10 things we NEED for Red Dead Redemption 2, sandbox games...and beyond...

The Wild West: just one of the many perfect locations for sandbox, story-led and multiplayer gaming. Saddle up! We ride out again soon… However, let's hope for the following:

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1. No interfering, overblown cut-scenes!

The single-player campaign needs to be slicker and more involving than last time.

What’s the point of single-player campaigns? To open up the map, develop characters, unlock new possibilities, inject a sense of wonder - surprise - about the game’s potential. It should Introduce and reveal the scope of the game, before letting us rip into the multiplayer PvP and cooperative game modes….

In fact, why is this game not going to be an MMO right from the outset? ? It would be a dangerous place… But the answer is we don’t want to miss out on the above potential of a well-crafted single-player campaign. Maybe it will end up that way, like Skyrim.

But….if there’s going to be a western-set story then we need less long-winded dialogue between characters. Some from the first game would just ramble on for ages. Most of GTA V seemed pretty unnecessary and the characters were not greatly loveable. There were moments of surprise and humour, but please remember Rockstar: we’re here for the quality of the tasks and not for the next cut-scene and ‘story’. They could take a leaf out of Far Cry or Uncharted, where the missions and story lead into each other, keeping the pace. It was difficult to feel much for John Marston at the end of Red Dead Redemption, but it was well done overall (great music too). I do remember the ending of the barn sequence. And... there were some cool characters we cared about - like the old cowboy survivor. Let’s hope to see some moving deaths or characters like that again.

2. No restrictions to player freedom

Isn’t it always annoying when you find you can’t do something or go everywhere in a game? The map is closed or something. Well, let’s hope there are as few restrictions as possible. Let’s hope that lots of choices are simply left open. Examples? Multiple endings? The use of the world for planning and setting up defences or strategic use in mini-quests, like learning the train time-tables on station notice-boards to overhearing talk about events as we wait on the station. I loved how the map changed over the course of the story, with newspapers revealing these changes. Progression is important. However, the changes should be undetectable and not restrictive. There was a little too much riding in the last game, so faster rides in carriages might be an option (although stealing a horse might be necessary). Maybe the game could have realism settings.



3. The sheriff is coming!

A hallmark of Rockstar and GTA titles is being chased by the AI cops. Let’s hope the AI is just as capable, but what might be cool is if you get rewarded for helping others escape and get a request to join up with fellow outlaw players.

It was unrealistic - and unfair - when unrelenting scores of lawmen come along and rain on the parade, if memory serves me. There should always be a way to escape or give up. It should just feel more...realistic. The idea that the sheriff is on your trail is a great aspect in cowboy games. But when they all miraculously show up it basically sucks. Make sure there’s enough time to feel a bit worried or prepare for a big shoot-out.


4. Sieges and town shoot-outs

On that note, let’s hope to see more of this kind of setup. Preparation for attacks and defences were a bit lacking in the first game. From turning tables over to shooting chandeliers. It will make for some fine western set-pieces and emergence.


5. Ready for Streaming and Captures

Why are so few games exploiting the potential of video captures and spectator modes?
On some modes, you could even have a western movie setting, which allows you to set up characters, cameras and things, and ‘film’ a capture of an entire attack. Then edit the results. It could be an extra DLC or extension for Youtube creators to have to get their teeth into….

IDEA: Wouldn't it be cool to walk into a movie theater in Red Dead 2 (as you could in the first one) and have an option to 'project' your best captures to other players around.


6. Game-Changing DLC

The Undead Redemption DLC was a great success. It reinvented the entire game map we’d been playing and gave it a huge new level of involvement. Will they do something similar here? Turn the game into an Undead masterpiece… If you’re going to update everything, it’d be a big shame not to let some kind of apocalypse or extra dimension strike again. Indians?


7. Multiplayer modes and Mini-Games

Co-operative play. I remember well the zombie mode where all players had to fight together until the end. These game modes had been prepared with love and attention to maximise co-operation and fun. Some more brilliantly-crafted scenarios with this kind of engagement would be essential, and make for some top Twitch entertainment.

Mini-games… there should be so many that this could form a huge feature.

Basically, if Red Dead Redemption 2 wants to be a classic, massively successful game, it needs to present a full sandbox world - that is the game itself. The single-player should simply make the most of that sandbox. But in the end, the sandbox needs to pull gamers back with the prospect of fine, guided - and shared - experiences.


8. Something new...

Most of these suggestions are inspired by the foundation of what Red Dead and GTA have already brought to the gaming table as a whole. Let’s hope there’s something more to push things forward, no-one has thought about…

You have to come back to the root of why people put a game disc into their console for in the first place, or why they click on the game to load up…. It’s about seeing how your character and gameplay unfolds. It’s about playing alongside other people and sharing the madness and mini-scenarios. My suggestion: let’s try and cut-down on endless mass shooting that is multiplayer. Sometimes I enter multiplayer and I just die continually. Or I don't want to play alongside a load of unknowns. How about if you help other players in the wilderness you see an option to add them to Friends, or Ride in their Posse? Or Challenge to a Duel?! What about something new in multiplayer mode that encourages bonds in the game?

IDEA: A character who MUST meet an end? ‘Blaze of Glory’ setting…?

Gamers want to ride into the game, with friends or without, or with cameras rolling and develop a veteran character that goes somewhere. Beyond the single-player story, where can this go? What about a continuation? Maybe there should be a time-limit on your multiplayer character, before he dies of heavy drinking or something and you have to bury him and make a new one. This could add a fascinating edge to the game beyond the game. How will he or she end up? Perhaps you’ve escaped from that single-player past to become a man of the law, a bounty-hunter always adventuring or have chosen to go back to being an outlaw, within a band of outlaws who may be taken off one by one. If you’ve chosen to go it alone, the game would be more of a survival adventure. You’ll need to make careful choices about companions, even if it’s just your horse you need to look after or use effectively. In every case, maybe it will just be a matter of time before you’re hung - literally - out to dry, or cornered and go out guns blazing. The trick will be in seeing just how your doomed, customised character will end up. How glorious will be that end?

What are your ideas? One thing is clear, judging by the Youtube and Twitch community: games are now entertainment with players acting out the role of hero or sensational victim.


9. Skill-up! A ‘Chilled-out’ Game Mode

Let's have an option to slow down the game a little. What other skills will a character emerge with from Red Dead Redemption 2? Wouldn’t it be good if - besides poker and mini-games - there were other skills you could pick up? River fishing? A knowledge of steam train sabotage? As game-worlds get more and more detailed, why not give the players an experience of the world they can use and take away. Horse training? It’s the fine balance of what is fun and what is boring, but if a player profits from spending time building a fire that doesn’t blow out in the wind, or digging a hole in which to trap an animal or opponent player - it’s not only an experience, an effort - but rewarding fun.


10. Capturing freedom...and weird events.

Or ‘emergent gameplay’ - where strange, unpredictable events can happen in a game….
Let’s see tons of stuff like this again. From horses bolting when snakes are present to horses falling on trains and generally just great re-play amusement. The would probably involve wildlife and NPCs. Greater interaction and depth with NPCs in Rockstar games - where they’re so heavily populated by villagers and townsfolk - is long overdue.


The Virtual Wild West...

So Rockstar. A lot to live up to. Don’t rush it. I’m not sure whether to pity or envy the game-developers or - especially - the testers. But... what do you get if you really ‘go to town’ with this project, or even, ‘the extra mile’. Not just a sequel with a lot of shiny, upgraded elements. Maybe not another Skyrim, with a massive load of depth and longevity that breaks records for awhile. But possibly... some new winning formulae inside that will push the sandbox game further down the line; push the sharing, streaming and multiplayer longevity….and which you can then apply to your next title, or expand on. Until you realise: you don’t need to keep making new titles. You could just keep on feeding and expanding one 'ultimate' map or setting. Maybe bring portions of it into the virtual…

The point is, before the virtual 'happens', have we really pushed the sandbox genre as far as it can go yet?

We’ll see….

I was a Dead-Eye in Armadillo

I’d been there before in a hundred westerns, but now I got to go... yes... as a dodgy-looking guy called John Marston. As the train pulled slowly to a halt in Armadillo I continued to regard my fellow passengers and take in the dusty world outside. I knew I would soon make it all my own (just like real life!) 

When opening credits had finished - themselves a spaghetti homage - we knew we’d be riding third-person across a rugged ‘scape filled with old barns, rocks, ravines, creeks, cacti and dangers of many kinds mostly involving bandits. Nothing would be safe... but we'd be safe from nothing. An almost dog-eat-dog world. And we would be searching… for redemption… and for the next cheesy cut-scene with more madcap western stereotypes babbling their intros to the next mission… And this would all lead slowly towards some lonely, final shoot-out. Once more Rockstar Games had seen too many movies… but they knew what to do about it. They knew what a stunning setting it would all make with places like Gaptooth Ridge, Mercer station, Thieves Landing and Escalera.

Red Dead Redemption, its add-on game Undead Nightmare, with their Multiplayer Free Roam world with Competitive and Co-operative maps, make up a gameworld that will be long remembered.

They were powerful experiences for a period of many months. Basically an alternative world in the Wild West, that took the rise of the open-world sandbox adventure game, and polished it. Rockstar are the makers of Grand Theft Auto after all, so they had made these games before. Now was their chance to take the Wild West and plunder it for long hours of immersive fun, and they managed just that. And all so … cinematically. With a real gritty style. A terrific shooting system. And such a sense of freedom.

The trademark game mechanic is the Dead-Eye targeting system, which allows the player to aim at targets in slower motion on the battlefield and then attack with a flurry of bullets.

[from Red Dead Wikia]



You can get lost in the wilderness and encounter all sorts of distracting missions and strange bandits, or... you can stick to consulting the map and finding marked missions in order to see more storyline and progress your character. But it was clever like this, for it was so easy to get distracted. Those distracting missions were deliberately distracting you, making it harder to get on with the game. Sometimes it would be like the fates of Red Dead Redemption were conspiring against you, when it came to getting from A to B. Gossip overheard in the town taverns reflected what sort of progress you were making as did the local paper sold on the corner. And yet still we rode, taking in the landscape, the space, taking potshots at birds far away and saving the innocent… or not.

And then there we’d be… again... lying randomly somewhere underneath the sound of vultures because we had strayed again. To our old ways. Cursing the choices we’d made...

...And another tempting choice was to flick up the Multiplayer Free Roam and load the same, entire worldmap but online… sharing it with other friends or up to 15 anonymous explorers. Mostly they would pick you out from long distances with sniper rifles until you learned to keep down and keep watching your map for nearby connected foes. But also there were mini-adventures to share, mini-games, shoot-outs to enter cooperatively or just ride into town, shoot everybody randomly and then await the coming of the Law. And these posses of the Law were as ruthless but even more fun than in GTA. Occasionally, another player would attract their attention and you could just watch as they were most often finally shot down.

the world map

It can only be celebrated, those who fired this game up on the consoles of the day. Not only did we experience the real possibility and scale that gaming had now achieved, but probably the hints of what it one day could become. Massive. And finally the dream of being in a western comes true. A real feat of design and level creation. With a narrative that takes John Marston down to the creek. 

Some negatives are the usual Rockstar faults: emotional immersion suffers compared to a movie since the narrative and cut-scenes are hammy and self-indulgent and take away the pace of the playing. It can be sometimes tiring to get to or find the next mission. What about a slicker narrative that cuts even quicker into the gameplay? GTA 5 didn't really improve on this, although there was a bit more going on. They knew they had to build more into the Multiplayer Free Roam in order to increase the longevity of the game.

Character progression suffers as in GTA 5: even though there are sometimes a choice of missions, you do know there are the “key” missions which have to be played in order to progress, or unlock more map sections. This formula is ok if you’re new to it all but for seasoned players the sense of realism in single-player deteriorates.

I'm not saying there aren't some amazing moments that provide a real connection with the game. Once the first part is complete, a song from Jose Gonzales strikes up and you enter some new terrain - a kind of Mexico - towards your next mission and the start of the second half. Your appreciation of the game soars. You really wonder if the character you’re playing can actually find redemption.

Then there were all the little things you could get up to, just to see what could happen.  Like tossing folks down canyons, lassoing nasty types and dropping them onto train tracks. Youtube started filling up with new channels for gamers posting creative or hilarious sandbox moments. You could say the new artform of spectating while others play or provide commentary on video games was truly beginning...

What else can I say about this game, or that this game makes me want to say about games generally? Its missions drew you into its world, some of which could involve merely helping an old flame to round-up wild horses. Or defend a barn from bandits. Some taught you things about this historic time where many a book or documentary cannot bring to life.



None of the missions were particularly difficult but this enabled the player to feel like we were always on the point of progressing. The open-world game becomes more about the experience, or experiences on offer. Like the mini-games of poker, knife games, darts etc, that can be played in the taverns against bots or against other online players of the online map. It’s all a great illusion of prowess (thanks certainly to a masterfully designed weapon system) and it enables sustained enjoyment that doesn’t frustrate or challenge like a conventional, level-based game. You can’t really get stuck in games like Red Dead Redemption, you can only progress and experience the places and scenarios it takes you through.

When the multiplayer game loads there is more a sense that anything can happen. The Multiplayer dimension plus the add-ons expanded the life of the game for many more months as all shooting scenarios were exploited. There were even huge battles you could join.

I won’t forget joining random posses of online players. Another memorable aspect was the excellent Co-operative Multiplayer levels, specially designed for groups of gamers to work alongside for a brief time in a multitude of scenarios of rescue, defend or attack.

It all makes essentially for a very immersive shooter with a dimension of storytelling and a load of mini-games and side quests. And this formula is still being applied to the more recent games such as Grand Theft Auto V, on an even larger map scale. At the same time, it’s not Skyrim, or such RPGs that took steps further where anything seems possible for your character that you are trying to build. However, the style and slickness of the gameplay in Skyrim suffered when compared to the immediacy of Red Dead. But then, in Red Dead the main occupation is basically shooting.

UNDEAD NIGHTMARE

And there is the Undead Nightmare add-on... a zombie wild west. Not just an add-on but actually adding an extra dimension. Here, the map we know and love is a cursed, changed realm with a new kind of danger. It’s all being steadily overrun by an undead plague. This means that if towns are not rescued the undead could take over and gradually overwhelm the map.

This is a great idea. Actually it’s one that has been applied to some entire games: the slow, breakdown of a whole, open-world war or map, unless the players unique involvement can turn the tide.

The multiplayer section of Undead was similar, but making full use of the shooting system in this setting. I vividly remember the Undead Overrun Co-op where, unless you worked together with your other players you would be overwhelmed quickly. It’s a survival mode featuring endless waves of undead. There are some cool elements: you can revive your friends if they are downed and also be the first to find one of the spawning coffins that give supplies and ammo. Working together was crucial. However, I used to hold back, helping occasionally but waiting until my fellow players were dead. Then I’d camp out in a clever spot where I could take out zombies and therefore be the last man standing. The whole scenario is the closest thing to that ending in Tarantino’s film Dusk till Dawn. 

All that shooting gets tiring, and the control over one’s own destiny or character is not there like the massive open-world games of today. So one day will come another total Wild West experience. Maybe it will have more disincentives to draw your weapon and greater character depth, meaning that to do bad or to do right could have real consequences on your character and abilities. But will it have as much sheer cinematic fun as this?

Visit the Red Dead Wiki