Red Dead Redemption 2 exclusive first-look preview: Here comes the next great Western

After finally seeing Red Dead Redemption 2 in action for the first time, it’s clear that the next great Western is not a film. It’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

During a visit to Rockstar North’s studio in Edinburgh, I had been made aware of the hand-crafting involved in creating its vast 19th century American landscape, the meticulous sound design that ensures its score never arrives or leaves with a crash, and the effort that has gone into making sure there’s never a break in the action. It’s clear that every effort has been made to ensure the world is as action-packed and involving as possible.

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But none of that prepares you for watching the studio’s efforts working in sync. The way mud gleams in the sunshine. How a bank heist taking place during a monkey’s wedding looks positively poetic. And how the game’s protagonist, outlaw Arthur Morgan, drops to his haunches to contemplate the horizon after a period of player inactivity manages to feel both natural and strangely intimate.

As you might expect from Rockstar, the standard-bearers of the open-world, the team has done a fantastic job of making its slice of the Wild West feel authentic, reactive and lived-in. Following Morgan as he explores the woods and streams near his gang’s encampment, you immediately notice the variety in the vistas and the devils in the details.

As he trudges on his way, his movement is scored by another gang member picking out a tune on a guitar, he encounters compatriots boasting of past adventures, friends chopping firewood and Uncle, the gang’s deadweight; hungover and useless as always.

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You travel through pine-forests and along rock outcroppings affording beautiful views of sun-bleached grass. At one point Morgan picks his way through a settlement that had been razed to the ground, black wood contrasting with the azure sky and the fields of green stretching beyond scorched earth.

Of course, it isn’t long before the action kicks into gear, during which Morgan and three of his fellow gang members --Lenny, Karen and Bill-- embark on a bank heist. The scenario moves from a brief planning session with the group, to Karen heading in first to distract the customers and bank personnel by behaving like she’s drunk,  to the gang crashing through the bank’s doors, terrorising the staff and clientele and forcing the manager into the building’s vault room. In short order guns were drawn and lead started flying and while it was all thrilling to watch, I still couldn’t help but gawp at the game’s beautiful scenery.

It’s a predictably terrific introduction to Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar Games --the publisher and developer behemoth helmed by Sam and Dan Houser and the UK’s most bankable video games company-- has produced games that run the gamut from survival horror (Manhunt) to gritty shooters (Max Payne) to the odd third-person beat-‘em- up (The Warriors). But it is mostly renowned for its open world games (Bully, the first Red Dead Redemption and, of course, the Grand Theft Auto franchise). Many other publishers occupy this space, but the open-world game is a genre in which Rockstar is the undisputed leader.

That means Red Dead Redemption 2 has a tough hill to climb, especially since, according to co-studio head Rob Nelson, the developer’s biggest hurdle is itself.

“We know what other developers are doing in the open world space,” Nelson says. “But the fact is, we don’t want to be better than anyone else. We want to be better than ourselves.”

That’s a tall order.

Rockstar’s last game, Grand Theft Auto V, currently stands as the most profitable entertainment release in history, having generated over $6 billion in sales and having sold over 90 million units.

While that figure is likely looming over the heads of Nelson and the rest of the game’s development team – which includes personnel from all of Rockstar’s studios around the globe – they are more focused on the task at hand. That is, providing players with the depth required to make Red Dead Redemption 2 Rockstar’s biggest and most spectacular title to date.

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The journey here starts with Morgan, a hard-bitten outlaw and the right hand man of Dutch Van Der Linde, the leader of the gang the first game’s protagonist, John Marston, was once a member.

 In the first game, Marston was tasked with taking down Dutch and his crew but Red Dead Redemption 2 finds Dutch’s gang at an earlier time and in its pomp. But encroaching civilisation and modernisation is still snapping at its heels like a pack of wild dogs. Nelson says that that the story for Rockstar’s new epic boiled out of the desire to tell the story of the gang that gave the first game its narrative push.

 “It started out as direct companion piece to Red Dead Redemption, so the story was the first aspect we looked at. We wanted to tell the story of the gang that John alludes to in the first game,” he says.

Early on in the demo, a well-dressed man, replete with a bowler-hat, watch chain and waistcoat wanders into view, and it is only after he speaks in a disarmingly soft drawl that I realise this is Dutch, the leader of the gang – and the main antagonist in Red Dead Redemption. He is a long way from the wild-haired man-of-the-mountain he was in the first game, but he has the same world view. Even though the law and civilisation is closing in on his family and way of life, Dutch isn’t giving up.

“I ain’t losing to these fools,” he says. “Arthur, you know me better than that.”

In Red Dead Redemption, the Wild West party was over. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the party is coming to a close, a fact Dutch simply will not accept.

“Dutch was the thread that pulled players through the first game, so we wanted to explore how he went from a gang leader to the wild-haired guy players saw in the first game,” says Nelson.

“[In the first game, players were] chasing him wondering about him, he was character that you were driven to get to. He sounded cool – a mysterious figure - and so telling that story of this gang and what happened to them was what we wanted to do. “

To that end, Morgan is the player’s guide, but Nelson and the team have made every effort to make him more than that. Besides the sharp writing, the developers have made a concerted effort to plant players in Morgan’s shoes.

There is no break between story and gameplay and the player feels as though, while they may not agree with or even like Morgan, they are a party to his world. Between Morgan’s interaction with the gang at their camp – which feels like more of a family than a pack of villains – and the ability to interact with every character he comes across, Morgan is a clearly defined character that players will spend time with. While they might initially find him disagreeable, they might just come to understand him.

There was a moment in the demo during which Morgan comes upon a deer, a quarry he’s required to kill in order to keep his gang compatriots fed. After hobbling the beast with a bow and arrow, Morgan pursues it to its collapse, the animals plaintive bleating making a haunting noise. Morgan approaches the animal and silences its cries with one stab to the heart. As the animal’s suffering is cut short, I start to have mixed feelings for Morgan; he is a harsh man, mirroring the harsh world he finds himself in, but his actions evidence a code that suffering is unnecessary if it can be helped.

It helped me better connect with Morgan --and warm to him in a fashion-- but this was a mere glimpse of the character’s story arc. Players will have a great deal of control over Morgan’s behaviour and how the world reacts to him.

Like its predecessor, Red Dead Redemption 2 has an ‘Honor System’, which affects Morgan’s standing with his fellow men and women. Players can choose how honourable he is in daily activities and actions, and this in turn affects how the world responds to the player. The more notoriety Morgan gains, the less friendly townsfolk are likely to be with him. The more famous he becomes, the more likely the world’s inhabitants will treat him well.  The world in Red Dead Redemption can be as hostile or as friendly, as violent or as laconic as the player makes it.

“We’re trying to blur the separation between different types of content. We want an experience that holds up right across everything thing that you’ll do in this game,” says Nelson.

“So you may do honorable things but then if you go to a town and everybody knows you because you've done these honorable things, realistically, how does that work? Or if you do dishonorable things and you go in and everyone knows you're a bad guy, does that make sense with the story that we’re telling about a gang that’s being chased through the map by the law?

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“It should affect things and if it makes sense that you get discounts at stores or whatever - that's more of the game side of things - but if that doesn't interfere with the way you feel Arthur’s interacting the world then that's okay.” 

“We realised that technologically this was the right time to try this. We want players to feel like the gang is real and they were working and living with Arthur and the gang. Not just in terms of missions or content. The story is the game and the game is the story.”

The game’s plot has several hard beats to hit. Players of the first Red Dead Redemption will know that they are playing the role of legends-in- the-making; in the first game, the members of Dutch’s gang were so terrifying to the law, they hired Marston to track them down. At the same time, though, the game’s writers, led by Dan Houser, have had to construct a sense of camaraderie between the player and Morgan and the rest of the gang, in order to make them at least understandable, if not wholly sympathetic.

“There are passages where the player’s on their own,” says Nelson. “But there are passages where the player will get to know the different gang members, who gets along with others, who doesn’t, who helps out and who does as little as possible.”

“There’s so much story in how the different characters get to where they are in the first Red Dead Redemption, and to a degree the player has input on it with the actions they take.”

Morgan’s contribution to the camp helps with morale. The gang needs food, money and supplies and when these are in good stock, players will see drinking, singing and dancing in the camp at the end of each day. When they’re in short supply, the general mood will be far more sedate.

And as Morgan encounters each gang member, his mood changes from one to the next naturally, greeting those who contribute, ignoring those who don’t and admonishing  bad behavior. The gang is an organic community and it grows and shrinks depending on who leaves and who stays.

As far as the wider story goes, Rockstar is still playing its cards pretty close to the chest. However, Nelson and Rockstar North are very open about the creative process involved in building the game and how much effort has been put into gifting the player a sense of realism, if not reality in Red Dead Redemption 2.

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The map’s topography, for example, governs the positioning of rivers, rock faces and flora, which in turn dictates the kind of fauna the player will encounter in certain areas. The foliage has been hand- placed and crafted, as have settlements both large and small, to give every location and wide area a sense of its own unique identity, while also making sure each area seamlessly blends with those that surround it. Players won’t, for example, find themselves emerging from a desert into a pine forest, or encountering a rabbit half way up a mountain.

The landscape itself is a gorgeous approximation of the Wild West in its death throes. Snow-capped mountains give way to wide open plains. Swampland and marshes feature barely visible pathways taking Morgan and the player to towns and rapidly modernising cities. Horse hooves kick up dust, spray snow and squelch through the mud and one can almost feel the heat when Morgan crouches down on sun-pocked red rocks, the sound of flies buzzing on, their bodies barely visible up close on the in-game camera.

The Old West comes alive in Red Dead Redemption 2 not solely through its environment, but through the characters the player interacts with; from brief encounters with travellers on the road, to Arthur’s weather-beaten gang compatriots, to the lawmen and last remaining rival gangs pursuing the gang who loom large over the proceedings. This is a world as beautiful as it is violent and unforgiving and Arthur is a product of it as much as the folk he encounters.

It is a world that also reacts to the player; if they decide to rob a character, for example, and they’re witnessed, they may find themselves hunted – but then they may not. It’s that unpredictable  - and not chaotic – nature that lends Red Dead Redemption 2 a greater sense of realism. It feels wild, but it doesn’t feel out of control.

This was certainly true of earlier games – GTA V, Red Dead Redemption – but the depth of interactivity has been greatly increased here.

For example, at one point in the demo, Morgan comes across the camp of a fisherman and, in true gamer style, starts looting it of its possessions. However, while he does this, the camp’s owner returns and, faced with the grizzled outlaw, he starts begging and pleading.

“I don’t want any trouble, mister,” he stammers.

At this juncture the player could handle the confrontation any number of ways.

Morgan could shoot the man down. He could flee. In this instance though, he opts to threaten the man, warning him of dire consequences should he inform the law. He doesn’t even need to draw his gun to impress upon his victim how serious he is. He even yells at the man’s dog for good measure.

“Don’t you tell anyone about this!” Morgan snarls.

“I won’t!” comes the frightened reply.

“One last thing,” Morgan says. “Hand over all your money.”

Every option in this exchange is under the control of the player.

Red Dead Redemption 2 in pictures | All new exclusive screenshots

“We’re aiming for depth while giving the player as much space as we can,” Nelson says. “Starting with the map, to the story that we’re telling and the way you react to the world and the people in it; it all feels within the same resolution and makes sense.”

“Our worlds are always based on a sense of a place rather than a place itself and then we tailor that to the gameplay. That’s pretty much our approach with everything.”

At the demo’s close, two more tidbits of information were imparted. First, the game’s HUD is completely customisable; players can remove every trace of in-game help – including the circular map in the bottom of the screen – should they wish, making the experience all the more immersive. Second, there is a multiplayer in pipeline, although Rockstar is going to wait for a later date to reveal details on that.

But the amount of detail shown off in this stunning 45-minute presentation speaks to a huge undertaking by the developers and a tasty prospect for players. Eight years in the making Red Dead Redemption 2 and Rockstar seem set to perfect and re-imagine the open world genre all over again.