At the time of this writing, I’m approximately 38% of the way through the main story of Red Dead Redemption 2. While I’m not exactly tracking hours, I’d say I’ve put in somewhere between twenty and 30 hours of gameplay. At times I’ve felt like I needed to rush through the main story missions, identified by the yellow bubbles on the map. Other times I’ve felt like I didn’t care at all about the main story and preferred to just do some hunting, play poker for an inordinate amount of time only to lose all my money, or collect a few bounties. No matter what I want to do, the pace is exactly the same – slow.
As a culture we’ve somehow determined that something being slow is a universally negative descriptor. There are some instances in which slowness is a bad thing. If you are a race car driver, runner, reader, employee, etc. – then you don’t usually want to be slow. The necessity to be fast in these activities is often imperative to being successful.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is slow.
The difference from the aforementioned activities and RDR2 is that slowness is not desired. Many people don’t like the fact that the game is not as action packed and fast-paced as it should be – at least by their definition.
However, let me propose a new word, even though I don’t think that being “slow” is always negative.
How about the word methodical?
Red Dead Redemption 2 is methodical.
Being methodical is usually affiliated with being diligent or systematic. Diligent and systematic are definitely things that RDR2 aspires to be.
If Arthur, the lovable not-so-bad guy you play in the second installment (okay, technically third) of our beloved western series, were a real person, you would not want him to act fast. Imagine you were in one of the camps in which Dutch’s band of misfits reside. Would you want Arthur to run through the middle of your camp site? Would you prefer he pick up a bowl of stew and guzzle it down with no regard to anyone around him, flinging the now used bowl across the way? Perhaps you would prefer that he trample your tent on his steed?
It’s important for Arthur to be deliberate and even slow in his actions when it affects the people around him because it’s not a game about a gunslinger with no regard for humanity at all. Instead, it’s a game about living in the late 19th century, trying to find your way in a rapidly changing world. Most of us don’t make decisions strictly based on emotion but, rather, we live our lives knowing that there are ramifications to every action we take.
I don’t want Red Dead Redemption 2 to be a fast-paced emotional thrill-ride. I want it to last as long as possible while my character finds his way.
