Set in the midst of the Texas-Indian Wars, The Searchers follows the venture of Ethan Edwards, as he returns to his Texas homestead after fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Returning to his home after almost a decade away, several members of his family have been killed or kidnapped by the Comanches residing in the area. After these tragic circumstances, Edwards ends up on the path to vengeance after discovering that his niece is still alive, and heads into the heart of the Comanche territory to bring her back home.
In the story sections that we played of Red Dead Redemption 2 , it’s already clear that Arthur’s relationships with the members of the Van der Linde gang will play a crucial role across the whole game, on larger and more personal levels. Right at the beginning of the demo, those relationships came into play as Arthur and the gang were preparing to rob a train under the ownership of the oil tycoon Leviticus Cornwall, which started with Arthur assisting Bill Williamson to blow up the train tracks and derail the car. Naturally, after that plan went awry, Arthur and several other members of the gang instead raced to the top of the nearby mountain path to hop on top of the train. In the midst of the action, we saw that Arthur can issue commands to the fellow gang members as they pushed towards the conductor car, making the action feel that much more involved when executing the heist alongside his other fellow gang members.
From what’s been shown of the story so far, Red Dead Redemption 2 will take place over a decade prior to the events of Red Dead Redemption ; where John Marston’s story chronicled the imminent „end of the Wild West,” Arthur Morgan’s story follows the Van der Linde gang at the height of their notoriety, and is the so-called „beginning of the end” for this volatile period in the American West, according to Rockstar. While playing as Morgan, his role in the game will be to guide the gang through their journey across the West and evading the law on their tail, while also helping the gang set up camp across various locations, and aiding them to gather food and other supplies to maintain morale.
As a subgenre of Westerns that mostly came to prominence in the 1960s and named for being produced and directed by Italian filmmakers, Sergio Leone’s trilogy starring Clint Eastwood became the standard in bringing flair to the Western genre that was marked by a heightened sense of cinematic technique and style.
During the late 1800s, the oil industry was off to a competitive and dangerous start. It seems as though this is a major theme that Red Dead Redemption 2 will be tackling wholeheartedly. Towards the end of the trailer, fans are treated to a voice-over while images of an oil plant going up in flames fills the screen. The first Red Dead Redemption was primarily about the death of the cowboy. This one might center around the invasion of the industrial age and how it killed the American wild west. It seems like a lot of themes in the trailer center around beautiful landscapes and vistas that directly contrast the shadowy scenes of oil and flames. Once again, Rockstar knows how to visually tell a story and communicate areas of thematic importa
As the newest of the five films curated here, There Will Be Blood doesn’t quite fall in line with the more traditional „Westerns” that you might expect. Though the film doesn’t feature the gunfights, betrayals, and cowboys that mark more traditional Western, at its heart, There Will Be Blood is a dramatic and savage exploration of the American West and the turmoil it felt at the turn of the century.
Earlier, I mentioned how important Native Americans were to Western culture and how excited we are for the possibility of them sharing center stage. Another character that doesn’t get enough play in the Western genre happens to be the female outlaw. In the closing scene of the teaser trailer, it seems as though the left most rider happens to be a lady. Their clothing is brighter than the other and her body structure seems to lend itself to a more feminine figure. A lot of players feel as though there isn’t enough diversity when it comes to protagonists in video games. Having a leading lady that also happens to be a badass would be a great, but not necessarily a new addition to the Red Dead series. There have been plenty of awesome females in the franchise, but it would be great to finally play as
From just a few hours with Red Dead Redemption 2 , I went from executing a train robbery, Gaming Narratives to riding on my steed across the vastness of the Western landscape, to infiltrating a rival gang’s camp and brutally taking them out. I went from roaming through the wilderness and taking in its serene beauty, to riding alongside the rest of my gang through the snowy mountains, to viciously engaging with the law and avoiding imprisonment at their hands.
When it comes to Westerns, many people’s first thoughts center around cowboys, outlaws, and rebels. Many people forget how influential Native American lore and folktales are to the same time period in which many of these Westerns took place. It was really interesting to see how many references to Native American culture were included in the teaser trailer. There’s a scene where two unidentifiable characters are traversing a river in what seems to be a canoe. If you pan up and to the left, you can clearly make out a dream-catcher in the tree that’s placed in the foreground. Native American tribes played a huge part in the history that shaped the American Mid and Southwest. Rockstar understands this and we wouldn’t be surprised if one of the major protagonists ends up being a Native American bad