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.
Unfortunately, GTAV felt a little too cliché. This is where I get nervous that Red Dead Redemption 2 might lean too heavily on certain tropes. I would much rather see an American western tale that resembles a classic, opposed to a film that has been rebooted as of this year. I do not need a game with big set pieces, explosions and more ammunition falling than the leaves on the trees. I’m going to make one more recommendation of the west I envision opposed to the west presented by Hollywood: the Lonesome Dove series puts on the glitz of western tropes while also doing a great job explaining how people lived at the time. This is more in the style that would be preferred in Red Dead Redemption 2. A game where cowboys are cowboys, people are living by the land they’ve settled and getting along fine with the natives. Yes, there were some bad Tribes, but mostly few and far between.
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.
As one of the most anticipated game releases of the fall — if not the most anticipated — Red Dead Redemption 2 has come a long way from when we first heard that Rockstar Games would be returning to the epic Western world it crafted with the previous game in 2010. From what we’ve seen so far of the game, Red Dead Redemption 2 's depiction of the Wild West will look even more detailed and expertly crafted in the eight years since we last saw it, and the unique beauty of its setting will (seemingly) come to life like never before.
In the buildup to Red Dead Redemption 2 's release later this month, those looking for some inspiration to satisfy their craving for Western-themed experiences won’t need to look further than our picks for the Western films you should watch before playing Rockstar’s own Western epic, given the numerous cinematic references that the studio has drawn from in their previous titles.
If there’s one thing Rockstar nails, it’s scope. Their games might not be as 'deep’ Palworld Tides of Terraria update role-playing games as their Bethesda counterparts, but they’re every bit as meaty and way more technically advance. Rockstar’s major releases always push the boundaries of what people think is capable on the current hardware. They take their engine and push it to its absolute limits. With the recent release of PS4 Pro and Xbox’s Project Scorpio imminent, look for Red Dead Redemption 2 to be featured heavily on both of those platforms. As technology progresses and the tools game developers have multiplied exponentially, so does Rockstar’s vision of what a video game can be. Look for Red Dead Redemption 2 to be the prettiest game you’ve ever laid your eyes
As a modern Western in the vein of recent classics like 3:10 to Yuma , The Proposition takes the essential elements of the Western genre and invigorates it with more contemporary filmmaking techniques and some particularly striking violence that pulls you into the experience. Aside from those similarities though, the mood and atmosphere that The Proposition captures feels very much in line with the way that Rockstar depicts its Western open-world in the Red Dead games, and that feeling will only be expanded with the ways that Red Dead Redemption 2 (so far) seems to be delivering an even more striking and dynamic world to explore.
And yet those moments, as action-packed and exciting as they are, were just a smaller part of the fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 's focus is turned even more toward its finer details. As I entered a small town as Arthur Morgan and went to the nearby general store, I was able to browse the shelves and interact with almost every individual object, item, or knick-knack that caught my eye, and able to examine it in fine detail, even down to reading the labels. At the conclusion of the previously-mentioned train robbery when looking for bonds and money to score, I saw Arthur rummage through cabinets and spending some time looking at the ornate decorations and items strewn about, when just a minute before this, he was hopping across train cars and taking down gunmen left and right. After riding my horse into the next town and stopping to take a break, I could examine my rifle, clean it with gun oil and a cloth, and make sure it was ready for the next engagement ahead.