There are few moments in gaming more iconicthan the end of Red Dead Redemption; where John is betrayed by the government he’sbeen working for and the character we’ve been playing the entire game is gunned downin broad daylight. There’s a number of reasons it’s stuckin people’s memories for so long—the onslaught of gunfire followed by silence, the starklong shot lingering on John’s slow collapse, the fact that it’s rare to outright killa protagonist in a game that doesn’t just stop once the credits roll. But for me, the main reason this ending worksso well is that control the game places in your hands as John strides out of the barn. It’s the briefest few seconds you couldimagine, but it also feels like an eternity lurching along; this is your chance to fight,but you know you’re only prolonging the inevitable. It’s only around fifteen people—nothingin typical video game terms, especially from a developer whose games have been consideredthe epitome of violent rampage. Trevor, for instance, could handle this inhis sleep; in most other games, you could take this. But you’ve been trained throughout Redemptionto realise that, even with your psychic slo-mo sniper powers and cover at your disposal,you can’t quite endure the punishment of your typical video game hero. A relatively small flurry of bullets fromone or two enemies catching you off guard, even in cover, can spell the end of a fight,so you know that stepping into the open with fifteen of them standing right in front ofyou is never going to end well. I can think of a few times games have cutaway from the action or betrayed my ability as a player to get out of a sticky situation;where there’s no real gameplay reason for a character to feel tired or sacrifice themselvesoutside of the story dictating it through cutscenes. Situations that, were you in control, youcould feasibly avoid. Red Dead, on the other hand, doesn’t needto pull the wool over your eyes—through everything the game has taught you about John’sfragility in combat that you control, you share his dread as he stares through the crackin the door, but at the very least you’re going to be the one to make those treacherousbastards work for their ill-gotten trophy. Killing off a protagonist isn’t anythingnew, but thanks to its believable framing as a gameplay set-piece consistent with howyou’ve played up to that point, it’s rarely this poignant, this engaging. Of course, the poignancy of this moment isn’tpurely down to the few seconds of control you’re afforded in one small segment atthe end of the game, but it is a result of a long build up of other such moments in whichthe writers and developers use your interaction to convey the game’s larger themes. For example, the minutes at a time you spendriding through the relatively empty desert acts more as a means of atmospheric storytellingthan showcasing a world that’s yours for the taking; allowing you to truly soak inthe arid, decaying nature of what Dutch and his gang are desperately grasping onto. Everyone will tell you different things aboutwhat needs destroying in this world and what needs put in its stead, but the reality ofthis bluster is all around you, conveyed without words and through experience—simply by venturingthrough the world, you’re experiencing the decline of the old West, and the rot inherentto the so-called civilisation replacing it. More importantly, however, I believe the gameutilises the notion of player agency in its mission design to tell a story about the consequencesof blindly following orders, and offers a surprisingly nuanced take on the cyclical,meaningless nature of violence and revenge as a result. John, despite wanting to leave his outlawlife behind and be a better person, is still a remorseless killer. He’ll kill for whoever’s asking, regardlessof what they stand for or what implications it might have on the lives of those left behind. He kills for rebels who, despite their idealism,envision their revolution paved with the blood of child soldiers and rely on figureheadsless concerned with achieving change than achieving orgasm. He kills indigenous people for racist, drug-addledmaniacs who claim moral superiority in their quest for civilisation while flat out callingthemselves the bad guys. John kills at cross-purposes and in the faceof serious moral reasoning, will joke about why he’s going with the bad guy instead. At multiple points he states his lack of anykind of affiliation, that he’s simply doing what he’s doing because he’s told to. In every case, no matter how terrible theperson at the end of John’s gun is, their response remains the same: “at least I standfor something.” And what’s crucial is that, whoever’sat the business end of John’s gun, you as a player are at the other. Like John, you have no inherent side in this;you may have just thought “GTA with cowboys sounds fun”, followed a dotted line to theobjective marker and shot the people there without question and even if you did startto question it once you realised the strangeness of John’s situation, it’s not like youhad a choice in the matter—this is a game about the ruthless, lawless nature of theWild West, where you can get a game over screen for breaking the law. Of course, whatever you’re doing, you’realmost always breaking the law in some form or another, but you just weren’t breakingthe law in the right way, for the people holding your family hostage. John might say he has no affiliation, buthe, and by extension you, are always doing something for somebody, you’re always furtheringan agenda of some kind. Your character has everything to lose andyou want to see the story play out, so you toe the line mechanically speaking, even ifyou grow to feel you’re on the wrong side. At the game’s conclusion, as you step outthose doors, you’re forced to confront the culmination of your actions, or perhaps yourcharacter’s inaction in doing the right thing. What if, on some level, the bad guys wereright? What if there really are families of the fallenout there celebrating John’s death even as we mourn him? Did we do any good here or did we merely commitheinous crimes for different people than we did before? As the hail of gunfire rains down upon ourprotagonist, you perhaps realise that the game has been telling you something all along—evenwhen the people you’ve been helping finally get the civilisation they’ve had you killingfor, there’s always going to be another monster. The violence will never stop. And in the game’s epilogue, this messagebecame, depressingly, fully realised to me. During the last act you perhaps unwittinglymanage to steer your son away from a life of education and peace in his attempts toimpress you, to keep you around. After John’s death, you see the toll youractions have taken. As Jack, you accept a random side quest andfollow the markers as you always have done to achieve your remarkably unceremonious revengeby shooting Edgar into a river under a dreary sky. Credits roll. The game just continues. And it’s hard not to think that a betterending might have been to just… stop. To let Jack live a better life, and let anold fool, with all of his crooked ideals, fade into oblivion. At least Jack might have learned something,then. Now the game obviously isn’t as hard hittingan examination of player culpability as something like Spec Ops: The Line, but when revisitingRedemption it was hard for me not to envision writer Walt Williams’ assertion that anunofficial ending of that game is to simply put down the controller and stop playing. It’s interesting to see a game toy withits players in this way a couple of years before Yager’s storytelling masterpiece;itself a shooter with less-than-stellar mechanics, but which uses its framework to convey a messagegreater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, Redemption might not have the mostvibrant open world or the most over-the-top gameplay or mission design that reacts toyour choices, but the story it tells with these limited considerations in mind (anddespite the obvious caveat that none of it is worth sacrificing the wellbeing of thepeople realising it) easily elevates the game to the peak of Rockstar’s ouevre. So I hope you enjoyed my piece on Red DeadRedemption. This show is made possible with the help ofmy wonderful patrons, and I cannot thank each and every one of you enough for your continuedsupport. If you feel like you can, maybe go and checkit out—every pledge really helps the show keep going. Special thanks go to Mark B Writing, Rob,Nico Bleackley, Michael Wolf, Artjom Vitsjuk, Timothy Jones, Laserpferd, Spike Jones, TheNamlessGuy,Chris Wright, Dr. Motorcycle, Ham Migas, Travis Bennett, Zach Casserly, Samuel Pickens, TomNash, Shardfire, Filip Lange, Ana Pimentel, Jessie Rine, Brandon Robinson, Justins Holderness,Christian Konemann, Mathieu Nachury, Nicolas Ross and Charlie Yang. And with that, this has been another episodeof Writing on Games. Thank you very much for watching and I’llsee you next time.
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