A lot of people out there have been asking when does Red Dead Redemption 2 come out? Well the good news about that is it’s actually released NOW! October 26th has finally arrived which is the official release date of the game! I pre-ordered mine from the PlayStation Plus store on my PS4 Pro and have already downloaded it.

I’ve been able to play it for a little bit just to get a taste of it and see how beautiful this game really looks and how it plays as well. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll have seen some previews and links to great articles of the game at other major gaming sites and seen some great trailers released from the developer of RDR 2. Well without further ado, who is my Red Dead Redemption 2 game impressions!

Van Der Linde Gang

I will have an hour long video of my first foray into the game at the end of this article for those that want to watch it. As the game starts out, there’s a cutscene (all in game graphics which are gorgeous!) showing a caravan of covered wagons during an incredibly nasty blizzard up in the mountains.

The way the snow is blowing and falling here and how powerful the wind is just makes me gawk in awe and shudder at the same time because it just makes me feel like I’m there in a way and I feel like I’d freeze to death! You can easily tell that the in game characters do not like the situation that they are in and two members of the gang realize that they need to find shelter and real soon or no one is going to make it.

You can definitely tell that group of people is up there in that treacherous weather in the mountains for a reason and not a very good one as you’ll soon find out as this intro part of this story progresses. As the caravan moves forward, a character emerges through the blowing snow and his name is Arthur Morgan who will be the main protagonist that you’ll be controlling/playing throughout the game.

Arthur and another person of the Van Der Linde Gang mentioned that they have found an abandoned mining town that would work for shelter. The other guy with Arthur appears to be the leader of the gang and he gives a small speech to all the others once they are at the mining town. Dutch and Arthur head out to try to find some of the other scouts they’ve sent out.

He knows everyone is going through a tough time, but promises everyone, women and children that they will get through this tribulation currently as they have at other times in the past. You kind of get the hint though that their days are going to be numbered pretty soon especially since this takes place at around the close of the century (1896) and the opening intro says that the age of outlaws is quickly ending as the government has sent out forces to hunt down and destroy these vestiges of lawlessness.

Learning the Ropes

After this intro, Arthur and the leader of the gang head out to find some of their scouts. This is where you start to learn some of the controls. I have to press the X button on the controller to keep up with Dutch and keep engaging in conversation. This is where you get to test out some of the basic controls of your horse.

As we progress out into this treacherous weather, one of the scouts appears up ahead and mentions that he found a ranch that appears to have a lot of people inside it. The scout’s name is Micah and as we head out to that ranch he talked about, he starts asking where everyone else is. He’s told that they are camped out at an old mining town.

Once we arrive to the ranch, messages pop up giving valuable information about my health bar and also at the bottom middle part of the screen, letting me know that we’re approaching hitching posts. This is where I’ll end up putting my horse as we go investigate and it also prepares you for what to expect later on in the game.

It’s pretty easy to hitch a horse as all I have to do is press and hold the triangle button. When that’s done and over with, Dutch mentions that he’ll be the one to do the talking and that I should take cover in a cattle shed and for Micah to take caver behind a wagon. It would like mighty suspicious if 3 scraggly looking characters showed up at the front door.

Graphics

I want to take time out here to talk about the graphics. Now I haven’t scratched the surface of everything that’s available to see as this is a HUGE map and it will definitely take me some time to explore and find different things and see the beauty of it all, but just the opening part of the game is breathtaking!

As I mentioned earlier, the snow storm looks so realistic and it just looks like you’re really there and almost makes you feel like you could get as cold as the in game people. The faces are very realistic looking, with great detail as you can see scars, aged lines, and more on different people’s faces.

The details that I’ve seen so far are impressive.The clothing on these characters are just caked with snow on them from this horrible blizzard. When walking through the snow, you leave deep and impressive snow tracks and I’m sure later on down the line, that can definitely alert someone to your presence.

I can’t accurately get a good feel for the draw distance quite yet, but as I progress through the opening part of the story and the nasty winter storm that I have to deal with starts to subside a bit, I can start to see further into the distance of the great wilderness that I’ll be trekking through. It does look impressive and so far, I don’t see any instances of pop-in or sudden pop-ups. That really is quite impressive for a game that’s running in 4K with HDR on my beautiful Sony 4K television.

I’ve really got to hand it to the developers at Rockstar, their technical prowess and attention to detail just keeps getting better and better and it’s already very impressive from what I’ve seen so far. This could definitely give their other big title, GTA V, quite the challenge.

Weapons

It’s time to get back to the story because I want to talk a little about the weapons. Arthur was told by Dutch to take cover in a cattle shed and Micah to go behind the wagon as Dutch knocks on the door of the ranch house. After he knocks, a gentlemen comes out and Dutch said that he’s looking for some help. Moments later, a few other guys come out and they warn Dutch that he should leave. Micah says that something’s not right here as he notices certain things in the area seem really odd and there’s even blood in the snow.

I have to be prepared and draw my gun out and a couple of pop-up messages show up on screen telling me how to choose my gun and aim. Turns out these men are from a rival gang and things are about to get pretty dicey. Soon one of the men draws his gun and points it at Dutch, but I aim my gun at the man from the rival gang and shoot him. A big shootout suddenly happens and so I try to take out as many of them as I can. I get hit a few times, but I’m successful as well as Micah and Dutch is safe.

The next thing that will come up (after a search of the house and looting of goods and food) is that I check out the barn and get jumped by one of the rival gang’s guys. This is where I learn how to do hand-to-hand combat as well as interrogate people to try to get information from them. I force Arthur to hit him in the face to get information out of him which he eventually gives up. It then becomes my choice of either letting him live or killing and I choose the latter. Apparently this will have more profound effects later in the game if I always choose that outcome.

Now I want to skip ahead a bit because I will learn to start hunting which is something that will be vital, not only to my health in the game because of food, but also very vital to the entire Van Der Linde Gang. Another member of the game takes me out hunting and soon we come across deer. What’s really cool is that they leave tracks you can hone in on and follow and I eventually find a few deer to kill.

I’m equipped with a bow and arrow at this point and it is fairly easy to aim and shoot, but you definitely want to make sure your aim is in the right place because if an animal is struck in the wrong place, they can still remain alive and may even run for a little ways.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that the first time I use the bow and arrow went well, but when I had to kill a second deer, it didn’t go quite as good. It’s definitely something that I’ll have to practice so that I can become a master at it. I really want to become good at hunting so stay tuned, because I will definitely post more experiences with that.

More To Come

There’s a lot more to come because as I said earlier, I haven’t even scratched the surface. In the intro part of the game, there’s an instance where I have to go out and find a certain member of the gang that hasn’t reported back and I have to go high up into the mountains. That person who is missing is none other than John Marston who was the main character from the first Red Dead Redemption.

There’s a point where I try to go out and explore on my own, but that was a terrible mistake because that snow storm was in full force and needless to say, my horse nor myself ended up surviving very long. I will continue to post updates about my further adventures into Red Dead Redemption 2 so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can check out my hour long video below. Feel free to post comments especially if you’ve started experiencing the game.