearly wants you to take your time and feel the weight of what’s happening, and it often succeeds. The problem is that slowness doesn’t always register when it feels forced.
Here’s the thing: I don’t actually think the pace is a problem, even though I’ve been fairly critical of related problems over the past few days. Plenty of other games succeed by slowing things down and moving towards a more meditative pace: right now I’m thinking of No Man’s Sky, which exists mostly as a slow, steady resource-collecting game that lets you gradually build and expand your world as you see fit. Or maybe Subnautica, a tighter but still-intentionally paced game that lets its obstacles serve as orienting points. Or maybe even World of Warcraft, where people can spend hours in between raids just picking flowers.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem, however. The problem comes not from the pacing itself but the fact that it’s in this game, in particular. Red Dead Redemption 2 is at its best when its a kind of cowboy simulator: you head out onto the plains, you use your binoculars to spy some deer in the distance, you track them down and wait for a clean kill. You get off your horse and skin it, draping the skin over the back of your horse before seeing someone off in the distance that looks stranded. You give them a hand back to town before heading to the trapper to see what sort of a price you can get on the skin. On the way, you notice you’re getting a little hungry, so you kill a rabbit and eat it at camp. When you get into Saint Denis you grab a quick meal and a bath so that you look presentable.
It’s this sort of gameplay where Red Dead Redemption 2 works, and where the slow pace feels intentional and right. The problem is that this isn’t really the game Rockstar made here. Rockstar made an involved cinematic experience that feels strangely outdated given the many ways in which this game is leaps and bounds above the rest of the industry. And that’s the essential problem: that the demands of a narrative game, particularly one as long as this, are uniquely mismatched with the slow, contemplative gameplay on offer from the rest of the world. Most of the strongest narrative games out there–think Uncharted or God of War–bolster their storytelling with linear gameplay and a tight control on pacing.
So no, I don’t necessarily think that Red Dead Redemption 2’s mechanics are too slow on an essential level. I think that they’ll be right at home in a persistent online mode. The problem is that they just don’t work with the story that already drags on and down. It leads to a mismatch that can make the game feel monotonous.
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Red Dead Redemption 2Credit: Rockstar Games
It’s easy to see how a GTA Online fan might be taken back. This is a developer known for rocket cars, jetpacks and all sorts of other manic, explosive insanity, and all of a sudden we’re back in the old west, where the horses most definitely do not have rockets on them. Red Dead Redemption 2 is not GTA in any way save the essential control schemes and setup: it is a slow, methodical ride through late-19th century America, and that’s taking some people time to get used to.
But we might also remember that the very first thing that Rockstar asks us to do in GTA Online is to buy car insurance, and we remember that this is sort of what this developer does.
It’s a topic of debate in these days following the release of one of the industry’s most-anticipated games for many years. Is Red Dead Redemption 2 too slow? Is the time it takes to loot a body or execute an elaborate skinning animation just too much? Does the glacial pace with which Arthur Morgan strolls through camp bog the game down? It’s a tough one because the game clearly wants you to take your time and feel the weight of what’s happening, and it often succeeds. The problem is that slowness doesn’t always register when it feels forced.
Here’s the thing: I don’t actually think the pace is a problem, even though I’ve been fairly critical of related problems over the past few days. Plenty of other games succeed by slowing things down and moving towards a more meditative pace: right now I’m thinking of No Man’s Sky, which exists mostly as a slow, steady resource-collecting game that lets you gradually build and expand your world as you see fit. Or maybe Subnautica, a tighter but still-intentionally paced game that lets its obstacles serve as orienting points. Or maybe even World of Warcraft, where people can spend hours in between raids just picking flowers.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem, however. The problem comes not from the pacing itself but the fact that it’s in this game, in particular. Red Dead Redemption 2 is at its best when its a kind of cowboy simulator: you head out onto the plains, you use your binoculars to spy some deer in the distance, you track them down and wait for a clean kill. You get off your horse and skin it, draping the skin over the back of your horse before seeing someone off in the distance that looks stranded. You give them a hand back to town before heading to the trapper to see what sort of a price you can get on the skin. On the way, you notice you’re getting a little hungry, so you kill a rabbit and eat it at camp. When you get into Saint Denis you grab a quick meal and a bath so that you look presentable.
It’s this sort of gameplay where Red Dead Redemption 2 works, and where the slow pace feels intentional and right. The problem is that this isn’t really the game Rockstar made here. Rockstar made an involved cinematic experience that feels strangely outdated given the many ways in which this game is leaps and bounds above the rest of the industry. And that’s the essential problem: that the demands of a narrative game, particularly one as long as this, are uniquely mismatched with the slow, contemplative gameplay on offer from the rest of the world. Most of the strongest narrative games out there–think Uncharted or God of War–bolster their storytelling with linear gameplay and a tight control on pacing.
So no, I don’t necessarily think that Red Dead Redemption 2’s mechanics are too slow on an essential level. I think that they’ll be right at home in a persistent online mode. The problem is that they just don’t work with the story that already drags on and down. It leads to a mismatch that can make the game feel monotonous.
