Rockstar Games has talked up various aspects of Red Dead Redemption 2 a great deal over the last few weeks and months. They’ve talked about how it promises to have a large and seamless world, one that will avoid tropes that usually define the open world genre, and how it will do that by, among other things, trying not to think of activities as “side missions” or “main missions”.
Recently, while speaking with EDGE magazine (December 2018, Issue 325), Aaron Garbut, art director at Rockstar North, talked about how Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t going to be about just discovering new things to do and activities to take part in in the world, but also about the world itself just constantly providing players with new experiences in subtle ways. He cites the game’s complex wildlife ecosystem as one such example.
“A big difference for this game is making sure that the player’s not just discovering fun things to do, but that the world is constantly serving things up to you in subtle ways,” said Garbut. “A rattlesnake spooking your horse, animals lurking in the woods, a rival gang’s campfire off in the distance, the distant lights of the nearest town – there’s always something going on. The things that happen to you as you simply hang out in the world pull you through it, creating rewarding experiences in their own right. That feels real, and it feels new.”
Interestingly enough, in that same preview, EDGE also mentioned something very interesting about the game’s map size. Apparently, after bringing up the map at one point, they zoomed out as far as they could, and moved eastward, and it was only after scrolling for two full screens that they reached the end. Going southward, according to EDGE, it scrolled “twice as far”.
Being a Rockstar game, none of us will be surprised by the fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 has a huge map to explore, but this is very impressive. I mean, these aren’t exact measurements or anything by any stretch of the imagination, but it does give you a fair idea of what to expect from the map’s size.
Red Dead Redemption 2 launches on October 26 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Apparently, it’ll last sixty hours in terms of playtime- read more on that through here.