Summary
- Red Dead Redemption offers a grounded and gritty tone with intense gameplay and heavy narrative themes.
- However, the series also provides relaxing side activities like card games, horseshoes, and fishing in a historical Wild West setting.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 perfectly captures slow-paced activities like hunting and scenic horse rides in a highly immersive open-world.
While the Grand Theft Auto series has plenty of darker moments, its general tone tends to be more lighthearted, and even parodic at times. Those looking for a much more grounded and gritty Rockstar game need only turn their attention to the Red Dead Redemption series. Two open-world action-adventure games set in the twilight days of the Wild West era, Red Dead Redemption and its 2018 prequel are both packed with heavy narrative themes and dramatic story moments.
Much of Red Dead Redemption's moment-to-moment gameplay cements its grounded and gritty tone, with players frequently engaging in intense firefights and brutal close-quarters melees, many of which result in some grotesque death animations and realistic gore effects. But Red Dead Redemption offers far more than its violence. Across its two entries, the Red Dead Redemption series offers some of the most relaxing side activities in gaming, and those calmer moments are given just as much care and attention as the game's bombastic set pieces.
Red Dead Redemption Sets a High Bar for Relaxing Minigames
Red Dead Redemption 1 Features Plenty of Chill Minigames
Released all the way back in May 2010, the first Red Dead Redemption continued Rockstar's pattern of delivering excellent open-worlds packed to the brim with additional content. Along with Stranger missions and various collectible quests, Red Dead Redemption offered a wealth of minigames for the player to partake in. These miniames mostly consisted of classic card and board games like Poker, Blackjack, and Liar's Dice, all of which fit the game's Wild West setting perfectly.
On top of card and board games, the first Red Dead Redemption featured a Horseshoes minigame, where the player could compete against NPCs in the century-old throwing sport. All four of these Red Dead Redemption minigames offered players a relaxing alternative to the game's high-intensity action, letting players take their time with each turn, and immerse themselves even further in the game's historical setting.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Doubles Down on Slow-Paced Side Activities
Being a somewhat surprising highlight of the first game, Rockstar was smart to bring back some of its best-regarded minigames for Red Dead Redemption 2. Poker and Blackjack made a return in the 2018 sequel, and the accessible but deceptively complex board game Dominoes was added. Much like in the first entry, Red Dead Redemption 2's minigames offer a nice change of pace from the rest of the sequel's gameplay, and the higher fidelity and improved presentation of each one make them more immersive than ever before.
Some of Red Dead Redemption 2's most relaxing side activities aren't found in a saloon or back at the Van der Linde camp but in the wilderness of Red Dead 2's open-world. One of the calmest side activities Red Dead Redemption 2 offers is fishing, which is available in just about any body of water the player can find. Hunting in Red Dead Redemption 2 also requires a more methodical, slow-paced approach, with players needing to carefully stalk their target before landing the killing blow. But by far the most relaxing activity in Red Dead Redemption 2 is simply taking a leisurely horse ride to some of the game's most scenic areas, and observing every impressive visual detail along the way.
Red Dead Redemption 2
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 95 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
- Released
- October 26, 2018
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Developer(s)
- Rockstar Games
- Publisher(s)
- Rockstar Games
- Engine
- RAGE
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- N/A
WHERE TO PLAY
America, 1899. The end of the wild west era has begun as lawmen hunt down the last remaining outlaw gangs. Those who will not surrender or succumb are killed. After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across the rugged heartland of America in order to survive. As deepening internal divisions threaten to tear the gang apart, Arthur must make a choice between his own ideals and loyalty to the gang who raised him. From the creators of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America at the dawn of the modern age.
