This isn’t a complain about the game, neither a compliment.
It’s something personal I guess, not related to anything else, but myself, I think I just need to vent.
Maybe the game romanticize way too much the life in the year around 1900 and the thing is I just love the life how they portrait it. The game is extremely immersive and it’s hitting me hard.
Everything is so simple, there’s so much respect between people, they live camping with a simple life, everybody trying to help to survive as they can, singing at the end of nights, having profound and philosophical talking. It’s such a more human focused life.
Seeing a simple life like that and comparing to the modern world makes me feel sad. Today we have cars, cities, buildings, very few vegetation, a lot of pollution, everybody is so fixed on being clean, good looking, companies rule the world, people accepting being modern slaves in exchange of a little comfort and convenience. It’s truly a disappointment to me.
I’d exchange 20-30 years living in a world like RDR2 shows than 70-80 years in the modern world. That’s right, I’d rather die trying to hunt for food and learning how to survive in the woods than a massive boring life doing the exact same thing every single day in front of a computer.
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“Everything is so simple, there’s so much respect between people, they live camping with a simple life, everybody trying to help to survive as they can, singing at the end of nights, having profound and philosophical talking. It’s such a more human focused life.”
Have we played the same game? They are murderers, drunkards and thieves who constantly backstab each other.
Came here to say this. Also, tuberculosis.
And games do not simulate smell.
Smell gets normalized so fast, though. It doesnt matter.
It gets normalized to a single smell, or specific mix. But in the West you would have had a continuous cycle of horse shit, cheap perfume, vomit, booze, moldy wood, cow shit, coal, etc. with the occasional ziff of used gunpowder.
Don’t listen to that dude, they work for Big Smell.
Outhouses on a hot day… 💀
Theres more than that
You’re not wrong, but I get what OP is saying too. Most of the camp does like and regard each other, it’s mostly Dutch and Micah that are shitheads and lit people against each other. And yeah, it’s a game about outlaws and will have conflict, that’s how it works. It’s just that the whole approach to life is different. It’s actually living life, actually talking to people instead did “what’s new?” “Just work, someone couldn’t figure out how to update Teams again so I watched a progress bar and went back to my office and pretended to be busy the rest of the day”. Or just staring blankly when someone has the audacity to speak to you, and then going back to being mesmerized by your depression rectangle.
Constantly? The respect between Dutch and Arthur, and Dutch with all of their group, it’s something we’d never genuinely feel in this society of masks.
Dutch is an egomaniacal monster, and like many sociopaths he’s found a community where he can manipulate people into doing his bidding while seeming selfless and reasonable.
Arthur is a broken, violent man who follows Dutch because he’s been sold a fantasy about freedom and family that allows him to view his choices through a romantic, heroic filter. If Arthur allowed that illusion to crumble, he’d have to come to terms with all the evil he’s been a part of.
It sounds like you’re in an earlier part of the story. It’s a long game with a lot of story and character development.
Dutch has no respect, for no one. He is a violent criminal who groomed children into becoming his personal killers.
Have you finished the game?
I’m half of it. but 90h, because I stay a lot of time hearing the dialogs in the camp. Even if Dutch is such a bad person, it doesn’t invalidate the relation between the others of the group.
There are some good people in the camp, sure, but Dutch is not one of them. Neither is Arthur, no matter how you play him. Dutch is a charismatic devil with a silver tongue who makes people believe he is the good guy. Seems like he got you too.
Edit: This whole exchange comes across a lot harsher than it was meant. I understand you, Dutch is a very well written character who is fun to be around. I just found it a bit strange how you romanticized this gang of truly awful persons. But I get it, the camp feels like family. I’ve been there, I would have slaughtered a whole town to protect Tilly.
I advice to stop reading responses here and finish it due to spoilers.
If you hadn’t played past chapter 2, that would explain a lot of your view. Maybe chapter 3. But finish the game and then get back to us and tell us your views then.
I understand that it can feel that way, but remember that video games are romanticized interpretations that make things way easier than they are in real life. Life back then wasn’t RDR2 and there’s no guarantee that you’d find the community you’re imagining, and a much higher chance you’d have to deal with the harsh realities of those times
Idk if you’ve played the game, but you regularly have to deal with pretty harsh realities of those times.
OP isn’t wrong, though. RDR2 does a good job of putting you in the shoes of someone 125y ago (as much as a real time simulation projected on a 2D surface can), after all, someone 125y ago wasn’t thinking “man, these times sure have some harsh realities”, it was just the world they knew.
While I don’t think the writers intended the takeaway to be “look how much better life was in the wild west”, they did intend to give some perspective on what “freedom” meant to people in the US 125y ago. And how something things have changed while others have stayed exactly the same.
I’m just saying there’s a difference between playing a game designed to provide a fun and rewarding experience and actually going through those harsh realities in real life
RDR2 does a good job of putting you in the shoes of someone 125y ago
Does it? I wasn’t alive then, and I doubt any of the devs were either. Even if you’re going off first hand sources it can still be hard to know if the perception we have today is actually accurate to how it was back then
Tell me you stopped reading my comment mid-sentence without telling me.
I feel like I decapitated a lot more people with my shotgun than you did. Also, don’t forget about the tuberculosis and saw amputations. :/
I should also add though, the depictions of nature in the game are absolutely incredible. One of the most immersive and nostalgic aspects of the game that R* really nailed is riding, camping, hunting, and discovering the wide open spaces. They really took a risk at making a slower paced work of art that grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go, and it really paid off.
I hope you play it all the way to the end! Enjoy!
Yeah, I encourage OP to read up on how life really was in those days. I think that will quickly dispel their romantic ideas.
Please stay far far away from any suspected cults.
OP has valid feelings here. They are noticing how our modern world is an intermediary in social relations. How removed we are from nature, and social connections. How social connections were key to survival. Etc.
This is all true even if they didn’t talk about the harsh realities of the time too. Or the moral character of various characters. Some of the responses here are missing OPs point. And seem to not be able to parse out the nuance and focus of their post.
I think it’s great that they can experience this game and take this away from it. This is what art is for. And this is part of why RDR2 is such a masterpiece. It’s not just a game of shooting people. It has depth and character and humanity too. This is why it stands tall among other shallow “shooters” or “open world games”.
If you look at what OP is saying and reflexively point out that you only see it as a murder simulator, then you are really missing out on the artistry and complexity of the game. They didn’t say it depicted a utopia. Just that it makes them see the alienation that modern society causes. Alienation from nature and each other.
OP has valid feelings and I doubt anyone is dismissing their feelings. What most people here are dismissing is the conclusion OP came to about their feelings, which is:
I’d rather die trying to hunt for food and learning how to survive in the woods
If the people here were a genie and granted OP their wish and sent them back into the late 20th century, they’d be dead in a week. They have very much romanticized themselves a setting that is a fairy tale and they now want that fairy tale. But the reality is that the 20th century, especially the kind Arthur Morgan lives in the game, is far from a fairy tale. I’m not OP but if I had to choose between living in the 20th century America or live in the right here and now, I’d choose here and now every single time. I’ve camped out in the woods, I’ve grown my own food, I’ve foraged for food. I’ve rolled around in mud and washed myself in a river. I wouldn’t want to do those things (and a 100 other things I’ve never even done) for the rest of my life. I’d rather have the comfort of my home and spend the weekends doing those things when I feel like it.
OP has valid feelings but it doesn’t mean they should reject the modern world. If they want to do that they can start doing that gradually. Learning how to cook meals from whatever they have in their cupboard. Learn how to camp in camping spots. Learn how to tend a garden. Learn how to forage. Learn a 100 other things and when you know how to be self-sufficient and you still feel like the urban space is pushing you down, sell your shit and buy a home in the middle of nowhere and live off the land or whatever. Just learn to be self-sufficient before you reject modernness, because the lives we live don’t really require us to survive on our skills. I imagine most people don’t even know how to cook a delicious meal because it’s far more convenient to have it brought to your doorstep. And cooking is the most basic skill you should know.
I remember the late 20th century, it wasn’t that bad, and certainly not that dangerous. /s
Fuck. I originally had 19th century and thought “that’s like 1800 something but the game should be taking place somewhere in 1900s so it must be wrong” and then replaced it with 20th century. Turns out that’s not entirely true either because Arthurs story takes place in 1899.
OP has valid feelings here. They are noticing how our modern world is an intermediary in social relations. How removed we are from nature, and social connections. How social connections were key to survival. Etc.
At the same time, I think it’s potentially dangerous to come to this conclusion through the filter of media. Media can be thought-provoking and cathartic, but it shouldn’t act as a substitution of reality.
The modern world has problems for sure, but the idea that things were better “back in the day,” artificially instilled by the media we consume, veers uncomfortably close to the same type of mindset that allows regressive political movements like MAGA to take off.
It’s always valuable to take wisdom where you can, without fully accepting everything else with it without question. Media can help you discover something as long as you realize it’s not reality, it’s what someone wrote. For example I sometimes get shit from people for referencing Nietzsche. I don’t agree with everything he believed, but he makes some interesting points about a lot of things, and even then he is often misunderstood as objectivism.
Read “Blood Meridian,” it’ll get you over romanticizing the old West fast.
There a communities that live like that in modern times, just seek em out
I wish it was easy to make part of one. Don’t even know where to begin. I personally never saw it, just read about it. Not to mention it depends the country you live on.
Life demands efforts. It’s not like downloading and pressing play.
Its interesting that you find it hard to seek out the lifestyle that you want when that lifestyle will actually require a lot more effort just to survive
I’m not trying to go camping, but just in terms of finding a “simple life” still requires weaving around a lot of modern problems/realities. For instance I do plenty of unpaid chores for family (today I helped carry fence panels), but I am not going to travel many hours (esp. lacking a car) to meet strangers to see if I possibly mesh well in such a community where I would also likely have to pay rent even after putting in what effort I could.
Sounds like you are looking at the grass over the fence.
It’s always greener than on this side
I live a stagnant life (shut-in, somewhat rural area) so there may actually be “greener grass” somewhere but I am unlikely to ever even see it, which is part of my point. And funnily enough, in a literal sense importance of green well-kept lawns is a relatively modern problem as well (going back to aristocrats) adding to sprawl (and bad for pollinators/other wildlife).
To hammer my point home… on top of USA’s car-centric sprawl, there is also no freedom-to-roam enshrined in law (like Europe has along with the Schengen Area) and I don’t want to end up homeless without even a car to live in.
There are also a lot of other modern USA problems that are reduced or eliminated in other countries (healthcare, tax filing, worker protections, diet). Which is not to say they don’t have their own problems, but being the richest country in the world certainly is not reflected in our placement when it comes to global statistics of well-being (because yeah, our wealth is concentrated at the top).
Yeah could be slim pickings near you. Do you do any as a hobby? Theres lots of campers i watch who live off grid on weekends yet still have normal jobs during the week (gotta pay the bills somehow). Ive only gone as far as growing my own food in the garden, but gotta admit, eating something ive gone to the effort of growing, caring for and harvesting is a level of self satisfaction that hits pretty hard
Yes, this was the main theme of the game. To Arthur and the rest of their camp, they are the embodiment of the American dream: living off the land, doing whatever they want, working hard to succeed, living a simple life. They see “civilization” and the justice system that comes with it as a false promise, taking freedoms away to somehow guarantee more freedom. And they see the industrial revolution as creating the largest gangs of them all, but calling them “corporations”. So big that they can pay pinkertons to bully workers, while also paying the law to look the other way.
RDR2 really is a work of art. It’s not 100% historically accurate, it’s “the lie that makes us see the truth”.
I’d exchange 20-30 years living in a world like RDR2 shows than 70-80 years in the modern world.
Do you people hear yourself
Are you friends with your neighbours? I’d start there. Kith is valuable.
Have you been diagnosed for depression? There may be less extreme options than sacrificing 40 entire years of life to live outside of the city.
Whatever you decide to do, I’m glad this game is getting a big reaction from you. Even if it’s rare, I hope you look forward to the next game that feels this special in the future
Have you ever been outside in -40 weather? Or spent a night in it? Or spent a day in 40c weather without ac? I’m only curious cause of your stance. Both suck ass, been at both (thankfully we had cabins available at the -40 weather when the fire went out).
Mean it sounds quant but you can try the actual stuff beforehand, spend a week in the bush with minimal goods, I haven’t and wouldn’t want to. I still treked through them for a month due to a school I was in, that’s the summer side though not hot just usual summer temps.
Not trying to harsh ya or anything it’s just until you’ve been through a month of camping (okay we did have food brought in) or very cold weather for a few nights outdoors it’s hard to be serious about wanting that.
Mean if you want to die hunting? Have at it. I’m just saying you need some build up before you get to what you’d prefer and survive well.
And to those that do it? They have my respect I’ve been in the wild even with food drops, and it can suck for anyone used to modern world. Also I’m in my late 40s my experience was early 90s when gortex was awesome to have as an outer wear and few of us had it.
Also the first game was one of the few games I’ve finished in my life (yes I suck at games plus adhd) and quite enjoyed the second but never finished it. Stuck on a mission where everything is aggro or something it just stopped being fun
I do see your view though for sure and can appreciate it.
-40 is the same in both Celsius and Fahrenheit which is kinda cool. It’s also a pretty extreme situation. I’m not a historian, but I’m pretty sure people would plan to travel to warmer climates, like maybe Tahiti, or have some shelter for winter or they’d be ya know… Dead.
Oh I agree, though many people lived through it back then and I would think they’re stronger than most these days for handling it. Just don’t think it was so attractive as OP put it is all. First bit of rdr2 was a blizzard scene unless Im misremembering, that alone would weed out a ton if they couldn’t handle things.
people accepting being modern slaves
Well guess what
Prior to my advice below I’d recommend discussing this with a professional first based on some of your post history.
Once you get to a point where you are open to looking toward the future you could look into a ranger job in a national park/firewatch. It sounds pretty close to what you’re looking for being out in nature, disconnected from modern society, and sort of a frontier for you to conquer. However as it’s very isolated you really should get to a good place mentally first.
It’s my favorite game of all time and the only game I ever took a day off work for launch. I even moved out west in part because of it.
If you want to immerse yourself in the period more, check out Ken Burns’ The West.
Edit: Also PLEASE watch Deadwood, if you haven’t!
