‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ is still one of gaming’s greatest achievements

It’s just a few days shy of September, 2023, and I am utterly alone in the wilderness, save for the company of my faithful steed, Hugh Hoofner. I love the solitude. I know from experience that I will die from a combination of tuberculosis and severe physical trauma a few hours from now, so I’m living the good life while I can, fishing next to a waterfall on the Kamassa river. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll land a steelhead trout big enough to be worth mailing to a guy I met for about a minute and a half one time. I am surrounded on all sides by nature’s majesty, just begging for an improved arrow through the sternum or a deadeye hailfire of varmint rifle ammunition.

I’m thinking about all of the other times that I’ve jumped back into Red Dead Redemption 2 since its release in 2018. About sitting with my brother in our apartment in Chicago in 2019, cackling in disbelief at the chimeric nightmare monster we’ve just found taxidermied together in an abandoned house. About taking straight pulls of gin with my now-ex girlfriend in rural Washington during lockdown, seeing how long it would take to grow Arthur Morgan’s beard all the way out if we did nothing but stand outside the general store in Saint Denis drinking five hair tonics at a shot, then poured liquor down his throat until he passed out, then did it again, and again, and again. We quoted Dutch van der Linde in the lead-up to that first train robbery the first time we put on masks to go grocery shopping. I’m remembering showing my history buff dad the recreations of Old West firearms and seeing him get excited about a video game for the first time since the family Dell came with a free Incoming demo disc in 1998.

Five years after it tagged into our lives, RDR2 is still untouchable. Turn it on, ride toward the sunset, and watch housemates who don’t game stop in their tracks and go “wow” on their way through the living room. Complain all you want about how long it takes to get off of the mountain in the game’s first act. You know you’ll be back. Maybe, like me, you’ll get back into multiplayer for about a week once a year, forgetting, like me, that you’re terrible at it and that it almost always turns into a sisyphean Wile E. Coyote cartoon where you’re repeatedly sniped by the same stranger from the other side of the Heartlands.

Or maybe you’ll get sucked back into a story that’s somehow equal parts timeless tragedy and choose-your-own-adventure, one that keeps hitting you right in the gut no matter how many times and ways you’ve seen it play out. Choose to get emotionally assaulted by Mary and her booze-soaked dad and her weird, turtle-worshiping little brother all over again. Haunt yourself with images of ghostly bucks and wolves. Beat a sick man half to death for money, knowing full well that he’s inadvertently firing a slow, silent bullet into your lungs while you do it. 

Alternatively, don’t do any of that, and just dick around for endless hours instead. Find a cart full of dynamite and run it into the side of a casino, jumping off at the last second dressed like a viking and waving a pirate sword in the air. Fire a gatling gun at an alligator, or finally hunt down that legendary fox and punish it for swallowing so much of your life with its gordian knot of tracks. See how many white supremacist carcasses you can fit on one crate of explosives and still leave yourself enough room to pull off the shot that’ll turn them into a very wet Fourth of July display. Pick orchids. There’s an alarming amount of orchid picking side quests available to interested parties. Five years after it first premiered with the most financially successful three-day opening in entertainment history, Red Dead Redemption 2 still manages to exceed expectations, visually, technically, and emotionally. It’s whatever you want it to be – a 50 hour, 75-square-mile playground, built around the cowboy fantasies shared by generations of excited dummies like me. It’s a working man’s visit to Westworld, minus the downers like having to grow up to be Ed Harris or watch your girlfriend flash eyes at anyone with a can of condensed milk. Flying in the face of a world filled video game companies that promise revolution and offer disappointment, it is basically perfect.

Also, did you know about the vampire in Saint Denis? I’m just finding out about it right now. Why didn’t anyone tell me about that? Man, this game rules.