Red Dead Redemption analysis

Rockstar Games, a company known more for its various controversies over the years than the actual games it produces, is the best kept secret in videogame storytelling. Everyone knows Bioware can spin a yarn, with epic franchises like Mass Effect, Jade Empire, and Knights of the Old Republic under their belt. Naughty Dog has received much praise for their Uncharted games which achieve witty dialog and explosive action on par with the best summer blockbusters. But for some reason, no one talks about Rockstar, even though Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption feature two of the emotionally moving stories in games I've ever played. I wrote about GTA4 in my old blog, and I would still probably take that game over RDR in the story department, but saying that is like saying you’ll take Up over Toy Story of the Pixar movies: it’s debatable, very close, and either way you win.

I've previously mentioned that Red Dead Redemption is a great game in my 2010 year-end games review. In a nutshell, if your heart of hearts desires nothing more than to play cowboy in a more adult and historically accurate setting than the front yard of your parents’ house, there is no better game. So if you haven’t played the game yet, or don’t plan to, that’s all you need to know. There are enough reviews out there to tell you it’s a good game. I’m telling you right now, it’s a good game. What follows is more of an analysis along the lines of literary criticism. If you still plan to play this game, be warned there are major spoilers, but for the rest of you, read on.

In a genre that pushes choices in your face at every conceivable opportunity, Red Dead Redemption is about John Marston’s lack of control over his own destiny. The story involves John Marston’s quest to reunite with his family, who are being held by the government until he can track down and kill three of his former gang-mates. There are several layers of powerlessness Marston faces here: he doesn't want to do this for the government in the first place; the people he's tracking prove rather elusive and difficult to locate; and he has to rely on a colorful cast of unreliable lowlifes to provide information and support.

This is the situation Marston finds himself in for the first 85% of the game, and when he finally tracks down Dutch, the leader of his old gang, I thought the game would be over. Hug family, maybe shed a tear, fade to black. Apparently that would be too easy for poor John Marston. Instead, the game continues with missions for John’s family, developing the relationship with his son Jack and his wife Abigail. After a few missions of rustling cattle and taking his son hunting, John is suddenly attacked by the army which had helped him only a few days earlier tracking down Dutch. As John, the player fights for his family’s safety, finally helping them to escape before running into two dozen guns pointed at him.

What really drove the point home for me is what happens next. The game allows you to deploy your “dead-eye” ability, which slows down time and lets the player aim at as many targets as John’s gun has bullets. Of course, against so many opponents, you can only get off a few shots before getting gunned down yourself. The scene perfectly captures the tension between the free will the game gives you and the limits outside forces place on you. You can go down swinging, but ultimately having a quiet farm life is just not in the cards for John Marston, and the end of the game assures the player that it never will be.

For a sandbox game with so much freedom to dally about, there are strictures about John's character and situation that cannot be violated no matter the player's intention. For instance, being married and faithful to his wife, John can't hire any of the prostitutes that infest any town or pursue any love interest - both hallmarks of previous Rockstar sandbox titles like Grand Theft Auto. His motives seem logical and consistent from start to finish - unlike the government officers who kidnap his family and break every promise to him they make - which makes his eventual end all the more tragic.

In a sort of epilogue, the player control switches to his son Jack, who rides back with his mother to find John’s bleeding corpse. The narrative skips forward about 4 years later at the gravesite of Jack’s parents, both of whom have now died, and the game allows the player to control Jack and finish any tasks John couldn’t (like those ambient challenges). The game truly ends and the credits roll when Jack tracks down the now retired government official who killed his father, challenges him to a duel and kills him. This epilogue allows the player to believe there could be a better future for Jack than his father, but tempers it with his anger for what has happened to him.

In the end the game leaves mixed feelings for the player. On the one hand it makes the player appreciate the later days of the wild west. You see the growing pains of a nation at the end of one era and the beginning of another. You see lawlessness beginning to come to an end at the hands of the U.S. government. On the other hand, you see that the government isn't much better than the gangsters it's hunting down, and in some cases, much worse. You see how brutally difficult it is just to survive in such an untamed land, and how hard it is just to start over for Marston and his family. John Marston wants nothing more than a more civilized future for him and his family, and had he been born twenty years later, he might just have been able to get it. But as with every other portion of the game, outside forces control his destiny.