You Should Play This: Red Dead Redemption

You Should Play This: Red Dead Redemption

You Should Play This is a running column by Brandon Hyde detailing the unnoticed intricacies in video games.

Rockstar’s 2010 game, Red Dead Redemption, tells the story of John Marston, a former outlaw, tasked by the Bureau of Investigation to hunt down his former gang members. The Bureau tells John to hunt down his former comrades and in return, he will be granted safe haven from the law. After completing this mission tasked to him, John is able to eventually settle down with his wife and son. The next few sequences in the game show John attempting to put his past behind him, only for him to be killed in a shootout with the aforementioned Bureau of Investigations. Up to this point, the game was heading to a happier ending for John, only for him to be struck down at his own home. But the ending of the game is more tragic, when the entire scope of Red Dead Redemption is taken into consideration. Following the ending, the game sets the player on missions of violence that have been rewarded with progress. The ending, however, serves as a stark reminder of how all of this violence will catch up. The last few hours of Red Dead Redemption act as a statement on the cycles of violence that reverberate throughout the story and how the consequences of the game are inevitable. 

Before the ending mission, the player must navigate the previous few hours as John Marston attempts to teach his son how to take care of the farm and hunt for food. The missions themselves are similar in gameplay to the rest of the game, but the separation comes from the actions that the player takes during this time. There are no high-speed races or action sequences, instead replaced by quiet moments of reflection between John Marston and his son. These moments build to a melancholy crescendo, where the two characters must come to terms with John’s actions up to this point in time. At the center of these sequences is John’s need for setting Jack onto the right path, one that does not include violence and revenge. In the last few hours of the game, the story shifts to a slower pace, therefore imploring the player to consider what will become of John, after the story is over. The titular redemption that John is so desperate to find is only found in this small section of the game. The quiet nature of this series of sequences creates a sense of comfort for John and the player, where this could be the ending of the game. But as the game continues, there is always a sense of foreboding that John’s violence is still chasing after him, his violence only creating more violence along the way. 

The violence that finally comes for John Marston is in the form of Bureau agents sent to execute him after he has completed his mission for them. The battle takes place at John’s farm, the same farm that was once a safe haven from the violence and harsh reality of the rest of the game. By having the agents attack John at his home, it destroys any sense of peace that was achieved in the previous sections. No longer is there any hope for John to settle down with his wife and son. The farm is now a site of anger, bloodshed, and death; everything John brought with him back from the rest of the game. John’s violence from the first two acts of the game have their own consequences, with the game taking away the possible happy ending that was so close to being achieved. As the player, your task is to defend the farm for as long as possible, but eventually this proves to be impossible. Nearing the end of this section, John is forced into a standoff with the rest of the agents. After a short cutscene, the player can briefly use a gameplay mechanic of slowing down time to shoot more of the enemies. This tactic, however, proves to be a fruitless effort with John being shot down, no matter how many of the agents the player is able to take with them. These final moments of John Marston shows the player how their actions were always leading to this confrontation: John Marston and his own destiny. There is no strategy that can bypass this ending for John, it is an inevitable conclusion for the character. No bad deed goes unpunished in Red Dead Redemption, with John Marston being no exception to that rule. The violence of the game cares not who the player is controlling, it is simply uncaring in its actions. 

After the death of John Marston, the game shifts control to his son, Jack Marston. As the player controls Jack, there comes a sense of closure to the story. The game flashes forward in time, after Jack has buried his father, we now see Jack’s mother, Abigail, is now buried alongside him. As the game relinquishes control to the player, it has become evident how much time has passed: Jack is seen no longer a child, but a grown-man, looking not unlike his own father. As the player takes control of Jack, there are no apparent quest symbols on the game’s map, no immediate indicator that there is more for the player and Jack to accomplish. Instead, the game provides a single question mark on the map, placed far enough away from the player for this trek to take some time. The question mark is revealed to be another mission for the player and more importantly for Jack. If the player chooses to pursue this objective, it is soon revealed that Jack is pursuing the man responsible for his father’s death. This mission is entirely optional compared to the rest of the game. There is no immediate indication what will come from completing this task or how it will affect Jack. But if the player chooses to pursue this objective, the story makes it clear what will follow Jack: death. Jack’s pursuit of his father’s killer goes entirely against what his father tried to instill into him, with the previous missions being concerned with taking care of the farm. Jack has chosen to go back on what his father wanted and instead seeks out revenge. Finally, the game comes to a conclusion, with Jack finding his father’s killer and ending his life in a duel. The game slows down for a moment, before flashing the title of the game onscreen, notifying the player that this is the end of the story. The violence that has been perpetuated throughout the game up to this point has come to an even more violent and tragic end. 

By allowing the player to take control of Jack and his quest for vengeance, it has only damned him to a life mirroring his own father’s. The game’s view on violence is evident in the last few hours of the game that no matter how hard the characters try, their acts will always catch up to them, for better or for worse. The coming death for these characters is simply the repercussions of their own violence. For John, this means his hope for redemption is no longer a possibility, only a dream that is crushed. But for Jack, his acts of violence set him down a path that will eventually catch up to him, just like his father.