How Red Dead Redemption 2
Could Reinvent the Old West

In order to journey forward,
Rockstar needs to look back.

By: Nickolai Adkins
April
12, 2012

In the most classical Cowboys
and Indians-kind of ways, the American frontier
has been used as the canvas for literature and film since each has had
breadth to embrace the era and its infinitely contested lands. But the
dust-mottled landscape of violence, thieves, and legends that remain
ever so familiar in other media has been implemented surprisingly
little in the gaming medium. So when Red
Dead Redemption, Rockstar’s
spur-saddled, 2010 magnum opus hit, it immediately impressed both the
gaming press and consumers alike, garnering unanimous high praise and
quickly becoming as viable in sales as Rockstar’s flagship Grand
Theft
Auto series. RDR took the
industry by storm with a well written,
expertly paced, and massively open world. With such a high bar set by the
first installment, how can a sequel possibly meet fans’ expectations, let alone
exceed them? Like the first game so cleverly ingested much of what has
been utilized before, much can be gleaned from investigating the
genre’s storied past in celluloid, on page, and in real life.

John
Ford and Caricatures of
the Old West