Rockstar’s other open world holds up just fine, 16 years later

🎮 With less than 60 days left till the long-anticipated launch of GTA VI — Rockstar Games’ most ambitious project to date — we’re revisiting some of the gaming studio’s most classic titles. The game is set to be its magnum opus, pulling together everything that has made all its games iconic, alongside exciting new features. Last month, we revisited GTA Vice City, where VI will take place. Today, we’re leaving Grand Theft Auto behind for a bit to take a look back at its sibling franchise: Red Dead Redemption (RDR) — released in 2010 — which bears plenty of similarities in terms of gameplay... just without the automobiles.

The storyline: It’s 1911, the American frontier is dying, and former outlaw John Marston just wants to go home to his family. The federal government has other ideas: Marston’s wife and son have been taken hostage, and his freedom depends on hunting down the surviving members of his old gang. What begins as a manhunt across the dusty borderlands of the American Southwest — and into a Mexico consumed by civil war — becomes a story on loyalty, complicity, and whether redemption is ever really possible for men like Marston.

What we still love about Red Dead Redemption, 16 years later: Similar to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, RDR immerses the player in an open world that is genuinely entertaining to explore. Where it tops GTA is how interactive everything is: NPCs have more personality, graphics and physics saw a notable uptick compared to all the GTAs that came before, and a new historical setting hitherto unexplored by Rockstar. The game might be a tad restrictive at times, where veering off the mission script — even if minimally — can cost you the mission. The game introduced a slew of character features, new nature settings, animals, and modes of transportation that are — given the temporal setting — slower, giving you time to explore the game. The gameplay is enjoyable, if repetitive at times, but the open-world exploration never loses its charm. Much like GTA, you can also use cheat codes and go haywire if you’d like to let off some steam.

A decade and a half later, the game still holds its own. Graphics are solid, even if outdated compared to RDR2 and GTA V; cutscenes are worth watching in full; and the game leaves you with plenty to do beyond missions. The game being available on mobile, through Netflix Games, is certainly also a point in its favor.

💯 Rating: 95/100 on Metacritic

⌛ Hours of gameplay: 17-20 hours for the main story; 40+ for completionists; unlimited open-world exploration

🔁 Replay value: 8/10

👾 Platforms: PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC (via emulation), Netflix Games (mobile)

💵 Price: Mobile at no cost through Netflix; USD 20 on console