[Hands-On Review] Living The Cowboy Life In Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sequel to Red Dead Redemption, obviously, and in this sequel we get tons of upgrades from the previous. In terms of graphics, story, game mechanics and a bigger world, we can literally do anything in this big bad cowboy world. As we journey out in the West, you’d experience many different situations from being hunted down, roaming the wildlands, or mingling with strangers and with your band of outlaws. We got to play it during a hands-on demo that happened last week and it was amazing! Check out our first hands-on experience of the game!

The Story

As America is coming into the modern world, the country is taking out all the outlaws and gangs for a cleanse. As the Van der Linde gang are one of the biggest outlaws, they are on the run and Arthur Morgan is leading them. Being the leader is not so fun when your gang and yourself is being hunted down by bounty hunters or federal agents. You’ll have to fight your way out sometimes or lose the chase like in Grand Theft Auto. From there, you’ll get to explore the world and do basically anything that you want, or follow the story and complete missions to stay in-line with the theme of the game. We won’t spoil the story but here’s what we feel about the gameplay.

The Gameplay

If you’ve played the Grand Theft Auto series, you’d notice the similarities where you will be hunted down as you are playing as Arthur Morgan, an outlaw. With the world coming to an age of modernity, being an outlaw is not the best position you can be in. So you’ll have to make friends, with other outlaws. Playing as Arthur Morgan who is the senior member and lead enforcer of the Van der Linde gang, you’ll find yourself leading your band either to a heist in a bank or robbing wagons en-route.

Sure, if you want to be a good guy and do not want to make a scene, you can always head into the wildlands, hunt and exchange for cold-heart-cash. But will that be enough? As the leader of the gang, you will also have to take care of your relationship with the gang. The decisions made in the game do have consequences. Even tendering your horse has consequences as well which will reflect in the performance of your horse. Our advise, brush that pony hard, everyday. You’ll have to feed your horse too, but only with the right stuff or your horse will be a chubby horse that can’t run a mile. Then again, it can help you carry more stuff with its larger surface area unlike other healthy horses.

Being Arthur Morgan isn’t easy. You’re not just going around heisting or hunting. Sometimes, you do get hired as a mercenary to hunt down other bad people. Not so bad yourself, huh? But knowing how Arthur’s name is so well known within the West, you will always be in trouble. So be ready for any action that comes lurking in every corner. Even the wild animals are on to you! If you’ve played Far Cry, you might get that experience in here as well. Of course, you can always rely on your Dead Eye to take down enemies as quickly as possible.

The Dead Eye trigger has existed since Red Dead Redemption. But it has since been upgraded to a more fluid and precise action. Once triggered, you’ll get to highlight enemies in your line of sight and trigger your fire to take them all down at once. There’s also a slow-motion mode where you have the freedom to aim wherever you want instead of an auto system. It could also allow you to see critical or fatal points of your enemies. Kind of like in Fall Out, without the time-freeze. That’s if you’ve attained the maximum levels of 3 on your Dead Eye skill.

There’re tons of NPCs to interact with and the level of detail is immense. You can interact with them and build a relationship with them. You might actually just get it off with an early 1900’s girl, if you’ve got the skills! With the massive variety of NPCs in there, they don’t all look the same. Same goes to you as you can also customize your outfit, hair style, beard, your horses and your weapons. You can even bathe, or not, just like the good ‘ol days. Walk around with that dirty outfit and stank, you’ll probably notice the NPCs staying away from you because of that.

The Features

One thing that’s great is that, there’s a vast open world to explore and there’s no loading screens at all. It’s a very seamless experience as you explore the west-lands and there’re even more updates coming our way soon. There’s an Online Beta coming in November where 2 to 32 players can play together in either a co-op or multiplayer event. The events will not just be based on Red Dead Redemption 2, as there will be plenty of different events even crossovers from GTA Online. If you’ve completed the event, you might just get a reward claimable in GTA Online too!

Playing in third-person mode has it’s fun, but it’s even more thrilling to play in first-person mode. This is interchangeable in the settings and it really gives you a whole new perspective playing the game. Especially when you’re hunting in the wildlands where a pack of wolves just jump at you out of nowhere. Beware as things do get more intimate in the first-person mode, but it’s still a great experience! As long as you don’t bump into one of those Legendary animals…

Yes, there exist Legendary animals in the vast open-world ecosystem. You can even catch a Legendary horse too! With over 200 different kinds of animals in the wild, your gang members that are hunting with you will hint at you if you stumbled upon a Legendary animal. If you are hunting, please do bring the carcass back as soon as possible or otherwise, it will rot, on your horses back which will in-turn having you to explain and apologize to your horse…. Just kidding, your horse wouldn’t mind but it’ll be a butt load waste of time if your carcass rots.

As Red Dead Redemption 2 is most hyped up about the gameplay, the weather is something that I loved. You can setup a campfire and adjust the day-night settings. When you venture into different areas, the weathers will be different as well. Some areas are cool and some are hot which will render you to wear certain clothing to adjust yourself either in cold weather or hot weather. This is a very realistic feature that’s in the game and we loved it!

Early Hands-On Experience

All the hype for Red Dead Redemption 2 is real and we’d advise not to skimp on this game. There’s a whole new world to explore this time and tons of freedom, but with consequences. You will find yourself living in a realistic virtual world in the cowboy era and that’s what’s fun about it! It might be a dream to some of us who always had a knack to be a cowboy and this is the experience we get in Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s also a chance to tell a new kind of story as you live and ride in a notorious outlaw gang. The level of intimacy in the game is immense and we can’t wait for you guys to try it out too. All that was said above are what we’ve experienced during the demo and it will only be amplified when you play it.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is due out for PlayStation 4 on October 26th, 2018. You can pre-order now if you haven’t!

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