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The Spinoff.co.nz: Red Dead Redemption 2 might be a hit, but Rockstar’s star is waning

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Red Dead Redemption 2 is still creaming it and José Barbosa is still playing it and loving it. But the developer behind it is fast losing its sparkle.
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Rockstar decided RDR2 was going to be more of a smell-the-roses do-as-you-will experience. But it's hard not to think that maybe they pulled back at the last minute and decided to have it both ways, doing real damage to the final product in the process.

A YouTube video by my hot boy Jacob Christensen (NakeyJakey) lays this out pretty well. He argues that Rockstar can't seem to let go of this idea that their games should be more like movies. It's a familiar Rockstar trope by now: you're told to go somewhere and talk to someone, which sets off a cutscene where you have to go get something and you have to do it in a completely linear fashion. If you move outside the predetermined area you're told to go back. If you don't place a wagon or horse in exactly the right place the mission doesn't progress and so on.
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For Christensen the linear, rail-like missions fly right in the face of the sim-like open worlds. You can't have it both ways – one approach will ultimately suffer. The player is denied the joy of finding their own path to mission completion, which wouldn't be such a problem if the game didn't seem to be offering the player that freedom.
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Beyond that Rockstar still needs to overcome the repetitive nature of missions. Everything seems to be a variation on a cluster of mission formulas: go shoot him, go get that, collect these etc etc. You know the drill by now.
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SOURCE

I haven't completed the game yet, but I have of course complained about the game's repetitive nature, as well as how its linearity in its storytelling seems to be at odds with the systemic world that the game otherwise offers, leading to the illusion of the systems only being there when Rockstar wants them to be, which makes them feel inconsistent, hostile, and there to only inconvenience the player. Rockstar could (should, IMO) have either gone for purely prescribed gameplay, like in The Witcher 3, or purely systemic gameplay, like in MGSV and BotW. Trying to have their cake and eat it too didn't work as well as it could have.

It's still a great game. I am enthralled by it and keep returning to it where other games would have long lost my attention by now. But it's clear that Rockstar's mode of game design feels increasingly outdated in a world where other developers have caught up and even surpassed them in terms of offering compelling takes on open worlds.
 
Astandahl

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The market and the critics don't agree on this take looking at sales and MC score (97).
 
Vishmarx

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ive been hearing that shit since gta 4.
some people like them , some grow out, some hate em, others join in.
they keep growing,
 
CloseTalker

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So, this is essentially the same opinion that people here have been reiterating for months, except now it's on a website that no one has heard of?
 
honest_ry

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People are too quick to talk about the negatives of this masterpiece than the positives.
 
Bardeh

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That's very true for me personally, but the sales and reviews don't bear it out at all. The game was and is phenomenally popular.
 
MMarston

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Having watched the NakeyJakey video (which was good stuff by the way), I'm miffed that the linked post kinda does nothing but blurt out the same thing anyway except now with stupid Photoshop gags.
 
ActWan

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I wouldn't say so. Try playing their older games now and see how much bad mission design exists there too.
R* are the most successful they've ever been right now - and in my opinion their writing improved a lot with RDR2, having their best characters.
 

ThisIsBlitz21

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I agree, but this is like the 10th time we've had a thread on this subject. One of them was by you, too.
 
Musubi

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honest_ry said:
People are too quick to talk about the negatives of this masterpiece than the positives.
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Maybe because Rockstar has really doubled down on their stupid bullshit for their last 2 games? There is no lack of coverage fawning over this game. I think it would do well to point out how much of a free pass Rockstar gets from critics and fans because they can dazzle them with slick presentation yet provide so little in terms of actual content of value.
 
OP
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ActWan said:
I wouldn't say so. Try playing their older games now and see how much bad mission design exists there too.
R* are the most successful they've ever been right now - and in my opinion their writing improved a lot with RDR2, having their best characters.
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As far as writing, storytelling, and characterization goes, I definitely agree that RDR2 is Rockstar in peak form.
 
vestan

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Eh, seems like every open world game nowadays needs to include some sort of emergent gameplay systems and frankly I'm getting bored of it. Rockstar's mission design is repetitive and outdated sure but it's their worlds that most people come for and they nail em' every time. I'm not going to pretend I play their games for anything else.

Here's a thread a made talking about GTA IV's liberty city. Point still stands IMO.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/gt...a-character-and-believable-game-worlds.87038/

CloseTalker said:
So, this is essentially the same opinion that people here have been reiterating for months, except now it's on a website that no one has heard of?
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Pretty much. Seems to be regurgitating the contents of that NakeyJakey video.
 
Heckler456

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CloseTalker said:
So, this is essentially the same opinion that people here have been reiterating for months, except now it's on a website that no one has heard of?
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People are so desperate for confirmation of their personal biases on this game.

Get back to me once a Rockstar game isn't a critical darling, or sells tens of millions of copies. These same "criticisms" were leveraged at GTAV, and we all know how that went.
 
Prine

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I think Rockstar will be just fine, of not ecstatic with market performance and reception.

Considering its blown away RDR1 in every conceivable way I think the author of the article is completely out of touch with the reality of how RDR2 has been received.
 
Lant_War

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MMarston said:
Having watched the NakeyJakey video (which was good stuff by the way), I'm miffed that the linked post kinda does nothing but blurt out the same thing anyway except now with stupid Photoshop gags.
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The Lego comparison was spot on. It feels like Rockstar doesn't know what they want to do with their games.
 
Betty

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Nonsense.

GTAVI will be the biggest entertainment launch ever and it'll get praised and acclaimed all day long.
 

electroaffe

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At least now the The Witcher 3 hot takes on ERA slowly stop and we get some fresh RDR2 criticism all day, every day.
Those two titles are the worst best games ever it seems.
 
Enduin

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This is a problem with a lot of games in general, especially those that are story heavy. You create a cognitive dissonance between the story and the gameplay when you continually have the player entering shoot outs that result in you murdering 6 dozen guys for every conflict in the game but then don't reflect that reality within the story right after. Hell even in Spiderman there were times where it felt off due to the sheer volume of enemies and scale of things with then how the story reacted to it afterwards or to the situation in general.

I'm really curious to see if TLoU2 will manage to overcome this, if at all. The original game was OK in this regard, but still pretty over the top.

Not sure this actually will materialize into anything meaningful though. Most people seem perfectly fine with this reality, I'm doubtful this will result in any serious backlash to negative effect on sales.
 
BeaconofTruth

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I'm sure the game is complete and utter wank, but rockstar isn't losing shit. It was still beloved by the media and is making a killing in sales.

They have a certain advantage as far as making these technically impressive worlds that everyone else doesn't have the man power, resources, n budget to compete with.
 
Usul

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The topic isn't even worth talking about.

Because as long as the millions of casual gamers continue to mistakenly take Rockstar Games for masterpieces they'll always undeservedly stay prestigious.
 
Xando

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I'm sure Rockstar is gonna cry themselves to sleep once GTAVI releases and they sell +50 million copies.
 
SlayerSaint

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R*'s star is waning only on Era and places like Era though. And even then it's very likely going to finish 2nd in our GOTY voting. The general public will still eat up their releases and more hardcore people will still love it a lot more than not.

I do agree R* needs to modernize their mission design but even with that as a big negative, the positives far outweigh the negatives for most people. Including me.
 

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CloseTalker said:
So, this is essentially the same opinion that people here have been reiterating for months, except now it's on a website that no one has heard of?
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Pretty much. I thought this thread was going to be interesting, like online engagement was declining or sales dropped off

This just another hot take from someone that don't like thing
 
Finale Fireworker

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I'm a huge fan of RDR2 for sure and am still grinding away my Platinum but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment NakeyJakey expressed in his video. It's something I expect more and more people will come around to in time - which isn't to say the game is bad - but RDR2 definitely feels like a two halves of two different games. There are so many ideas and systems I wish they went further with but because they tried to have it both ways they never went all the way with either.

I think RDR2 is a great game. It has many masterclass features I consider the new standard of the industry. But there's also a lot of ways the game disappoints. It is a game that succeeds beyond the realm of its peers in so many ways, but it's also a game that falls short of itself in others. The whole game has this glimmer of how much better things could have been in spite of all the things it does so well.

A "survival" mode better simulates scarce resources, hunger and fatigue, and the poverty of the outlaw life is something I know I would really enjoy. I think that would be an interesting addition to the game that would satisfy my appetite for some of the things the game didn't bring. But nothing will really rectify the rigidity of the story missions in a post-BotW/MGSV landscape.

All that said, this article is basically an opinion piece agreeing with a YouTube video. Any new insights here will have to be our own.
 
EJS

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Usul said:
The topic isn't even worth talking about.

Because as long as the millions of casual gamers continue to mistakenly take Rockstar Games for masterpieces they'll always undeservedly stay prestigious.
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Is this a sarcastic post?
 
ckareset

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Let's be honest this is more wishful thinking than anything.
 
Hyun Sai

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Ænima

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I know nakeyJakey video is linked in the OP but this video cant get enough exposure. Its so true and i wish reviewers had this line of tought instead of portraing it as the best thing ever that will set the rulles for open world games, when RDR2 shows that rockstar itself is very far behind they own open world sandbox fun experience they once pulled off so well.

 
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