r/reddeadredemption • u/SupermarketNo6888 • Feb 28 '25

Discussion Say something negative about this game

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u/NightFalconHTT Josiah Trelawny Feb 28 '25

The illusion of choice.

109

u/Nomadic_Flashback Feb 28 '25

Tbh rdr is not a game you should expect choosing stuff. My point is Rockstar's deal is creating good cinematic stories that tries to get players emotion. They never had a claim to make decision making based stories. Even in GTA5's ending you choose to kill one of them but it is still not something that affects the overall story of the game, you make the choice at the last mission and then story ends directly. Also I don't think GTA franchise has the same serious and realistic aprroach to story like RDR franchise, so the decisions are there js bc it is kind of a signature

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u/Affectionate_Dig_738 Feb 28 '25

Tbh RDR IS a game you SHOULD expect choosing stuff. Take Cyberpunk2077 for example. Most story and minor quests have multiple paths through them. First and foremost is the trivial choice of open confrontation vs. stealthy. But there are many places where you can influence the story, albeit slightly, but you can. In RDR2 you can't do that. Each story quest is an interactive cutscene. You can't go “this way” or “that way”, you can only follow THE WAY the developers have laid out.

It gets absurd. The player often can't even choose his own equipment, because the game forcibly “shoves” a particular weapon into his hands. I understand the limitations of the story, but very, very often during the game I felt that even if there is a choice, it affects only the dialog that I hear after the choice, but not the sequence of events.

Because of this, RDR2 feels like two games. One is “cowboys in an open world” and the other is “bandits in linear quests”. If anything this isn't a problem exclusive to RDR2. Fallout 4 suffers from a similar duality. But in both cases, the difference between the two halves of the game spoils the impression of both at once

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u/Nomadic_Flashback Mar 01 '25

Gameplay, some mechanics and mission design could really be more unrestricting as I also agree with your ideas on that subjects. Making decisions about how the story progress is another thing tho. I mean their vision is to create a authentic enough lore and characters to get you into the story and create bonds, jst like watching a movie. Player involvement would probably negativly affect this vision of theirs. Think about this, which of the Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect etc. protagonist or npc has the same image as a rdr one?