Red Dead Redemption is an anomaly that took a very basic action game, Red Dead Revolver, and turned it into something more expansive and impressive as an open-world adventure. It was the Grand Theft Auto equivalent of the Old West, and it worked while having an identity of its own. The two franchises couldn’t be further apart, and it’s not just the Western themes either.
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There’s more to Red Dead Redemption than meets the eye, so while it and its even more successful sequel are timeless classics beloved by all Rockstar fans, why then don’t more open-world Western games exist? Where are the Red Dead Redemption clones or Westerns of any kind? Here are a few industry reasons why.
How To Keep Players Interested In A World Like The Western Frontier
Westerns Are Dead On All Ends
Westerns, overall, are dead in all types of media. There are fewer Western shows, movies, or games available now than there were in the past. The genres have shifted focus, with horror and superhero movies being two of the most dominant types out there, or at least the ones that draw in a lot of eyeballs, at least for movies. One medium can prop up another, and since there isn’t an influx of Westerns, it can be hard for any studio to make the first leap. For video games, it can be hard to populate Westerns with interesting activities to do in the open-world akin to a Red Dead Redemption game.
Setting a game too far back in the Western frontier means there won’t be many towns or settlements to see. Players will just roam between desert prairies looking for animals or perhaps Native camps to raid. There are ways to spice up the genre or a Red Dead Redemption clone, specifically by adding some light fantasy or sci-fi elements, along with making it a fuller RPG. That said, it’s risky to take a chance on the unknown, and currently, the video game market is in a weird place right now when it comes to triple-A games and experimentation. Overall, it’s sad there can’t be more Western games like there once used to, from Sunset Riders to Wild Arms 5 to Gun.
Red Dead Is No Grand Theft Auto
Better To Make An Open-World City Than A Frontier
Westerns are pretty much dead, and while Rockstar can make money with a game like Red Dead Redemption and its sequel, they are rare outliers. They can afford to take time to really nail what they set out to do, and for other developers, eight some odd years is risky to put into one game. It’s less risky to make an open-world or sandbox game set in a city akin to Grand Theft Auto, since it is by far Rockstar’s biggest franchise. Fans are craving open-world cities to explore, even if they don’t exactly fit the model of Grand Theft Auto.
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The Watch Dogs franchise is one example, along with Cyberpunk 2077 to a degree. Modern or even retro city landscapes offer more potential activities like going to bars to drink and play mini-games, driving cars through crowded streets, or perhaps playing some basketball outdoors. While there is obviously a big investment in an open-world city game, it is more attractive to more players than Western games. Publishers tend to go where the money is, which is a shame, but this is a business after all. The age of Grand Theft Auto clones is dwindling compared to the PS2 and PS3 eras, but not as much as Westerns.
Live-Service Is Prioritized Over Narrative Finality
Keeping Players Hooked Over A Long Period
Working five years on a game that lasts eight hours and having players forget about it right after can be demoralizing for a development team. For publishers, it’s not good because the money can dry up quicker unless this game is a must-have and everyone constantly buys it for a decade, akin to how well Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold for Nintendo. That’s why live-service games can be so appealing to developers and publishers. For example, Destiny 2 launched in 2017, and it is still going strong thanks to constant updates, events, and expansions. The numbers do dip in between content drops, but the game has survived.
An MMO like Final Fantasy 14 isn’t necessarily a live-service game, but it does predate the genre and features thousands of hours of content. The point is, making a game that will keep players buying stuff, from costumes to DLC packs, will keep the money flowing. Rockstar has even learned that with Grand Theft Auto 5’s online portion. Even if someone made an open-world Western as an MMO or live-service game, that wouldn’t guarantee results even if the quality was there, like Red Dead Redemption 2. The live-service model is not perfect, as can be seen with the case of Anthem, so overall, there are many risks, even if it is trendy.
Enormous Authorial Single-Player Games Are A Dying Breed
Multiplayer Sells
Whenever a single-player game comes out without DLC plans or multiplayer modes, it is celebrated. It’s the industry showing off that there is an audience for single-player games that don’t rely on extra content to make them good. This can include everything from RPGs like Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 to superhero games like Marvel’s Spider-Man. That said, more and more single-player games are becoming anomalies, as that is not trendy. What is popular, to piggyback off the live-service example, is multiplayer games. That’s how the industry is growing as video games are becoming a social medium, which is why there are so many multiplayer games out there.
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A lot of players like having the ability to play co-op in campaigns, have a separate multiplayer mode, or have the game just be a multiplayer game overall, from Overwatch 2 to Fortnite. A lot of players, both casual and hardcore, just prefer to play games with friends, which is arguably always a good time even if the game is bad. For developers and publishers, multiplayer games can help them rake in more money as well without having to worry about intricate stories or anything like that. There are ways to make multiplayer fun in a Western, and while Red Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer mode did have its fans, it did not become as successful as Grand Theft Auto 5’s online mode. Was that because it was a Western, it lacked content, or Rockstar fans were already locked into Grand Theft Auto Online? It’s a hard question to answer, just like the industry overall is a hard one to predict.
Dealing With Difficult Emotions
Loneliness, Melancholy, And Boredom
Let’s summarize things before the final point. Westerns are dead, it can be hard to fill a frontier environment with things to do, and single-player games are going the way of the dodo. Those are all things that made both Red Dead Redemption games great, except for the lack of content, because Rockstar did manage to make those worlds interesting to traverse. There is one other element that makes these games special, and that’s the heroes, John Marston and Arthur Morgan. Their emotions and character builds are not like most video game protagonists, especially Arthur, who was very complex.
Players could choose Arthur’s way of life to be either a ruthless bandit like the rest of his crew, or they could try to change his ways. Even if players didn’t try to make Arthur good, he would still wrestle with his inner demons on whether or not what he was doing was smart. Out on the open plains, it can be a lonely place without much to do, which can make anyone go wild from boredom. That’s not exactly a fun character to play as in a video game, but Rockstar knew what they were doing and paid expert attention to how they told their story, which made both Arthur and John work as characters. Would other developers want to be risky and make their protagonist an emotional wreck? All signs point to the unlikely.
There is another reason why the Red Dead Redemption story model could make developers averse to trying it, although it requires some spoilers, which will be discussed briefly next. Not many developers would be so bold as to kill off their main characters and replace them with others two-thirds of the way through the experience. For John, his son stepped up, and for Arthur, it was John, as Red Dead Redemption 2 was a prequel. These decisions made the games more impactful, tying into the themes brilliantly that the West is a harsh place to live.
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