Red Dead Redemption 2was a prequel to the first game. With the franchise’s future unclear, many fans are wondering if Rockstar should attempt another prequel withRed Dead Redemption 3, or tell a story which follows the events ofRed Dead 1.
There are some great reasons thatRed Dead Redemption 3should be another prequel that tie into the main themes of the series so far, and more importantly tie into opportunities to deepen rather than just recycle those themes. Here’s whyRed Dead 3might make the most sense as a prequel, and what that could look like.
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Red Dead Redemption 2is bursting at the brim with dramatic irony. Most of the main story involvesArthur Morganfighting for a gang players know will fall apart from the first game. The story’s hope spots like the lucky escape of John Marston and his family are known to be short lived. While the first game, like so many western movies, explores the idea of the Old West declining and people unable to adapt to a more modern world without frontiers or outlaws, it isn’t until John’s surprise death that the game really solidifies its commitment to that theme.
InRed Dead Redemption 2, on the other hand, the player’s fore-knowledge of John’s death and the total collapse ofthe Van der Linde gangshapes their reception of the story from the get-go. The plot acknowledges this, starting directly after the botched Blackwater job that marks the first irreversible stage in the gang’s decline and ultimate destruction.
AlthoughRed Dead 2hits the theme harder when considering the series in insolation, bothRed Dead Redemptiongames are fundamentally retrospective.John Marstonis fighting to keep himself alive in a world which is very clearly closing in on him as the federal government extends its power to the last ungoverned pockets of what was once the frontier. The fact that the first game is largely set in 1911 makes John look like an utter anachronism. The dramatic irony ofRed Dead 2is the player’s presumed knowledge of the collapse of the gang and the grizzly deaths of many of the main characters in the first game. The dramatic irony ofRed Dead 1lies in the fact that John Marston is living like a cowboy just three years from the start of the First World War.
The First World Waris the point of no return for the modern mechanization, government mobilization, and lack of individual freedom that men like Dutch rail against throughout the series. The dramatic irony of the first game’s setting is made particularly prescient by America’s impending emergence from isolationism to become not just a dominant power but one with inescapable influence not just across its own former frontier, but the entire planet.
To deepen the dramatic irony both games have relied on,Red Dead 3has to go further into the past, giving players even more foreknowledge of future events in both the series and real-world history which make the efforts of the characters to preserve their outlaw lifestyle all the more hopeless. Both games are already deeply invested in fighting in vain against a tidal wave of change.Dutch van der Linde’s famous speech before jumping to his death in the first game laments that “we can’t always fight nature, John. We can’t fight change. We can’t fight gravity. We can’t fight nothing.”
When Dutch delivers an extremely similar speech before jumping off a cliff with Arthur to escapethe US Army, the irony is deepened byRed Dead 2’s role as a prequel in a way a repetition of the line could never work in a sequel, or if the stories of the two games had been told the other way around. There are also some practical reasons thatRed Dead Redemption 3would make far more sense as a prequel than a sequel.
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IfRed Dead Redemption 3was a sequel it would have an extremely small window of time to play in. Granted, most of the action ofRed Dead 2takes place in a single year, 1899. However,Jack Marston’s revenge inRed Dead 1’s epilogue takes place in 1914, the year the First World War broke out in Europe. A western game set after the First World War would certainly hammer home the theme of people resisting change, but it would almost end up having the opposite effect ofRed Dead’s more generally nihilist philosophy.
Setting a game after the events ofRed Dead 1, which already take place so late in history for the genre, would almost prove that men like Dutch were right to resist change. Following Jack Marston or any other character likeSadie Adleras they kept up the lifestyle in the late 1910s or 1920s would be borderline ridiculous, and would massively undermine the theme of inevitable change that has underpinned the franchise so far.
A prequel set some time after the Civil War but beforeRed Dead Redemption 2, however, would not only be able to heighten the dramatic irony for players who had beaten the other two games, but would be able to add an interesting new aspect to the series' commentary on inevitable change. BothRed Dead 1andRed Dead 2take place at what might broadly be considered turning points from a historical perspective - the turn of the century, and the years leading up to World War One.
A game following the earlier life of a character like Dutch in the 1870s, would be able to explore the idea that change doesn’t just arrive at easily identifiable turning points. It’s a constant process and anxiety which affects both individuals and culture throughout history. Dutch’s nostalgia for the Old West could be shown to be totally rose-tinted. The pre-Red Dead 2gang could be shown to be living just as close to the edge, just as prone to fracturing, and just as vulnerable to change as it ever was.
Red Dead Redemption 3will be faced with a gargantuan legacy to live up to. The first two games are considered some of the best in their respective generations, andRed Dead 3would need to deepen the themes of both while also delivering an impressive world and tight mechanics. That feat could well prove to be out ofRockstar’s reach, but the studio’s best bet for pushing the series' themes even further is almost certainly another prequel that can up the dramatic irony even more and further explore how even the ‘good old days’ were constantly under siege by nature, change, and gravity.
Red Dead Redemption 3is not confirmed to be in development.
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