NOTE: Spoilers! While I try to be generic enough to avoid spoilers, any discussion of a game's story arc will necessitate some level of spoilering. You've been warned!
The open-world action adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2 opened with enormous sales. According to Variety, the blockbuster title from Rockstar Games generated $725 million in sales in the first week. It's fitting that Variety is reporting on the title, because it's easy to argue that RDR2 should be considered something other than a video game.
Many of the interviews with Rockstar developers have focused on how the main character, Arthur Morgan, interacts with his fellow gang members. You see, Arthur is the right-hand man of the gang's leader, Dutch van der Linde. So you're thrust into the role of helping him reach his objectives.
Except, there's no way to reach Dutch's goals. He basically has ONE GOAL - scrape, steal, or swindle up enough money to head west and buy some land. Now, this is a video game, and there's lots of ways to earn $$$. Robbing banks, robbing trains, robbing townsfolk, robbing farmers, hunting, finding buried treasure, or even finding gold bars. So, how much money does Dutch figure we need to get out of the gang business? Spoiler: No amount of donations to the gang can cause the gang to change from its course.
Arthur, along with another gang member named Hosea, has been with Dutch for a long time. As the game starts, Dutch values their opinion highly. Yet, Arthur never has any real input on Dutch's plans, or get to decide whether missions are safe or not. Yes, there are optional missions, but to complete this game, you have to do the gold main story missions. Many plot point are not optional.
It's the lack of options that makes Red Dead Redemption 2 more of a movie than a video game. Or better yet, the SET of a movie. You're the lead actor on this set, but you really have little to do in writing the script. Sure, you can change outfits, or horses. But nothing in the story arc is affected by your actions. In a world where games like Mass Effect and Fallout give you a HUGE input on how the world eventually looks, RDR2 basically gives you a story to watch.
Mass Effect was all about building a team, deciding how you interacted with that team, and writing your own story about how your Shepherd saved the universe. Your decisions affected which of your team members live or die at the end. It's a difficult developer issue - if Character X dies in a player's ME2 playthrough, how do I write that into ME3? Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel, so it has an extra challenge. We know from the outset that several characters, including John Marston and Dutch van der Linde will survive. But there are 23 characters in Arthur's camp. How many of them can you save, or kill? None. The ones that die, die in a cutscene that leaves you helpless. The ones that live, live even if you want to shoot them every time you hear them speak.
Speaking of Micah, he's a great example of my utter inability to impact the storyline. Early on in the game, Micah gets captured. I dutifully go and spring him out of jail, at which point he goes on a murderous rampage in the sweet little ski village of Strawberry. After that, I wanted nothing more to do with him. But there's a little gold M on the map, so eventually, I had to invite him back to the group in order to continue the storyline. Later on, Micah causes Arthur another major problem. After that, I should really have the option of putting a bullet in him, for basically trying to get me killed. It's clear early on that Micah is a loose cannon, and further that Micah has his own agenda. But there's nothing I can do about it. It's easy to see Micah's bad influence on Dutch, but I can't do anything about it - and sadly, the game doesn't even give me a way to TRY. I noticed early on that Micah's name never seems to be listed in the camp donations ledger. But Arthur can't confront Micah about that, because it's not part of Rockstar's movie.
As much as I want to shoot Micah, I get that key characters have to be protected. But little moments often see Rockstar taking control, shoving you back into the couch. Molly really wants to talk to me - why can't I stop for a moment and hear her out? After all, she's the bosses main squeeze, she's got a unique insight into the man who runs the place. One of your gang members exhibits a knack for adventure, but you're not able to recruit her to help more often. In fact, you always take the gang members that Rockstar picks. I really like Javier, but I didn't get to use him on missions more as a result - I had to go with whoever Rockstar chose for that mission.
I really enjoy playing in Red Dead Redemption 2's sandbox. I go hunting, I search for hidden gold, I'm looking for the perfect black horse to tame. But I would prefer if Rockstar would just let me watch their movie, and then get into the world. As built, all of Arthur's work is for nothing, his effort to be good or evil come to the exact same end, and none of my actions influence the van der Linde gang.
Rockstar is going to look at their giant stack of money from Red Dead Redemption 2 and conclude that they're making the kind of games people want. But the truth is, they're making games we want, but forcing us to watch their movie as part of the price of admission. RDR 2 is a great set that would allow people to tell unique and interesting stories. But Rockstar won't let us do that. Even when multiplayer online mode comes out, we'll be doing fun stuff that has NO IMPACT on Rockstar's world.
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