I’ve been talking a lot lately about Rockstar’s biggest game to date which is Grand Theft Auto 5 and why not? It’s pretty much their best-selling game in history and there’s just been loads and loads of content that the developer has released the last few years to make the game as exciting and as fresh as possible. If you play it online, that’s where you’ll see the most value since the content has been released for that portion of the game.

Well there’s another BIG title coming our way towards the end of October that has a lot of people excited as it will be the second game in the series (technically 3rd, but we’ll treat the previous game as the true first one in the series since it was a blast to play).

I’m going to be talking about Red Dead Redemption 2 and it’s latest preview as well as a video breakdown of its latest trailer and let me tell you, it’s quite a big one. I would dare say it’s Rockstar’s biggest reveal of the upcoming sequel to date. It shows in amazing detail what to expect in terms of game play and how your character interacts in the massive game world that you get to explore.

What to Expect in the Game

This new trailer from Rockstar is a fairly lengthy one, at least compared to what they’ve released in the past. You’ll be able to see the video in its entirety at the end of this article and it will be worth watching. It’s a little over 6 minutes long and apparently, it’s part 1 as there is supposed to be a part 2 video coming that will continue what to expect for the gameplay in RDR 2.

The trailer starts off by giving you a nice glimpse of the game world and the graphical prowess of this game. It looks absolutely gorgeous and leaps ahead of what the previous Red Dead Redemption game looked like which even looked impressive to me at the time.

A voice in the beginning of the trailer talks about America in the late 1800s and how the landscape was changing and new immigrants were flooding into the country as well as a technological boom that was taking place. Towns were grown from outposts and the tentacles of US society were spreading far and rapidly into the frontier known as the wild west.

It’s being said in the trailer that Rockstar not only wanted to create an open and breathing world, but one that can be very heavily interacted with. There’s a scene in the game in this portion of the trailer where the character you control is thrown through a glass window and lands on the ground outside where it’s extremely muddy from the rain that’s falling outside.

It needs to be said just how impressive the detail is from all of that. The mud looks very impressive and quite realistic. There are dirty puddles from the rain, ruts from where wagons passed through, and multiple places where you can tell horses and people have walked. The character’s clothes even reflect that he landed in the mud as they are covered with mud spots especially on his pants. This is also where we get a glimpse of the fighting mechanics of the game.

The person who threw out our main protagonist, comes running out of his building to confront him and fight him. He insults the main character and throws a few punches which connect our character’s face. He then grabs him by the face and throws him back. That’s pretty much all we see of that particular fight scene, but there is definitely more to come in the trailer.

Weather

The next scene that comes up after the fight we just witnessed shows our character on a horse riding right beside another person carrying lanterns. It appears they are both part of the same gang which we’ll be in charge of ensuring their survival in the game.

Both people are also going through what is an intense snow storm or blizzard. There’s a lot of snow on the ground already and the surrounding area even looks like a raging blizzard is happening as it’s hard to see off in the distance because of the heavy snow that’s blowing around and falling to the ground. One of the two people mention that they need to take care of the people by ensuring that they are warm as well as being fed.

We already know that it rains and I’m sure there will be heavy thunderstorms to go with it at times. It would be a nice touch though if you have to dress accordingly to the type of weather in the game. With the blizzards and snow storms, it wouldn’t make sense to be outside in short sleeves so hopefully they would consider jackets/coats for the time period.

One weather feature that has been lacking in video games are extreme weather phenomenon such as tornadoes and hurricanes. I do remember a racing game for the Sega Dreamcast that had a tornado in one of the tracks, but it would just spin your car sideways and that’s it.

There is a sequel to another open world franchise coming that promises to have just that, tornadoes in the game as well as dust storms to really give the open world a great dynamic and challenge that you’ll have to deal with, but also can use to your advantage. That’ll be for another time though.

Landscape

The massive open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 will probably be in the same general area of where the first game was located though I suspect it’ll much bigger and not sure a small portion of this game’s version of Mexico will be in it as it was in the first.

The video shows snippets of what to expect in terms of the different landscapes or ecosystems in the game. There will be a great plains’ area, deserts probably akin to what the southwestern part of the US is really like, large forests and wooded areas, mountainous terrain, and swampy areas that would be similar to Louisiana (and maybe Florida if they have a version of it in there).

It’s mentioned in the video that there will definitely be towns to go through as well as up and coming cities that will match the time period. Obviously there won’t be any skyscrapers around, but we’ll see new inventions and other things that were developed during the last part of that century.

There’s also going to be lots of different wildlife in the game which makes sense, because your character will be doing a lot of hunting in order to keep the people in the gang fed as well as sell fur, meat, and pelt for money. You can already see from the video that there will be bears and wolves to deal with and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s snakes and scorpions that make an appearance as well.

I certainly remember at times from the first Red Dead Redemption that mountain lions were a big threat to deal with as there were some random shootouts I would get myself involved in and if I was lucky enough to live through them, I would then walk back to my horse only to be attacked by a mountain lion and suddenly killed. It certainly took the wind out of the victory I had from some of those gunfights.

The Main Antagonist

If you don’t know the name of the character that you’ll be controlling in the game, his name is Arthur Morgan who is a part of the Van Der Linde Gang. The head of the gang is known as Dutch whom you probably have heard of from the first game.

The gang will at times move to different areas and it is up to you to help ensure that they get set up and perform tasks and chores that need to get done. You can also interact with the different people of the gang such as playing card games like Poker or Texas Holdem. It’s also possible to sit around a camp fire and share stories between each other. The video even shows music being played and people dancing as well. It does like there will be kids in the game though to what extent, it’s not quite known yet.

Now things can get dicey if morale is not kept high with the gang though it’s not mentioned what exactly will happen if it gets too low. I’m sure things can probably turn pretty violent. What is said to keep morale up though is helping the gang, wherever they set up at, with food and supplies and being around other members at times can also reveal secrets as well as other fun things to do.

You can also interact with other people in the environment as well because they will certainly take notice of you if you happen to go nearby or check out a house someone might be in. Guns will be a big part of the game, but I know there are other things you can use such as bow and arrows and good old fist fighting like I mentioned earlier. You’ll be able to intimidate people especially those who may have witnessed you doing something foul or you might even be able to talk your way out of a dangerous situation.

It seems you’ll have a lot of choices on which direction you want Arthur Morgan to go. Another cool thing is that your actions can have consequences later on. In one scene in the video, a woman yells out at you saying that you killed her cousin and she’s definitely not pleased about it. Unfortunately we don’t see whether or not it escalates from there. You can choose as you see fit of whether you want to help people out in situations or not. While there were snippets of this in the first game, it seems like it’ll be much more extensive this go around.

Shooting and fighting has been much improved from the first Red Dead Redemption and it is said that each weapon will be unique and have different recoil effects. The fighting does look a lot better as it seems blocking and going on the offensive is much better.

Horses will be even more realistic this time as you can form a deeper bond with one and your treatment of the horse will have different outcomes. Treat it right and it’ll perform well for you when dire situations come up, but if it’s not well taken care of, it sounds like things might not go the way you want them to and it even hints at the possibility that your horse could abandon you. There are also different breeds that will be perform better or worse depending on the situations they’re put in. It’s mentioned that you can carry extra saddlebags on the horse for supplies or holding more weapons.

Conclusion

This pretty much ends the first full game play video of Red Dead Redemption 2. This game is looking absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to enjoy it all in the greatness of 4K on the PS4 Pro. There is going to be a second game play video released at some point that will go into detail about other things such as what the missions will be like and how sharp shooting will be much improved in the sequel.

They’ve also mentioned what robberies will be like as well as other activities that you can participate in whenever the second video is released. I’m very excited about this game and it seems Rockstar has paid very close attention to detail in this sequel, I just hope they haven’t made things overly complex.

In the meantime, check out the game play video for yourself and share your thoughts on it. You can also check out previous coverage of the game and more information about it at IGN. It seems as Red Dead Redemption 2 is the only game that has a cowboy and western setting as other developers appeared to have shied away from it. Oh well, we know that Rockstar will make this one heck of a game and something to keep us busy until the next GTA game is released. We haven’t heard anything about what the online multiplayer will be like, but if Rockstar treats it anything like they have in GTA 5 the last few years, it’ll be something to truly enjoy. Stay tuned!