"Red Dead Redemption 2" is breathtaking at all levels

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developped by: rock star games

Published by: Take two interactive

Available on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Looking at the sunlight while there was twinkling trees in all its subtle abundance, I thought of Vermeer. Never would I have imagined that the games would look like this, so imbued with details that would recall some of the exemplary painters of Western art. Such thoughts tickled my brain for the first thirty hours I spent with "Red Dead Redemption 2". Since "Grand Theft Auto IV" (2008), I have just anticipated a kind of feeling without depth when I start a new game Rockstar. The company that has most popularized open-world game design is making unique bunny holes. How many things can you do? How dazzling are the sites? What is the quality of the music? These are the questions I've asked in the last ten years, every time Rockstar has dropped a new game. In the interval before the answers – before I know perfectly what my avatar can do, before I am more or less accustomed to the flourishing of the audiovisual – I lose myself as I rarely do with other mega-budget games. From Rockstar, I came to expect the shock of the news.

Created in 1899, at the twilight of the Old West, "Red Dead Redemption 2" ("RDR2") tells the story of the unbridled dissolution of the Van der Linde gang. The fate of Dutchman Van der Linde will be known to those who played in the first match, but the story of the first days of his gang is as captivating as anything that happens in the popular game. While "Red Dead Redemption" (2010) focused on the wanderings of John Marston, a former Van der Linde gang member, in "RDR2", the players embody another gang member, Marston, Arthur Morgan, a laconic man just as brutal. Although the world of "RDR2" offers many incentives to go alone with your horse – to see, hunt, fish, bet or search for odd ones to interact with – the game is extremely geared towards group dynamics. In fact, the main purpose of his debut is to establish how much Arthur and the rest of his cohorts are captivated by the charismatic leadership of Dutch.

Dutch, who is subject to crises of mania and melancholy, is a dreamer who exhorts his faithful to remain faithful to his vision of "living free", beyond the entanglements of civilization with taxes and sedentary habits. Dutch sees himself both as an outlaw, attached to an ideal of personal authenticity and as a fierce realist who sees the darkness among all, including himself. He is a trusted boss until his erratic behavior begins to calm the affections of those around him. Arthur's journey, which sought Dutch's approval (jealous of John Marston at first) and called into question his judgment, is magnificently framed by his interaction with other gang members.

The main joy of "RDR2" has just been hanging out with your outlaw colleagues, whether it's a mission in which you enter or get out of trouble or that you take a little time out in the morning. one of the campsites that serves as a temporary home to the gang. During the many hours that I spent with the game, I appreciated the attention given to creating the various personalities of the Van de Linde gang. The characters speak suggestively and give the impression of saying nothing. You feel the weight of the story behind them.

One of the technical innovations of "RDR2" is its system of dialogue. Unlike games that interrupt the action for the moments of conversation where you are free to react, in "RDR2", conversations outside cinematics or other scenario times are triggered by pressing the left trigger to focus on a person, then choosing a conversation prompt. using one of the buttons on the face of the controller. I suspect that other developers will implement this system because it offers the player a dialogue option without moving away from the surrounding activity. Another innovation of the game is its cinematic camera mode. Arthur must set a destination on the map and then, at the touch of a button, watch the image on the screen switch to a wide-angle frame with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen . Although Rockstar has used cinematic camera angles in the past, the work of the camera is here at another level. No other game seems as natural to watch on the autopilot as if it were a movie.