I had planned to write an extensive review of Red Dead Redemption 2, but before I do, let me just say that if you enjoy open-world games with excellent graphics and haven’t played this game yet, might as well stop reading this and buy it now, and play it. Take your time with the game. I would hate to spoil the joy of discovering what this game has to offer. Assuming you a good enough PC, set everything to high, put on your headphones, start the game, and just enjoy the ride. Get lost in this excellent version of the United States.
Introduction
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sequel-prequel to the original game, and based on what I have seen, it surpasses the first game in every way. Unfortunately, Red Dead Redemption was never released on PC, denying PC gamers the chance to experience it. I am just happy Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. They are notorius for not releasing PC versions of their games for a long time after the launch on console, and even when they do, their PC ports tend to be a mess. GTA IV being a prime example of a buggy mess on PC.
Graphics
I played the Steam version of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2023 on a powerful machine with an i7 12700k processor, GeForce RTX 3080Ti graphics card, and 64GB of RAM, running at 3440x1440 at the highest graphics settings. The game ran smoothly at mostly 60-70FPS with DLSS set to Quality. For those with less powerful machines, I recommend setting DLSS to Performance, as this game is resource-intensive.
The game’s visuals are stunning. I don’t think there is any games at this point, five years after its release, that even comes close to the graphics fidelity. The open world is massive, and it spans different settings, snow covered north, the great plains, redwood forests, swamps, and the desert landscape of the Southern United States and Mexico. The weather system is fantastic. We have come a long way from S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl, which is the first time I have seen with a day night cycle and weather effects. Riding your horse on the great plains during a thunderstorm, or slowly making your way through the Bayou at night-the atmosphere is top notch. In terms of art and visual design, Red Dead Redemption 2 surpasses The Witcher 3, which up to this point was the best single player open world game I ever played.
Gameplay
It’s not just the visuals that make this game great. There are plenty of UbiSoft open world games that look quite good, but compared to any of that copy/paste slop, the world here is built different. The approach to open world design is fundamentally different compared to UbiSoft. If we were to take Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as the pinnacle of UbiSoft open world design, and compare that with RDR2, its very evident that UbiSoft was going for quantity over quality. Even if you were to enjoy the gameplay, there can be no denying that the design is done by the numbers. In RDR 2, tt feels like every part of the world has some purpose and care put into it compared to Odyssey where it feels very repetitive.
Traversal is one more detail that I’ve come to realize is very important. I never paid much attention to this until played RDR2. In AC games you can easily teleport from one corner of the map to another and you can climb almost any surface like Spider-Man. Level design has less meaning if you can almost no clip through the entire map. There is no reason for developers to put any real thought into how a player would reach a certain point on the map. In RDR2, there is fast travel, but its not as straight forward, and it costs money. In my 200 hours of gameplay, I think I used the fast travel system maybe twice. One of the reasons for this is the sense of discovery. I didn’t mind riding to a quest location on the other side of the map because often times I would discover something along the way - a hideout, a rare animal, an insane Easter egg, or some random event. I enjoyed the changing terrains and the weather as the day progressed. I am yet to play a game where I experienced something close to this.
I thought the endless animations for almost all actions would drive me insane (because I hated them in Battlefield V), but I am surprised that it did not. Granted, after almost 200 hours of gameplay, watching Arthur skin an animal is not fascinating it was in the beginning, but I did not hate it. The slower and more methodical approach to gameplay actually worked. I am trying to articulate why I felt this way, because I am usually not a fan of slow and sluggish controls. There is a noticeable lag between when I press a button and when the character reacts on the screen and in most games this would make me want to quit. The deliberate movement, well crafted animations worked well for RDR2. Best I can tell, the reason I did not hate it is because I did not feel a disconnect with the game. The game tricked my brain into thinking this was normal. That’s the only way I can explain. If a UbiSoft game had this kind of slow gameplay, I probably would have given up after an hour.
I guess that is Rockstar magic.
Story
I am finding it increasinly hard to care about story and dialogue in video games. After 20+ years of playing various single player games, nothing feels interesting anymore. Story lines are predictable and boring, dialogue is cringe, and characters are rarely interesting.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is different. This is a spahegetti western story. It would be worth watching if this was a movie. The voice acting and dialogue are on par with a good HBO show. I am not going to discuss any specifics, but this is one of those rare games where you can actually see the impact of the story on the world, and
Despite the amount of focus given to creating a stunning open world, one might assume that Rockstar overlooked the importance of the game’s storyline. However, this is not the case. The game’s story is well-crafted and engaging, which is no easy feat considering the campaign is over 50 hours long. The voice acting is arguably the best I have ever experienced in any video game, even surpassing that of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. While I won’t delve into the specific details of the story, I can assure you that it is exceptionally well done, with one of the most memorable final acts I’ve experienced in any game to date.
While the game is undoubtedly impressive overall, there are certain areas where it falls short, especially on the PC. The UX design feels subpar and gives the impression that it was created by someone who has never played games on a computer before. The menu navigation is frustrating and overly complicated. To switch between weapons, you need to hold Tab and press Q and E, which is a poor design choice. It would have been better to use an inventory option similar to that for items that you are carrying instead of the clunky weapon wheel.
The game has some mechanics that are quite unusual, especially the weapon system. As a player, you have two slots for long guns - the shoulder slot and the back slot. However, when you are riding a horse, the character puts away the weapons, and they become “horse weapons”. When you dismount from the horse, the weapons should teleport back onto you, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. This can be frustrating, especially when you need to quickly engage enemies and you realized that you no longer have the weapons you previously equipped. It would be easier if the weapons stayed on your person all the time. It’s unclear why this feature was added to the game in the first place.
Customizing your outfits is another clunky mess of navigating multiple menus, and then having to store these outfits on the horse. Why? Other games have solved this problem. There was no reason to try and reinvent the wheel here.
A lot of effort appears to have gone into making animation for simple actions, and while impressive at first, they can become repetitive and dull after several hours of gameplay.
There is also no quick save. Thankfully there is a manual save option, but that doesn’t quite work the way one might intuitively think it might. The lack of quick save option is unacceptable for an open-world game.
To add insult to injury, you need to create a Rockstar account to play the game, which launches via the Rockstar Game Launcher after launching the game via Steam. This double DRM process needs to be eliminated. There is no good reason for game companies to require paying customers to jump through hoops to play a game. Pure corporate greed.
I am definitely nitpicking here with my complaints (except for double DRM which is just the worst), because in spite of these annoyances, I played this game for over 190 hours, and I am still not done yet. There are more places to explore, and more animals to hunt, and bounties to collect.
The last Rockstar game I played was GTA IV, which I hated due to the atrocious requirement of Games For Windows Live and other technical issues with the PC port. I had very little hope for Red Dead Redemption 2 on the PC, but despite their best efforts, it turned out to be a fantastic game. Now, I am eagerly waiting for Red Dead Redemption 3, which I hope to play in 2030.
This post is published on Apr 09, 2026 Thursday 07:39:05 PM CDT