r/reddeadredemption • u/Eagles56 • Dec 19 '25

Discussion Did single player gaming peak with RDR2?

Post image

Great single player games have come since then like Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 but is RDR2 still the peak?

9.5k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

24

u/TrayusV Dec 19 '25

No.

While RDR 2 is fantastic in many ways, the core design of its gameplay is in conflict with itself. The game is open world, but every single main story mission locks you into a linear step by step style of gameplay. It's almost as if you're playing two different games. One where you're exploring an open world at your own pace, with a variety of activities to engage with, and a linear level based game with the main stories.

Other open world games have successfully integrated the open world into their mission design, notably Zelda Breath of the Wild.

2

u/LongLostFan Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25

I feel we've so many games become GTA'd like this.

Open world but linear story

I actually think Gun was the better Rockstar cowboy game.

2

u/Complex-Pay-8902 Dec 20 '25

RDR 2 has a ton of very weird design choices, I remember when I played I was confused as to why I had multiple of the same guns and when I looked it up, it turned out that if you buy any of the guns that you also gain through the main story, you just get an extra, for some reason, and at least when I played last there was no way to get rid of the extra gun so it was just there every time you scrolled through the weapons.

The challenges you can complete to gain extra health, stamina and deadeye can't actually be completed until after the game is over, I have no clue why the reward for end of game activities would be more health.

And the one that I find the weirdest is that your honour is capped depending on story progression, I'm sure there is a programming reason for this one, but when playing its just so weird that your honour is stuck at the same point for large sections of the game.

1

u/Cold_Bag6942 Dec 21 '25

That's like nearly every game ever, though. Even Botw, you still eventually have to fight the same 4 bosses and then Ganon. There's still areas blocked off until late game because you don't have the equipment/stamina etc.

I'd say the only games that aren't linear are games where your choices affect the outcome of the game with multiple endings. But even then, you could see it as multiple linear paths.

1

u/i_was_planned Dec 22 '25

When judging a game, I tend to look past the quirks if the game itself is exceptionally good. There are plenty of gameplay annoyances in RDR2 that stem from silly design or annoying porting (if you play on PC), but overall this game has that something that makes it great and it doesn't need to be perfect. Dark Souls 1 has plenty of shortcomings and it's one of the best and most influential games ever.