[@Fabricant451] A lot of what you  enjoyed about the game I also enjoyed in small doses at the beginning but it's beginning to wear on me. The animal hunting system is well done, but I find no incentive for doing it. Killing a deer cooking and eating it is cool. But you don't [i]need[/i] to eat deer, you can just stock up on canned peaches and live off those. The price you can sell even good quality pelts and carcasses is pitiful and hardly worth the journey.

I can appreciate what the game is going for, and most of the 'realism' is done fairly well. It's certainly a fully thought out experience but its a boring one. The game is excellent at creating 'those special moments' but unlike other open world action games, there isnt enough of a fun consistent gameplay loop to string those together for an overall fun experience. GTA 4 had this same problem, too much attention to atmosphere and immersion but once you were immersed you werent having much fun. Which is fine for a bit, it's novel and charming to have to complete a taxi ride around liberty city or go to an internet cafe to respond to an email. But I need a reason to be doing it, I need a pay off.


RDR2 boasts having 59 weapons but a quarter of them are tomohawks and axes. The very limited weapon customization is only available on about 3 weapons per class and everything else is a 'bouns' weapon you have to pick up. The shooting is functional but still clunky. I'm playing a very pretty game where I'm not looking forward to anything besides the pretty good story.


I do think the overreaching story is interesting, exploring the 'end of the west' on a more personal level than the first game. But the individual story beats just seem meaningless. Everyone in dutch's camp seems to realise that pinballing from camp to camp trying to rob everyone and everything blind isn't a very sensible long term strategy. Which is great on a narractive level but crappy on a gameplay one because I still have to go through the motions and follow along with it anyway. 

And so far, apart from the train missions, I've found none of them 'exciting' like I have with other rockstar games. And I really am getting sick of just 'shooting up towns' when things go sideways. Especially because I know this is a long game.

I feel like I  sort of 'owe' rockstar games enough of my time to see a good story to the end, but I'm fighting to give myself reasons to play it and that's never a good sign. Though far less polished, I never had to find a reason to play Far Cry 5, GTA 5 or Spider-Man because those games maintained excitement  to a high enough level to keep me engaged.


But maybe this will change when online launches. I can already think of ways to have fun with that.