What adds to the wariness is the fact that Rockstar – a Take-Two Interactive subsidiary – had originally intended on releasing DLC for _ GTA V’s _ story mode, which never actually came to fruition. Then, when asked about the planned release of the DLC during a 2015 earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that story-based DLC was never discussed. In 2017, Rockstar finally shed some light on the lack of story-mode DLC, when Director of Design, Imran Sarwar, stated that, “it was not really a conscious decision, it’s just what happened.” Sarwar went on to state, “At Rockstar, we will always have bandwidth issues because we are perfectionists and to make huge complex games takes a lot of time and resources. Not everything is always possible, but we still love single-player Open world games Cheats-world games more than anything.” The latter sentence gives some hope that _ Red Dead Redemption 2 _ will receive the attention and treatment that it rightfully deserves, but while any game is in development, the mention of studio “bandwidth issues” is sure to send shivers down gamers’ spi
In Rockstar’s effort to create a realistic game, like horses that have packages that shrink in cold weather, they certainly didn’t go all the way in some regards. For example, you can somehow store a near infinite amount of random items in your beginning pouch, but heaven forbid you to put more than one animal carcass on your horse. Also, somehow, you can store an army of guns on your sidesaddle, but not on Arthur’s person. There are a lot of inconsistencies, but hey, that’s video ga
What’s worth noting though is that I don’t think what Rockstar has done with these ideas is really all that revolutionary by any means. No: instead, they’ve just leaned into these things that other developers would certainly stray away from for the reasons that I’ve already heard many complain about this weekend — it ends up being too slow and too boring. However, Rockstar knew before release that Red Dead Redemption 2 would sell millions of copies no matter what they did. This notion allowed them far more experimentation and more willingness to take chances compared to what other studios might attempt. For the most part, I think it’s an experiment that has worked to Red Dead Redemption 2 ‘s benefit so far.
The year is 1911. John Marshton was once a dangerous outlaw but has left that life behind to pursue the simple pleasures of being a family man. John is enjoying his new life until the Bureau of Investigation visits him to work out a deal with him and take his wife and kid into custody for leverage. As a former outlaw, John is facing some serious penalties for his past but the FBI is willing to cut him a break if he brings his former gang members to justice. John agrees to these terms, not like he has much choice, and travels to Fort Mercer to confront his former rappy, Bill Williamson. Things go horribly wrong and instead of bringing anyone to justice, John is shot and left for dead, only to end up in the care of Bonnie MacFarlane.
Even having only played the game for a brief amount of time, seeing the level of interaction with the NPCs in Red Dead Redemption 2 already showed what I think will be one of its most fascinating elements. With so many options now opened up to engage with the characters throughout the world, it gave me a thrill that, by and large, any NPC in Red Dead Redemption 2 could potentially give players something new to draw from the world. As Rockstar noted, characters in the game have their own set schedules and paths, which could lead to players finding some NPCs at specific locations at certain times of the day. When the Van der Linde gang sets up camp, some of Arthur’s gang members can even appear randomly at nearby towns or locations, such as when we heard Arthur got into a fist fight with some locals at the saloon, only for Bill and Javier to show up and lend a hand.
In a time where open-world games are a dime a dozen, my problem with most titles in the genre is that they rarely force you to engage with the world that has been laid out. Instead, developers just use the confines of an open-world to place the structure of their game inside of, because it’s the normal thing to do more often than not nowadays. Simply existing in an open-world though isn’t enough when you don’t feel any sort of connection to the environment that you’re within. Forcing you to explore and take your time in the world allows you to get to know the area which you find yourself in. This is something that I think The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did so perfectly last year , and it’s something that I think finds success here in Red Dead Redemption 2 as well.
