I continued working my way through Red Dead Redemption 2 today. I did the Bank Heist in Valentine and did a stage coach robbery camp activity too.
The game looks really gorgeous now that i don't have to worry about FSR muddling everything up.
One example is the mentioned robbery mission. The whole quest had raindrop falling from the roof that i just couldn't see before. Not to mention the way the bricks and stuff were wet from it.
I've done this robbery mission so many times now (in all honesty it's probably about 4 though) that it feels like second nature. Usually i just blow the safes open. But this time i decided to pick them all. I made off with $3000.
While on my way back from this mission, i had to stop to do the Second part of the Downes quest. I stopped at their farm, and before talking to them i went and played with their animals. They had this adorable dog chilling in the back by the goats.
I mean it is an era where up and moving 100 miles basically meant you started your life over. But that was kind of the plot: they were a gang of that era where they could run in a town, wreak havoc, disappear, and the infrastructure didn’t yet exist to reliably track them across the gigantic land mass that is North america.
But by the time the game rolls around the beginnings of the modern federal government are happening and agencies to track people like them across the country are in full swing. So all of a sudden their way of life is coming to a close, quickly. Instead of just some pissing off a sheriff in a town and never being able to go back there, occasionally having a bounty hunter after you, you now have a huge team of people with the resources of a government coming for you.
I think part of it that’s understated is the size of the map. The map is obviously big for a game but it’s supposed to be a huge chunk of America. When you compare the geography of the map to America it’s somewhat clear that it’s supposed to be a gigantic swath of America, from like Montana down to Louisiana and across to Texas. You can ride across the map in 20 min but obviously this would take months irl. Obviously this is about gameplay balance but as a result you lose the sense that Arthur is going extremely far away when he’s going from valentine to st denis, when in reality that would be like a month of riding and crossing several states. Even if he did a genocide that would probably shake the heat for a little while back then
They did obviously play it up of course. If you literally murdered everyone in a town back then there would probably be more of a response from the surrounding towns to find you. But gamers like violence and it’s again about balancing gameplay vs authenticity. usually gameplay wins because otherwise you end up with a boring game