Red Dead Redemption is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. A spiritual successor to 2004's Red Dead Revolver, it is the second game in the Red Dead series. Red Dead Redemption is set during the decline of the American frontier in the year 1911 and follows John Marston, a former outlaw whose wife and son are taken hostage by the government in ransom for his services as a hired gun. Having no other choice, Marston sets out to bring three members of his former gang to justice.
The game is played from a third-person perspective. The player may freely roam in its interactive open world, a fictionalized version of the Western United States and Northern Mexico, primarily by horseback and on foot. Gunfights emphasize a gunslinger gameplay mechanic called "Dead Eye" that allows players to mark multiple shooting targets on enemies in slow motion. The game makes use of a morality system, by which the player's actions in the game affect their character's levels of honor and fame and how other characters respond to the player. An online multiplayer mode is included with the game, allowing up to 16 players to engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting.
The game's development lasted over five years, and it became one of the most expensive video games ever made. Rockstar improved its proprietary game engine to increase its technological capabilities. The development team conducted extensive research, including field trips to Washington, D.C. and analyzing classic Western films, to achieve realism while creating the game. The team hired professional actors to perform the body movements through motion capture. Red Dead Redemption features an original score composed by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson. The game's development received controversy following accusations of unethical working practices. The working hours and managerial style of the studio was met with public complaints from staff members.
Red Dead Redemption was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2010. It received critical acclaim for its visuals, music, performances, gameplay, and narrative. It won several year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications, and is considered by critics as one of the best video games ever made. It had shipped around 23 million copies by 2021, making it one of the best-selling video games. After the game's release, several downloadable content additions were released; Undead Nightmare, later released as a standalone game, added a new single-player campaign in which Marston searches for a cure for an infectious zombie plague. A prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, was released in October 2018.
Gameplay
Red Dead Redemption is a Western-themed action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. The player controls John Marston and completes missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story; in the game's epilogue, the player controls John's son Jack.[2] Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world environment, consisting of the American states New Austin and West Elizabeth—fictionalized versions of the Western United States—and the fictional Mexican state of Nuevo ParaÃso.[3] Different breeds of horses are the main forms of transportation, each with different attributes. Horses must be tamed in the wild, stolen, or purchased in order to use them.[4] The player can utilize trains and carriages for quick travel.[5] The game's undeveloped land makes up the largest portion of the game world, featuring various rugged and vast landscapes with occasional travelers, bandits, and wildlife. Urban settlements range from isolated farmhouses to crowded towns.[6]
The player can witness and partake in random events as they explore the game world, including public hangings, ambushes, pleas for assistance, encounters with strangers, ride-by shootings, and dangerous animal attacks. Optional side activities are also available, such as dueling, bounty hunting, herb collecting, gambling, and hunting. Red Dead Redemption uses an Honor system, which measures how the player's actions are perceived in terms of morality. Morally positive deeds, such as capturing an outlaw alive or saving a stranger, will add up to the player's Honor. Conversely, negative choices such as murder will subtract from the player's Honor. This works in conjunction with the Fame system, which affects how non-player characters (NPCs) react to the player based on their Honor.[7] If the player has high Honor, NPCs will greet them and they will receive discounts in some stores;[8] if low, NPCs will act insecure and establishments may close their doors. The player can disguise themselves by wearing a bandana when performing criminal acts.[7]
Gunfights are an essential gameplay mechanic in Red Dead Redemption. The player can take cover, target a specific person or animal, blindfire, and free aim.[9] Individual body parts can also be targeted, in order to take targets down non-lethally. Weapons consist of revolvers, pistols, rifles, shotguns, knives, explosives, and lassos.[10] Aiming utilizes a gunslinger gameplay mechanic known as Dead Eye, a targeting system that allows the player to slow down time and mark targets. Once the targeting sequence ends, the player fires to all marked locations in extremely quick succession.[11] The Dead Eye system upgrades and grants more abilities as the player progresses through the story.[7]
The game introduces the bounty system, a crime-governing mechanic inspired by Grand Theft Auto's wanted system. When the player commits a crime, witnesses run to the nearest police station. The player can either bribe or kill them before they reach the station, negating any consequences. Once the law is alerted, the Wanted meter appears with a bounty set on the player's head. The bounty grows higher as the player commits more crimes, and more lawmen will be sent to hunt them.[7] After committing enough crime, the U.S. Marshals or Mexican Army will be sent to the player's location. To evade law enforcement in pursuit, the player must escape a circular zone or kill all lawmen in a town. If the player escapes, bounty hunters will continue to track after them.[12][13] The bounty will remain on their head until they pay it at a telegraph station or present a pardon letter.[7]
The online multiplayer allows up to 16 players to engage in competitive and cooperative gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting. Each game begins with a Mexican standoff, of which the survivors can move to any part of the battlefield in preparation for respawning enemies. Event types include deathmatch scenarios and capture the flag variants. Crates in the environment contain extra weapons, ammo, and other powerups. Players can level up and complete weapon challenges which earn them rewards such as new character models, golden weapon skins, new titles, and new breeds of animal mounts.[14] Multiplayer also features open-world gameplay, wherein players can form or join a group of up to eight players in a "posse" group and partake in hunting or attack other gangs or posses.[7] In some game modes, players are unable to kill each other.[15][b]
Plot
In 1911, the family of former outlaw John Marston (Rob Wiethoff) is kidnapped by Bureau of Investigation agents, Edgar Ross (Jim Bentley) and Archer Fordham (David Wilson Barnes), who force him to hunt down his former gang members in exchange for his family's return. John first goes after former ally Bill Williamson (Steve J. Palmer), who now leads his own gang that terrorizes the residents of New Austin. He arrives at Williamson's stronghold at Fort Mercer, but fails to persuade him to surrender, resulting in John being shot and left for dead. Rescued by local rancher Bonnie MacFarlane (Kimberly Irion), he helps her with several jobs around her farm, while formulating a plan to attack Williamson's gang. John makes a number of allies to help him carry out the attack, including U.S. Marshal Leigh Johnson (Anthony De Longis), con artist Nigel West Dickens (Don Creech), treasure hunter Seth Briars (Kevin Glikmann), and an arms smuggler known as "Irish" (K. Harrison Sweeney). Ultimately, John and his allies storm Fort Mercer and kill all of Williamson's men, but learn that Williamson has fled to Mexico to seek help from Javier Escuella (Antonio Jaramillo), another former member of John's gang. John parts ways with his allies and travels to Mexico.
Upon his arrival in Nuevo ParaÃso, John becomes involved in a local civil war between Colonel AgustÃn Allende (Gary Carlos Cervantes), the state's tyrannical ruler, and Abraham Reyes (Josh Segarra), the leader of a rebellion against Allende's government. John works with both sides in exchange for help in tracking down his targets. When Allende decides to turn on him, John is rescued by Reyes and vows to aid the rebels in gaining an advantage. During a raid on an Army fortress, the rebels help him find Escuella, who reveals that Williamson is under Allende's protection. After killing or capturing Escuella, John hands him over to Ross and Fordham. Reyes eventually leads an assault on Allende's palace, and John helps him chase and execute Allende and Williamson when they attempt to flee. Leaving Reyes to rule Nuevo ParaÃso and lead his revolution to Mexico's capital, John returns to the United States.
In Blackwater, Ross and Fordham enlist John's help in tracking down Dutch van der Linde (Benjamin Byron Davis), his former gang's leader and John's former mentor. Dutch has recently formed a gang with disaffected Native Americans, with whom he shares a hatred for the government and modernization. Aided by Ross's associates, John finds Dutch's stronghold in the mountains. After helping Ross and Fordham thwart Dutch's robbery of the Blackwater Bank, John partakes in the U.S. Army's assault on Dutch's stronghold. Chased to a cliff, Dutch concedes defeat and warns John that the Bureau will not give him peace, before committing suicide. Afterward, Ross honors their agreement and allows John to be reunited with his family.
Returning to his ranch, John reunites with his wife Abigail (Sophia Marzocchi), son Jack (Josh Blaylock) and former gang member Uncle (Spider Madison) to attempt an honest life again. However, this peace is short-lived as Ross betrays John and leads a small army in an attack on his ranch. John tries to fend them off, but the attacking force is too large, and Uncle is killed. John helps his family escape and stays to confront the attackers, who shoot him to death and leave. In 1914, Jack buries Abigail after she dies, and exacts revenge by killing the recently retired Ross.
Themes and analysis
Red Dead Redemption explores themes of the cycle of violence,[17] faith,[19] governmental control,[20] the loss of innocence and freedom,[21] manifest destiny,[22] masculinity,[23] social change,[24] and redemption;[25] it also received commentary for its representation of Native Americans[26] and violence.[27] IGN's Erik Brudvig considered it a commentary on modern political issues such as racism and immigration;[28] writer Dan Houser said that the story was not intended as a satire of contemporary America, but that parallels were inevitable due to the similarities of the time period.[21] Some scholars identified that the game conforms to neoliberal values,[29][30] particularly in its depoliticizing of the sufferers of corporate greed,[31] though one scholar conversely felt that it ridicules the selfishness of neoliberals.[32][33] Matt Margini described the narrative as a tragedy, citing Aristotle's proposal that the hero is neither good nor evil and that "tragic heroes are tragic because they bring about their own fall, despite having good intentions".[34]
Several scholars noted that, despite the use of the word "redemption" in the game's title, such a feat was impossible for John;[19][25] Reid McCarter of Bullet Points Monthly described the use of the word as "bitterly ironic" due to the inability of reinvention for both the characters and the country.[25] Margini wrote that the final chapter allowed the player to feel that they had achieved the promised redemption,[35] only for it to be taken away by the story's end.[36] Conversely, Kotaku's Heather Alexandra felt that John achieved his redemption upon sacrificing himself to save his family.[37] Benjamin J. Triana found that, while John's death "implies transcendence", it is not overtly sacrificial, nor does it represent John as a hero.[38] Gamasutra's Richard Clark considered the depiction of redemption to be "cynical and overly simple".[19] Red Dead Redemption also explores the impacts of the cycle of violence,[17] most notably represented through Jack's continuation of his father's failures by adopting the outlaw status.[18][39][40] NPR's Jason Sheehan considered the game a tale of "the senselessness of violence used to solve violence begetting only more violence".[41] M. Melissa Elston found that, like other modern media, it attempts to "reframe the violence and simplistic moral dualism of previous pop-cultural representations of the Old West".[42] The game drew some commentary for its depiction of violence; Margini considered it justifiable since "violence means something".[43] Timothy J. Welsh felt similarly, adding that it is "just a game", but recognized the worrisome nihilism it could perpetuate if generalized.[44] Christopher Bartel rebutted this sentiment, expressing hesitancy at the moral justification of virtual murder and noting that "even hard-core gamers might balk at virtual sadism".[45]
The game presents the ethos of the American Dream in its formation, in contrast with the modern-day representation in Grand Theft Auto IV (2008).[46] While John's violent past rendered him unable to achieve redemption, it also impacted his son's own ability to achieve the American Dream as he becomes an outlaw like his father.[25] The game also features commentary on freedom and control,[41] and the manner in which societal change acts as a catalyst for losing one's control and compromising their morality.[47] The journey from the open fields to the city of Blackwater represents civilization's control over the natural world, though the player lacks control during the opening sequence in which John leaves Blackwater, only gaining it when reentering the city later in the game.[20] While Red Dead Redemption grants the player freedom, they ultimately lack control over the narrative as "being free to do things is not the same as being able to change things", an ideology that is directly reflected in John's inability to prevent his own death.[48] Triana felt that the ending allowed the player to properly understand John's rejection of a developing society and institutions due to the misery endured from the government.[49] The game also demonstrates the disparities of economic inequality;[50] Sara Humphreys identified a connection between MacFarlane's Ranch and the class conflict of Johnson County, Wyoming in the late nineteenth century.[51]
While marketing materials presented John as a traditional cowboy—isolated and violent,[52] a "white, heteronormative, rugged individual"[53]—his behaviour and ambitions in the narrative are generally unconventional.[52][54] His ambiguity and internal conflict lead him to exhibit "weariness more than manliness".[55] Regardless, John continues to perpetuate stereotypes in some instances; he continues to preserve lives in his missions for the government despite his bitter opposition to them, described as an enactment of Theodore Roosevelt's masculine ideals.[56] Triana found the game's masculinity to be plural, with the male lead generally pitted against other men, though recognized that the dominance of the characters often shifted throughout the narrative.[57] He also recognized that John's challenges reflected those of straight, cisgender men in the modern era.[58] Margini blamed John's downfall on "the false promises of a world built on hypermasculine ideals", emphasized by John's unsuccessful attempts to adopt a new form of masculinity and play an empathetic father to Jack.[59] Juho Tuominen described John as an idealist and Jack as "the educated youth, a version of a new kind of woke man".[60] The representation of female characters is mixed; Bonnie MacFarlane is presented as "insightful and resourceful" instead of simply "a woman masquerading as a male figure", though still defers to simple domestic tasks in the presence of her father,[61] and on one occasion becomes the damsel in distress.[17] Meanwhile, Abigail is presented as "the good prostitute who serves as a handmaiden" and later becomes "the nagging wife", and other female characters exist simply to reflect back onto John, both positively and negatively.[17]
In further opposition with the American Dream, the game's representation of Native Americans is bleak, cruel, and violent.[46] Jodi A. Byrd identified that, in the game's title, "Red Dead" signalled the genocide of the Native Americans. McCarter of Bullet Points felt that, while the killing of Native Americans is explained in the context of the story, it is "a shaky rationale meant to echo the rhetoric" surrounding the genocide and forced relocation.[25] Elston recognized the Native American character Nastas as an example of Gerald Vizenor's "manifest manners", a falsification of the indigenous experience being told as truth.[63] Dr. Esther Wright proposed that Native American characters were included only to justify and complement the white characters' otherness as oppositional to the government and civilization, describing it as "a disingenuous oversimplification and (mis)use of the complexities of Native American genocide".[64] She also identified that, while John is not overtly racist, his participation in an attack on an Indian reservation implicates him in "a micro-scale recreation of racist, genocidal violence".[64] Margini considered that the representation could either be an example of dark satire, or "a crafty way of excusing their genocide at Marston's hand", aligned with a wider erasure seen in other Western media.[65] Triana wrote that Native Americans "end up victims to the game's evil social forces" due to John's priority of reuniting with his family.[49]
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