Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a Western-themed action-adventure game. Played from a first- or third-person perspective, the game is set in an open-world environment featuring a fictionalized version of the United States in 1899. It features single-player and online multiplayer components, the latter released under Red Dead Online. For most of the game, the player controls outlaw Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang, as he completes missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress the story; from the epilogue, the player controls Red Dead Redemption protagonist John Marston.

Outside of missions, they can freely roam the interactive world. They may engage in combat with enemies using melee attacks, firearms, bow and arrow, throwables, or dynamite, and can dual wield weapons. The player can swim as Arthur but not as John.

S. states: New Hanover, Ambarino, and Lemoyne are located to the immediate north and east of New Austin and West Elizabeth, which return from Red Dead Redemption. Ambarino is a sparsely populated mountain wilderness, with the only settlement being the Wapiti Indian Reservation; New Hanover encompasses a sweeping valley, woody foothills, and plains, while featuring the livestock town of Valentine, the riverside Van Horn Trading Post, and the coal town of Annesburg; Lemoyne is composed of bayous and plantations resembling the Deep South, and is home to the Southern town of Rhodes, the Creole village of Lagras, and the former French colony of Saint Denis, analogous to New Orleans. West Elizabeth consists of wide plains, dense forests, and the prosperous port town of Blackwater; the region is expanded from the original game with a northern portion containing the mountain resort town of Strawberry.

New Austin is an arid desert region on the border with Mexico and centered on the frontier towns of Armadillo and Tumbleweed, featured in the original game. Parts of New Austin and West Elizabeth were redesigned to reflect the earlier time: Blackwater is under development, Armadillo is a ghost town as a result of a cholera outbreak, and Tumbleweed is on the decline.

Preliminary work on Red Dead Redemption 2 began shortly following the release of the original game, Red Dead Redemption (2010). Rockstar San Diego, the studio behind the original game, had a rough outline of the game by mid-2011, and by late 2012, rough scripts of the game had been completed. When Rockstar Games realized a group of distinct studios would not necessarily work, it co-opted all of its studios into one large team, presented simply as Rockstar Games, to facilitate development between 1,600 people; a total of around 2,000 people worked on the game. Analyst estimations place the game's combined development and marketing budget between US$370 million and US$540 million, which would make it one of the most expensive video games to develop.

While the main theme of the original game was to protect family at all costs, Red Dead Redemption 2 tells the story of a family's breakdown in the Van der Linde gang. The team was interested in exploring the story of why the gang fell apart, as frequently mentioned in the first game. Rockstar's Vice President of Creativity Dan Houser was inspired by film and literature when writing the game, though he avoided contemporary works to avoid being accused of stealing ideas. The team was not specifically inspired by film or art but rather real locations.

Red Dead Redemption 2 received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It is one of the highest-rated games on Metacritic, and the highest-rated PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game alongside Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V. Reviewers praised the story, characters, open world, graphics, music, and level of detail. Matt Bertz of Game Informer described the game as "the biggest and most cohesive adventure Rockstar Games has ever created", and GamesRadar's David Meikleham felt it "represents the current pinnacle of video game design".

Keza MacDonald of The Guardian declared it "a landmark game" and "a new high water-mark for lifelike video game worlds"; IGN's Luke Reilly named it "one of the greatest games of the modern age". Peter Suderman, writing for The New York Times, considered Red Dead Redemption 2 an example of video games as works of art, comparing its abilities to "[tell] individual stories against the backdrop of national and cultural identity, deconstructing their genres while advancing the form", to the modern state of film and television with similar works like The Godfather and The Sopranos.

Critics agreed Red Dead Redemption 2 was among the best games of the eighth generation of video game consoles. GQ's White described it as "a generation-defining release", and VG247's McKeand named it "a benchmark for other open world games to aspire to". IGN ranked the game as the third-best Xbox One game and eleventh-best PC and PlayStation 4 game. In November 2020, TechRadar listed it among the greatest games of the eighth generation; editor Gerald Lynch felt it set the bar for believable open world games. In December, GamesRadar+ ranked it the fifth-best game of the generation, noting it had already begun to influence the open-world and role-playing genres.

Since its release, Red Dead Redemption 2 has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. In March 2019, Popular Mechanics ranked it 24th on its list of greatest games. In October, IGN added Red Dead Redemption 2 to its list of top 100 video games, ranked 62nd in 2019 and promoted to 8th in 2021; editor Luke Reilly praised its "uncompromising detail" and wrote it "stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Grand Theft Auto V as one of gaming's greatest open-world achievements". In July 2020, Dylan Haas of Mashable considered the game his second favorite of all time, citing its realism, world, characters, and narrative. In November 2021, GamesRadar+ ranked it 28th on its list of top 50 games, describing it as "one of the best sandbox games ever made".