Live Magazine Christmas 2016 ISSUE Live Magazine December 2016 Issue | Page 40

All we know about Red Dead Redemption 2’s story is that it is set in
the Wild West and features a posse of seven men. Who these men
are and what their roles will be, is
anybody’s guess. Are they a gang
of bandits? Have they been riding
together for years, or have they
just formed a posse recently?
If Grand Theft Auto V is anything
to go by, we could see a return
of multiple protagonists. Rockstar
surprised the world with story missions that saw the player switch
between multiple roles on the fly,
and some of GTA V’s best missions were easily its heists, where
co-ordinating multiple characters
was essential to success. Could
Red Dead Redemption 2 feature
a similar mechanic? Will players
use one character to snipe guards
while another plants dynamite to
blow open a safe? Will they sneak
into an enemy camp with one
character while others engage in
a fire-fight with the Mexican Army?
With the seven riders featuring in
the game’s trailer and concept art,
anything is possible.

More Missions
Than You Have
Bullets
If there’s one thing the original RDR
had, it was missions. There were
57 story missions, 18 Stranger
missions, 20 bounty locations, as
well as outfits, rare weapons and
more. Not only that, but there were
side activities including Poker to
play. Not only was the player spoilt
for choice, but the game’s quality ran consistently throughout –
there was no padding, just quality
activities.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is likely to
have even more missions and side
activities in its single-player campaign, as Rockstar’s more recent
GTA V has over 69 story missions.

An Exciting
Online
Component
Rockstar’s most recent game,
Grand Theft Auto, has seen a very
healthy post-launch lifespan because of its online mode. Rockstar are frequently updating GTA
V’s online mode with free content,
whether it’s more missions, clothing, vehicles and game modes, or
something different altogether.
It’s unusual for a game that isn’t an
FPS or MMO to have the longevity
that GTA V has had, and most FPS
games drop support for a game
after the first 12 months (when
the next game in the franchise
releases). It’s a credit to Rockstar
Games that players are still hungry
for more GTA Online three years
after GTA V’s release.
It’s safe to assume that Rockstar
will be aim for similar success with
an online mode for Red Dead Redemption 2. It will be more difficult
to fill an online Wild West with as
many activities as GTA V’s Los
Santos (there will definitely not be
any parachuting or jet races!) but
we’re hoping we will have riverboat casinos, saloons, heists, and
heck, maybe even some farming
or gold panning. Let’s have a balance between the chaotic and the
authentic!

An
Atmospheric
Soundtrack
Red Dead Redemption had a fantastic soundtrack, which helped
provide the player with an amazing
atmosphere. Whether you were
riding through the desert, tracking
animals in the forest on a hunt, or
playing through an intense story
mission, the soundtrack was integral to the experience.
It was one of the first games from
Rockstar Games to have an original score, which was composed by
Bill Elms and Woody Jackson. Elms
and Jackson aimed for a similar
sound to popular Western films
of the 1960’s, such as A Fistful of
Dollars. Making a soundtrack for a
two hour film and a forty plus hour
video game are two very different things, however, with Elms and
Jackson achieving something truly
special with the RDR soundtrack.
At certain points in the game, Red
Dead Redemption’s story played
very real music from Jose Gonzalez, perfectly capturing the mood
of the story’s current state. They
were two of the very few times in
modern video games where music and gameplay fuse together
to become art, and we’re hoping
that something similar pops up in
RDR 2.

A Musthave Game
Regardless of what direction
Rockstar Games takes Red Dead
Redemption 2 – whether it has
more of a focus on an online
mode, whether it has a staggering