Mission 1: Enter, Pursued by a memory

It’s next morning after the first mission and the game rolls seamlessly into the next one. Like many TV shows like to do in this day and age, Red Dead 2 starts with back to back episodes. Gimme!

We meet John Marston, protagonist of the first Red Dead Redemption, again

The second mission serves two purposes. First of all, it’s a great cinematic chance for R* to show what their new iteration of the RAGE engine can do. It’s a daytime mission, so the snowy landscapes, mountain tops, half frozen rivers and tracks in the snow are real eye candy. Only an hour into the game and it’s pretty clear that we haven’t seen anything like this before, not from Rockstar or from anybody else really.

Javier and Arthur find John’s poor horse

The second purpose is to do a little fan service. If you’re a veteran of the first Red Dead, like me, it’s exciting to get a chance to see Javier Escuela (one of the antagonists of the first game) and John Marston (the protagonist, who end up having… shall we say, history with Javier). As a bonus we finally get to know why John Marston has that nasty set of scars in his right cheeck. I’m pretty sure they never addressed that in the first installment.

RAGE engine showcase. We get a load of very cool camera perspectives

Verdict: It’s a beautiful mission and enjoyable first time around, but purely in terms of gameplay somewhat on the dull side. Great cinematics and nice fan service, though. 3/5

Favorite moment: Seeing John Marston for the first time. It really did feel like meeting a friend whom you haven’t seen in years. I absolutely loved the first game, and right up until playing RDR2 he was my all time favorite video game protagonist.

Arthur grabs his trusty shotgun

Mission 2: The Aftermath of Genesis

Next we have a choice of two missions. I’ll head up to ‘P’ marker to meet up our camp cook, Mr. Pearson, an ex-Navy man, who not unlike many other in the gang has a fondness for liquor.

Another showcase mission for the RAGE engine as Arthur sets out to hunt some deer for the gang with Charles, half-black half-native American and all around solid supporting character. While hunting and skinning don’t really need to be an important part of your RDR2 experience, they CAN be if you want. It’s a good way to earn money and aquire food to take care of your health, stamina and dead eye cores, and some hunting is also required to complete challenges and attain 100% completion.

Wild West was not the place to visit if you happened to be a vegetarian.

Hence, this mission is all about learning to hunt, skin and use a bow. Oh, and by now it’s also becoming quite clear that R* is REALLY fond of the tried-and-true “men riding with horses and shooting the breeze” routine. A huge chunk of our story is being told by characters while riding from A to B. Apparently they didn’t now in the wild west that sitting is the new smoking. Come to think of it, I don’t think they even knew that smoking was the old smoking, considering the amount of cigarettes Arthur and co. puff away during the 60+ hours of gameplay!

Confirmed kill for the not-so-great white hunter

We’re still up in the mountains, but with the deer and later a bear, as well as the beautiful narrow stream running down from the heights, we’re seeing more signs of life. It’ll still be a few missions down the line before we get out of the winter woods, but the game is definitely flirting with the idea. While the hunting mechanisms of the game are some of the best I’ve seen in the digital world, the best part of this mission is hearing Arthur and Charles give us some more backstory about themselves and Dutch. Gameplay is fine, but there are no fireworks here, unless shooting deer with a bow in the snow is really, really your thing. And as Arthur duly notes, it’s much easier to shoot ’em when they don’t shoot back!

Men Riding = Red Dead Redemption 2

Verdict: Another learning-the-ropes type of mission, with a lot of backstory. Fun and useful first time around, but feels kind of a chore for a veteran. Still, keep your ears open for some nice little story bits you might’ve missed on the first go. 3/5

Favorite moment: Arthur bustin’ Pearsons’ balls. An importand side of Arthur’s character is hinted at in his interactions with Pearson and with Uncle (another old RDR1 friend) to a lesser extent. As Pearson notes, Arthur is always handy with jokes, and with jokes, that quite frankly, can be more than a little bit of mean, especially if you decide to play your Arthur that way. To some it may make him a bit less likeable, but even if that’s the case, it at least gives a much more use for the Greet/Antagonize mechanism, that RDR2 utilizes for in game interactions.

Mission 3: Old Friends

We come back with Arthur sitting on his bed in his room, overhearing Dutch and his girlfriend Molly speaking in the other room. To get my new mission I’ll head out to meet yet another old friend from the first installment of the series, Bill Williamson.

Mission 3: Old Friends

This is the first one the missions in RDR2 that I like to think of as the ‘ensemble missions’, where basically all the gunfighters of the crew, with some variations, ride to battle or other mischief. Dutch, the leader, thinks that the gang should take the fight to O’Driscolls, the hated rivals we met on the very first mission at the Sadler Ranch. It’s kill or be killed, and Dutch aims to take the initiative.

The gang rides out to a nearby camp to ambush the O’Driscolls. A lengthy battle ensues. Story-wise there are lots of important elements too. We get our first glimpse of Colm O’Driscoll, who used to be Dutch’s friend, but has now become his worst enemy. This missions also sets off a chain of events that finally leads the gang out of the snow-clad mountains. If the first two missions were bundled together seamlessly, now we get a whole trio of them.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Raiding the O’Driscoll camp, the gang finds some fresh looking dynamite and well-drawn plans to rob a nearby train running through the state of Ambarino. They miss out on their chance to take down the hated Colm O’Driscoll, but Dutch doesn’t seem too mad about that. He seems more pleased at the opportunity to irk his enemy by stealing his thunder.

After the more tutorial-y missions, Old Friends is a fresh, if somewhat straightforward action bit. Although I’m already getting used to the scenery at this point, I’m by no means fed up with it. And the little valley where the action happens reminded me a lot of the camp Dutch has in the first installment of RDR1, so it’s a nice little throwback too, even though I know it’s not the same place.

Verdict: Old Friends establishes one of the staples of specific mission types in RDR2. The action, camaraderie, music, and great visuals, are all there. As far as difficulty goes, this gunfight is probably the first one you might end up dead in, unless you remember to keep an eye on the mini-map and move from cover to cover. 4/5

Favorite moment: Several, but I’ll probably pick the whole last section, where Dutch sends Arthur to capture the escaping O’Driscoll. The lasso mechanic, which is not only useful, but HI-LARIOUS, is introduced, and much improved from the first game. But what makes this part oh so enjoyable is the way the daylight subtly transitions into dusk, and finally outright darkness. Rockstar never ever wants you to forget that the real star of the show is not Arthur Morgan, nor Dutch van der Linde, but the game world they have created.