The Wild West is the perfect setting for Rockstar’s Director Mode. Director Mode, made popular by the ridiculous videos created on GTA V , gives players the ability to reload clips and edit the camera to turn playthroughs into cinematic mini movies. With online capabilities, friends would be able to film intense and intricate stories. Getting to recreate scenes from classic Western movies would be a joy. Whether it’s a shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone or a drawn out train robbery, players are going to feel like the stars of their own Western action movies. Players should even be able to record multiplayer deathmatches and races and turn their closest victories into suspenseful shorts. What better way to show off and brag to friends about sharpshooter ski

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a long game and there’s a lot to do in it. The main campaign alone, along with a good number of Stranger missions, took us just under fifty hours to complete, which is exponentially longer than its predecessor. That’s barely even participating in the various other activities, such as hunting, gambling, bounty hunting and more. The Stranger missions are one of the bigger draws as they are once again whacky, over-the-top scenarios that fill out the world. Arthur may not have the sarcastic, comical timing of John Marston, but he still lends to each situation with his confusion. Sadly, I never saw a damsel tied up on a railroad track that needed saving. Speaking of Stranger missions, you're also able to make choices that may affect scenes in the main story. For example, I met one woman earlier in the campaign and she appeared as a prostitute later on, which lead to a bounty immediately put on my head. Another was a surprisingly lengthy scene with a nun who I randomly bumped into once, and Arthur opened up to her. Your choices through the campaign do hold some weight as they can affect where specific people end up in the future and might even expand upon Arthur’s character more.

And yet those moments, as action-packed and exciting as they are, were just a smaller part of the fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 's focus is turned even more toward its finer details. As I entered a small town as Arthur Morgan and went to the nearby general store, I was able to browse the shelves and interact with almost every individual object, item, or knick-knack that caught my eye, and able to examine it in fine detail, even down to reading the labels. At the conclusion of the previously-mentioned train robbery when looking for bonds and money to score, I saw Arthur rummage through cabinets and spending some time looking at the ornate decorations and items strewn about, when just a minute before this, he was hopping across train cars and taking down gunmen left and right. After riding my horse into the next town and stopping to take a break, I could examine my rifle, clean it with gun oil and a cloth, and make sure it was ready for the next engagement ahead.

Due to all of this, it is of no surprise that Red Dead Redemption 2 is gearing up to be one of 2017’s most hotly anticipated games of the year. Despite Rockstar’s pristine record of releasing great quality games, they’ve set quite a high bar for themselves in attempting to outdo the lightening in a bottle they caught with RDR . However, if they stay true to the atmosphere and tone of the first game, and follow this advice, they’ll be releasing an even more legendary game than its predeces

Unfortunately, one key component to Red Dead Redemption 2 I have difficulty getting into is the controls. The controls are similar to the typical Rockstar open world formula (at least Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption), with a thousand different actions being assigned to a handful of buttons. This is a mechanical marvel with all the different systems at play, from gunplay, horseback riding, hand-to-hand combat, character interactions and 6.1 Banners so forth. Controlling Arthur feels loose and stiff at the same time, something I can never put my finger on, and I have a difficult time determining if it’s a good or bad thing. Sometimes it can be frustrating, while other times it can lend to the charm of the game. The gunplay is still top notch, though, with each of the old rifles, pistols and shotguns feeling authentic and enjoyable to fire, especially with the Dead Eye skill. There are a ton of different weapons to obtain, all of which are need to be properly maintained, which somewhat ties into the survival aspect of the game, such as maintaining food intake for both you and your horse.

Of course, many of those strong character moments especially revolve around Arthur Morgan, one of the senior members of the Van der Linde gang and the character who players will take control of throughout their journey in Red Dead Redemption 2 . As a man that has essentially been raised since childhood as an outlaw, Arthur owes his life to Dutch and that experience has shaped him into a fierce protector of the rest of the Van der Linde gang, though Arthur has plenty of his own conflicts and backstory that players will discover over the course of the game. While Arthur has his own proclivities towards violence and conflict out in the world, how far he is willing to push things is left for the player to decide as they control Arthur throughout the story and take action, and that's all in part from the Honor system at play throughout the game's world.