Right now, I don’t have a PC. Long ago, when I did have one, the first AAA game I ever played was Red Dead Redemption 2. I have played other games, but I feel like RDR2 surpasses all of them and is legitimately one of the greatest games ever made. The amount of details dedicated to realism, the solid storyline, the amazing graphics, NPCs getting angry/creeped out when you follow them for too long, and the hilarious antagonistic insults. I can just go on and on about this game. This is undoubtedly Rockstar’s best achievement yet, and I can’t wait to see how they top it with GTA 6 releasing next year.
It’s an all-timer as far as video game stories and production value, but the railroading that they did to players did irk a great deal of us, as chronicled in that Nakey Jakey video. They set up so many dynamic systems for the player to interact with and then basically dictated that you couldn’t get creative with them during the story missions. Deviating even slightly from the intended path would be a mission failed.
I haven’t seen that video, but I suspect I would agree. RDR2 is something of a paradox.
They did an amazing job on environments and characters, and then turned around and hobbled the game with bizarre PC controls, a save game system and unskippable cut scenes woven from pure contempt for the player’s time, and dog shit mission mechanics that punish the player for any attempt to exercise agency and really have no place in an open world game.
I think your enjoyment will depend on what you’re expecting from your games.
Naughty Dog’s games are some of my favourites, RDR2 is the closest I’ve gotten to that playing a movie experience in an open world game. I would guess that’s hard to balance with more emergent gameplay in open-world story missions, so if that is more what you enjoy as a player, you’d probably feel very restricted.
Absolutely loved RDR2 though. My first or second favourite game of all time.
Odd, I don’t recall having any issues there.
The video evidence in that essay will do more justice than any of my anecdotes, but even things that seemed like possible ways to handle a story mission were not what the developers intended and resulted in a mission failed, like trying to take the high ground in a valley, or trying to sneak in through a window instead of entering from the ground floor.