Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is a Western-themed action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. The player controls John Marston and completes missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story; in the epilogue, they control John's son Jack. Outside of missions, the player may freely roam the open world, consisting of the American states New Austin and West Elizabeth—fictionalized versions of the Western United States—and the fictional Mexican state Nuevo Paraíso. Different breeds of horses are the main forms of transportation, each with different attributes.

Horses must be tamed in the wild, stolen, or purchased. The player can utilize trains and carriages for quick travel. Undeveloped land features rugged and vast landscapes with occasional travelers, bandits, and wildlife. Urban settlements range from isolated farmhouses to crowded towns.

In 1911, former outlaw John Marston (Rob Wiethoff) is forced by Bureau of Investigation agents Edgar Ross (Jim Bentley) and Archer Fordham (David Wilson Barnes) to hunt down his former gang members in exchange for his family's return. John first pursues former ally Bill Williamson (Steve J. Palmer), who now leads his own gang that terrorizes New Austin. He arrives at Williamson's stronghold at Fort Mercer, but ends up getting shot and left for dead after unsuccessfully persuading him to surrender.

Rescued and nursed back to health by local rancher Bonnie MacFarlane (Kimberly Irion), he helps her with several jobs around her farm in return, while formulating a plan to attack Williamson's gang. S. Marshal Leigh Johnson (Anthony De Longis), con artist Nigel West Dickens (Don Creech), grave robber and treasure hunter Seth Briars (Kevin Glikmann), and an alcoholic arms smuggler known as "Irish" (K. Harrison Sweeney).

Rockstar Games acquired Red Dead Revolver from Capcom in 2003 after years of development and published the game within nine months; after its May 2004 release, Rockstar wanted to create its own Western video game from scratch. Early development began in 2005, and full development commenced in 2006, following the formation of a core development team. Rockstar San Diego's 180-person team co-opted Rockstar's Leeds, New England, North, and Toronto studios to facilitate development between a full team of over 1,000. Having exhausted the use of previous hardware on other projects, Rockstar felt inspired after realizing the potential power of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Analyst estimations place the combined development and marketing budget between US$80 million and US$100 million, which would make it one of the most expensive video games to develop. Development received controversy following accusations of unethical working practices at Rockstar San Diego, including twelve-hour workdays and six-day weeks, with a lower-than-the-industry-average salary increase.

Red Dead Redemption received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It is among the highest-rated games on Metacritic, and is ranked the sixth-highest rated PlayStation 3 and seventh-highest rated Xbox 360 game. IGN's Brudvig described Red Dead Redemption as "a must-play" and "one of the deepest, most fun, and most gorgeous games around"; GamePro's Will Herring named it Rockstar's best game to date, a culmination of its previous successes. Eurogamer's Simon Parkin called it "a blockbuster video game: a string of cinematic set-pieces and flawed yet endearing characters nestled within an orthodox narrative structure, seasoned with generous pinches of extra-curricular tasks".

GameSpy's Will Tuttle found the themes more nuanced than expected, though occasionally "preachy". Mike Channell of Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) considered the death of the Wild West a pressure that loomed over the narrative. Game Informer's Matt Bertz felt the narrative momentum suffered from the length of the Mexico missions but praised the ending for using a "sense of immersiveness only a video game can impart"; IGN's Brudvig similarly lauded the climax as one of gaming's best. GamePro's Herring was surprised by John's likability—"one of the more sympathetic antiheroes in recent memory"—and found the secondary characters "interesting enough that they never feel contrived"; conversely, Paste's Kirk Hamilton opined the latter, "clichéd and unlikeable", undermined the narrative.

Critics concurred that Red Dead Redemption was among the best games of the seventh generation of video game consoles. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead hoped the eighth generation of consoles would offer "similarly powerful experiences". In September 2013, IGN ranked Red Dead Redemption the fifth-best PlayStation 3 and seventh-best Xbox 360 game. In 2015, GamesRadar ranked it sixth on its list of best games, recognizing its superiority in narrative over Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V (2013), and USgamer ranked it tenth on its list of best 21st-century games; Jaz Rignall called it "one of the finest open world games so far seen".

GamesRadar+ named it the fourth-best game of the decade in 2019, comparing it favorably to other sandbox games Grand Theft Auto V and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015). Red Dead Redemption ranked high on several best game lists determined by the public; it featured seventh on Good Game's "Top 100 Games" list, and fifth on IGN's "Games of a Generation" list, as voted by the program and website's respective audiences.