I feel this point has been completely ignored by most major review sites. For a game meant to be open-world, this is rather curious.
RDRII only truly embraces open-world design thanks to its numerous side-activities like hunting and fishing, not dissimilar to something like Minecraft.
On the other hand, the story missions are painfully linear and scripted, as if open-world mission design hadn't evolved since 2008.
As pointed out in a must read post from Mark Brown (Game Maker's Toolkit), the core mission design of RDRII is staggeringly dated.
He said:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/thoughts-on-red-22570692
Player agency and story-telling isn't incompatible. The game didn't need to be this rigid.
For all RDRII's "realism", this lack of player agency completely kills the immersion and believability of the world.
RDRII only truly embraces open-world design thanks to its numerous side-activities like hunting and fishing, not dissimilar to something like Minecraft.
On the other hand, the story missions are painfully linear and scripted, as if open-world mission design hadn't evolved since 2008.
As pointed out in a must read post from Mark Brown (Game Maker's Toolkit), the core mission design of RDRII is staggeringly dated.
He said:
Like most Rockstar games, these missions are extremely restrictive in what you're allowed to do. The game constantly tells you what to do, with a pop up command at the bottom of the screen, and if you don't follow this script to the letter you'll be hit with a "Failed" screen.
I've failed missions for trying to flank around the bad guys - that's counted as leaving my crew behind. I've failed for trying to take enemies out using stealth, instead of loud gunfire. I've failed for trying to solve problems in creative ways. I've failed because I broke the law - never mind that I'm playing as an outlaw, and the game has a whole police response system built in.
The missions can also remove mechanics arbitrarily. In one, I wasn't allowed to take my gun off my horse. In another, I wasn't allowed to whistle for my horse so I had to chase on foot.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/thoughts-on-red-22570692
Player agency and story-telling isn't incompatible. The game didn't need to be this rigid.
For all RDRII's "realism", this lack of player agency completely kills the immersion and believability of the world.