This is the first piece of a series of articles I’ll be writing about games that changed, in one way or another, my life. I’ll be starting with Red Dead Redemption 2, a game so huge and spectacular that it left many people crying their eyes out. The article briefly explains the story and includes spoilers.
It’s 1899. You live in the cruel and harsh world of the American Wild West. It’s an era that’s so extreme, people are killing each other even for silly things. There is no money, you have to hunt to get your food, and if you’re a woman with kids who lost her husband, or just black, life is a living hell.
You’re Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang, which is forced to flee after a ferry heist that went catastrophically wrong in the town of Blackwater. Federal agents, the best bounty hunters, and other gangs are trying to find you, while you have to escape and survive in the most difficult conditions.
To do so, you find yourself in the harsh winter mountains of Ambarino. There, you find a temporary shelter, and knowing that the weather is so extreme, you know there aren’t many people who’ll follow you there.
The shelter is in an abandoned mining town, and although it’s not perfect, it’s the best they have and exactly what they need to regroup. Micah Bell, Bill Williamson, Hosea Matthews (Dutch’s old partner), and the rest – John Marston, his lover Abigail, and their young boy Jack among them.
Unfortunately, John is missing, and Arthur goes out to find him. He finds John injured in the snow and rescues him by bringing him back to their shelter. As the storm rages, the gang robs a nearby O’Driscoll camp (a rival gang) and rescues a young widow named Sadie Adler. Her husband is dead, murdered by the O’Driscolls, and with fire in her eyes and grief in her soul, she joins the Van der Linde gang.
Desperate for money and supplies, the gang decides to leave the mountains of Ambarino and head to the heartlands of New Hanover. With better weather and more chances to survive, they establish a camp in Horseshoe Overlook, near the livestock town of Valentine.
Your gang’s leader, Dutch van der Linde, searches for “one last score” that will bring enough money and supplies to finally escape and find freedom. During his plan, Arthur carries out robberies, debt collections, and helps other members of the gang while John Marston is building his relationship with Abigail and Jack.
In a mission to find money, Arthur and John decide to rob a train. Unfortunately for them, this train is owned by a very powerful and rich industrialist named Leviticus Cornwall. After successfully robbing his train, he sends Pinkertons (private lawmen) to find them and kill them.
The gang then moves to the swampy region of Lemoyne, near the town of Rhodes. As they try to lay low and hide, they’re caught in the feud between two southern and very wealthy families: the Braithwaites and the Grays.
This is where things start to change, and you start to see Dutch’s increasingly erratic leadership as he wants to rob both sides – but unfortunately, his plan backfires.
The Braithwaites kidnap Jack, and Dutch decides to lead a bloody assault mission to rescue him from the family’s mansion.
The gang heads there, kills everybody, rescues Jack, and burns the whole place down. Once Jack is returned, the cost of saving him was so great that Dutch became even more unstable and more violent than ever before.
His plan to make as much money as he can and finally find the freedom he and his gang members deserve, he starts to plan a massive plan that includes robbing a whole bank. In the meantime, Arthur begins to question everything: Dutch’s motives, the gang’s path, and his very own past. But he doesn’t have the time he thinks he has, as things take a turn for the worse.
Instead of robbing the bank and finally fleeing, tragedy strikes: During the Saint Denis robbery, Horsea is executed, and John is captured. Lenny is gunned down, and Dutch abandons John. On the other hand, Arthur barely escapes with Micah. To save themselves, the surviving members, once again, flee to the Caribbean island of Guarma.
There, they are caught in a local rebellion. Dutch becomes erratic, killing unnecessarily while Arthur watches in silence, now deeply suspicious of the man he once worshipped. Eventually, the gang returns back to America, but their leader, Dutch, is obsessed for revenge and getting as much gold in his hands as he can.
But Arthur also has an obsession, and it’s far from getting any revenge or money; it’s about saving his gang before it’s too late.
Now, back in America, Arthur finds himself unwell. After being unable to walk or stand on his two feet, he goes to a doctor, where he’s diagnosed with tuberculosis, which in other words means a death sentence.
As he weakens, he sees the gang crumbling: Dutch grows more violent and paranoid, and Micah whispers poison in his ear. Arthur saves John from prison, realizing that John, Abigail, and Jack must escape the gang. With the support of Sadie and Charles, Arthur begins to secretly help them.
Dutch kills Cornwall and allies with a violent Native American leader, Rains Fall’s son Eagle Flies – only to abandon them, too. Meanwhile, the Pinkertons close in. Arthur does everything to convince Dutch that Micah is a traitor, but he simply won’t listen, which results in the gang splitting in half. John escapes with his family, and Arthur and Micah fight on a mountaintop.
The story has two ends, and it’s all about the player’s honor level. As you play the game, if you help strangers, your honor level increases, and if you don’t, it decreases. If your honor is high, you see Arthur dying, watching the sunrise – but if you don’t, Micah kills him. Either way, Arthur Morgan dies alone.
Years later, John Marston tries to live a quiet life. He works on a ranch, trying to be a father and husband. But the past doesn’t rest. With Sadie’s help, John tracks down Micah, and Dutch appears in the final standoff, silent and weathered. He shoots Micah and walks away without a word, and John finally kills Micah.
John buys a ranch: Beecher’s Hope. He marries Abigail, and together, they raise Jack. But the shadows of the past loom. Red Dead Redemption lies ahead, as John’s quiet life will again be torn apart. But for now, he rides home, free, at peace, and haunted.
Before I close this article, I’d like to share a bit of my experience with this game. I’ve been playing it for over 100 hours now, and if there’s anything to be said about its world, it’s that it’s massive, cruel, and exactly what I needed to get my mind off.
The world in Red Dead Redemption 2 has a bit of everything, and what I loved most about it was all the side stories that I chose to play. You can even unlock a series of animals and fish by tracking them, skinning them, and using them for crafting.
You can meet hundreds of strangers as you do your missions or explore the map, and each one of them has their own story. Even after more than 100 hours of playing, I still find things I didn’t know existed, and just by looking at some YouTubers, I found even more.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is, arguably, a masterpiece.
