Bugs and Features in Red Dead Redemption
While playing Red Dead Redemption 2, arguably the most realistic open world game to date, I couldn’t help but run into some immersion breaking issues. Albeit no open world game ships without bugs, the design choices prioritizing realism in the game sometimes create an uncanny user experience.
So first off, Red Dead Redemption is a Western action adventure game by Rockstar, the same people that make Grand Theft Auto. It is by all means a solid game. The writing, characters, world, and core gunplay feel wholesome in the context of the old west. This fantastically detailed and painstakingly crafted world is what sets it apart from most games. In a comparable open world game by the same designers, Grand Theft Auto, the city and the people feel more like a simulation, as the story of Grand Theft Auto parodies modern day civilization. In Red Dead Redemption the world and the characters feel historic and carry the realistic weight of what a gang of outlaws might have gotten themselves into in the days of the wild West. The story of Red Dead mostly successfully carries this suspension of disbelief, that is, until you encounter some glitches.
As seen in the video above, there are a lot of bugs in this game. While riding into town on a standard PS4 the framerate drops as it loads the populated town, but you can overlook the issues for the experience it provides. At the same time, AAA open world games with this much detail should undergo more intensive quality assurance measures to smooth out some of the rough edges of the game. The roughest edge for me, and possibly the reasoning for a good portion of inconsistencies, is how the horses move.
In Red Dead Redemption 1, horses would die, and you would just call another one to gallop into the plane of existence, much less realistic than Red Dead 2 where if your horse dies, or if it is out of range, you are not going to be riding anytime soon. This is a welcomed reality to the world of Red Dead, but at the same time, when running through the woods, as a player, I expect my horse to behave like a horse and not run into a tree or a wall at full gallop. A horse isn’t as mechanical as a car in GTA, where you can run a car into a wall just fine, but with a horse, the animal can see, and would probably do everything in its power not to run into a wall or tree at top speeds. Sure, that takes away some control from the player, but the game’s linear missions, areas, and looting already do that anyway.
Take the game’s numerous missions. Most of them must be completed in a specific way. For most of the missions if you even stray from your party members you will get a mission failed. You get to rob a western bank, sure, but the way you do it is all scripted sequences. Press x to plant dynamite, press y to light it, but you can only do that in a specific spot near the safe. Why can’t I just use the dynamite I already have in my weapon-selection-wheel? This is a small case, but it’s the accumulation of these cases like it that breaks immersion. That and some other game breaking bugs, like the one where you run a carriage into a cliff, rendering you unable to move forward, get out of the carriage, or progress further in any way.
I get that the characters and writing are well crafted, but I don’t understand why in the campsite I can only walk. Sure, it gives me time to talk to the characters, but it’s not like taking away the ability to run makes me want to talk to them more. It feels tedious that in some places I can only walk, it would be one thing if because I ran into someone, I failed the mission, but taking away the ability to run when entering an invisible boundary seems like dated game design.
Now I am sure the designers at Rockstar had a reason for what they were doing in the name of realism and storytelling. But this commitment to realism in the game is what drives it into uncanny or frustrating user experience design. Take looting: if you want something you have to look at it, press a button and wait for the animation. This is unlike most video game looting where, sure you might have to wait for an animation, but that animation isn’t committed to realistically picking up an apple, or a gun, or some liquor. Most video games you press the loot button, and you magically obtain the loot. Sure it’s not realistic, but picking things up in real life is second nature, as it should be in games. The type of realistic looting Rockstar has created here only works with real life or virtual reality. Thankfully, this is a minor system that isn’t the focus of the game.
The game does an amazing job of internalizing all the western media we have had over the past eight years, from Westworld to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Make no mistake for all it’s flaws, Red Dead Redemption 2 is nearly a modern masterpiece of storytelling.
