[Official] Red Dead Redemption

[Sethos]

Release Dates

North-America: May 18 - Europe: May 21

Developed By:

Published By:

Platforms

America, early 1900's. The era of the cowboy is coming to an end.

When federal agents threaten his family, former outlaw John Marston is sent across the American frontier to help bring the rule of law.

Red Dead Redemption is a Western epic, set at the turn of the 20th century when the lawless and chaotic badlands began to give way to the expanding reach of government and the spread of the Industrial Age. A follow up to the 2004 hit Red Dead Revolver, this game tells the story of former outlaw John Marston, taking players on a great adventure across the American frontier.

Red Dead Redemption features an open-world environment for players to explore, including frontier towns, rolling prairies teaming with wildlife, and perilous mountain passes - each packed with an endless flow of varied distractions. Along the way, players will experience the heat of gunfights and battles, meet a host of unique characters, struggle against the harshness of one of the world’s last remaining wildernesses, and ultimately pick their own precarious path through an epic story about the death of the Wild West and the gunslingers that inhabited it.

Combat and gunplay is a major part of the game. Gunfights in Red Dead Redemption are conducted using a third-person system. The player can slide to cover, target a specific person, blindfire, and free aim. Individual body parts can also be targeted. When the player shoots an enemy, the game engine uniquely creates the AI reactions. John Marston has an arsenal of weapons to choose from that include semi-automatic pistols, revolvers, shotguns, lever or bolt-action rifles, knives, dynamite, molotov cocktails , a lasso, and a mounted gatling gun or cannon. One combat feature that Marston can utilize is a Dead-Eye targeting system that can assist players when facing multiple enemies after a Dead-Eye bar is filled. Dead-Eye is used in a bullet-time like manner so the player can slow down the world to place a precise shot on an enemy. This system allows the player to 'paint' shots over an enemy or multiple enemies. After the user places all of their shots or after a set duration of time elapses, Dead-Eye aiming will end, and Marston will fire his weapon much faster than usual in a far more damaging fusillade.

Random encounters generate as players explore the countryside, these include hangings, ambushes, pleas for help and animal attacks. Many Mini quests are available to challenge you in. These mini-games include showdowns, gambling, hunting bounties and animals, cattle herding, arm wrestling, five finger fillet and horseshoes. Players will also be able to buy treasure maps and follow them to treasures. Hunting bounties will earn the player cash upon killing a criminal or taking him to a sheriff alive, which provides a more substantial payment and positive honor. To complete a bounty, Marston can either kill him\her, or take the fugitive alive. Taking fugitives alive may be more difficult for the player, as they must first be weakened with wounding shots and then immobilized by a hog tie. Marston must then travel back to a town, fugitive in tow, and turn him over to the law. Hunting animals is a fairly simple process; Marston must kill the animal, skin it, and then sell the skins to a merchant. After a kill, vultures will appear, opening up a sharpshooting minigame. Completing this and other minigames earns you fame and can unlock other outfits. In addition, Marston can buy drinks at a bar, herd cattle, act as a security guard at ranches, and buy newspapers to learn what's happening across the game world. Another way to get news and hear stories is to join people at a camp, which also serve as a way to save the player's game progress.

An Honor system allows the player to make morality-oriented choices that will make him more or less 'honorable'; usually, the less honorable side is on the wrong side of the law. An example is a group of travelers being held up by highwaymen; Marston can take the honorable path and shoot the robbers, or the dishonorable path and join them, killing the travelers and looting the bodies. Another system that works alongside the honor system is fame, which will affect the weight of Marston's actions and how people react to him, whether he be honorable or dishonorable.

The American Frontier and its promise of freedom attracted people of all kinds:

entrepreneurs and outlaws, priests and prostitutes, vagabonds and gentlemen.

Some made a home for themselves on the land, some found wealth at the end of the mineshaft,

and others died penniless and friendless, or at the end of a gun,

Introducing some of the unique characters you're likely to meet in the world of Red Dead Redemption.

See the rest of the characters over at the Official Page ...

Red Dead Redemption pushes the envelope of the open-world experience. Instead of lobby screens the player is placed into the single-player map and given the freedom to explore with a lobby consisting of up to 16 people with the option to create a "posse" ranging from 2-8 people. While exploring, the player's experience will share in common many features of the single-player game. At any given time the player is able to roam the country hunting game, search for unassuming, unsuspecting settlers out on the trail, serve vigilante justice by the gun, enjoy the scenic beauty of the expansive map, or assume the role of a lawman seeking to bring order to the chaos that was the west. Gunning down innocent civilians will warrant the same punishment as the character would receive in single-player while the player will be rewarded for completing challenges having to do with serving justice (or death) to bandits terrorizing the countryside. As the player climbs the ladder of experience (towards the level cap of 50) he/she will gain new, pre-selected character skins, titles, weapons, and modes of transportation.

Game Modes:

* Free Roam

* Deathmatch

* Team Deathmatch

* Gold Rush

* Team Gold Rush

Within free roam, players have the ability to create groups or "posses" of up to 8 players. Within these groups, players can hunt, battle it out in skirmishes, become outlaws and evade authorites, attack gang hideouts, and other things to be revealed at a later date.

Also similar to GTA IV, experience points are gained as you play in multiplayer modes. There are 50 levels of character progression, with experience points unlocking new weapons, mounts, characters and challenges.

Screenshots:

See the rest of the screenshots over at IGN.com ...

Videos:

Debut Trailer - May 7, 2009

My Name Is John Marsten - Dec 1, 2009

Gameplay Series: Introduction - Dec 15, 2009

Gameplay Series: Weapons & Death Doc - Jan 28, 2010

The Law Trailer - Feb 11, 2010

The Women Trailer - Feb 24, 2010

Life in the West Featurette - Mar 17, 2010

Gentlemen & Vagabonds Trailer - Mar 25, 2010

Life in the West Part II - Apr 1, 2010

Gameplay Series: Multiplayer Free Roam - Apr 8, 2010

[Pablo2008jedi]

I hope I'm not going to be disappointed by this, as it was either this or GoW3 and I'm waiting for this. Limited money makes my decisions :p

[WastedJoker]

Wish this would come out on PC :(

[Fusion101]

Ive been following this for awhile and it just seems to get more interesting with every piece of information.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Now this is what I call an official thread. Great stuff (as always), Sethos. (Y)

The game looks interesting but I was never a fan of the "Wild West".

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Only just saw this topic after you linked to it!

At least we have another member who takes pride in official topics still hanging around :)

All the videos I've watched so far on this haven't impressed me - but I'm still eager to try it out. It'll make such a change to what I've played in recent years (I hope).

[Massiveterra]

Played this game at Pax East. While it looked increadible there was a considerable amount of screen tearing and frame rate drops. Played the 360 version. I really hope it wasn't the final build of the game

[Max_Payne_UK]

Played this game at Pax East. While it looked increadible there was a considerable amount of screen tearing and frame rate drops. Played the 360 version. I really hope it wasn't the final build of the game

It wouldn't have been. It's not gone gold has it? Early gameplay of GTAIV was the same.

[Sethos]

I can easily see why some people are on the edge about this game and I certainly would be, if it wasn't for the fact that a Rockstar studio made it, it's using the Rage and Europhoria engines plus

it's basically a Grand Theft Auto in the wild west - It's so many layers of win in my book, I can't help but be excited. Some members around here know my opinion on GTA IV, game of the decade for me

no doubt about it so I will greet RDR with open arms. Now most people are talking about the story and single-player but my interest definitely lies with Multiplayer - The free-roam aspect looks fantastic.

Me and a few Danish online buddies have already agreed to spend the entire weekend just playing the living daylight out of this game, once released.

As for performance issues, I'm sure it'll be released polished and spit-shined and if they can match the performance of GTA IV it's fine by me. ( shouldn't be a problem )

[+John. Subscriber¹]

This'll be my purchase this Quarter methinks.

[mattmatik]

Personally, this is my most anticipated game this year. This can be a genre-changing release (let's face it, the sandbox games of late are pretty much all the same setting, nobody takes risks). I've had it on pre-order for a while, I can't wait.

Thanks, Sethos for a great thread. The character portion alone seems very engrossing and R* knows how to develop interesting characters (I agree, GTAIV was extremely good).

[Corris Veteran]

Feels like coming into a fancy NeoGaf official thread, and that's not meant in a bad way, just nice to see effort in an official topic.

I hope people don't make "Official" threads because they want their name there and aren't actually looking forward to the game, just want that on-line ego boost that some get from having their names on an official thread, or some that do it yonks before a game comes out for the same reason.

Anyway.

I barely know anything about this game and never played the first, not even sure I own it in my pile of never started or finished PS2 games, but it looks really nice, I'm not sure I have played a western styled game before so this could be my first, is there any chance were getting a demo of it?

Multiplayer sounds fun too, I always found the most fun about playing GTA4 on-line was getting together with people and having our own little groups of fun, most which ended up being shoot outs with police folk, lol.

Though I'm not a fan of this pre-selected characters for multi-player portions of games these days, even giving us the ability to change pieces of clothing to different colours like in Borderlands is better than the possibility of everyone looking exactly the same.

Though most importantly over everything else, is that I hope it has a lot of fun things to do, I see mini games mentioned and just hope that it hasn't gone the way of GTA4 where the more "unrealisitc" but most fun parts were no longer present, I had more fun with GTA China Town wars than GTA4, whether it was searching through a dumpster to end up with a sex toy or really getting into the drug trafficking part of the game.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Having known Sethos for some time I know he only makes the official topics when he cares about the game & is genuinely interested in it. Unlike some who post a few lines as soon as a game is leaked. The difference is huge.

[Corris Veteran]

Having known Sethos for some time I know he only makes the official topics when he cares about the game & is genuinely interested in it. Unlike some who post a few lines as soon as a game is leaked. The difference is huge.

I didn't mean Sethos if you think he is who I was referring to, lol.

[+Mystic MVC]

4546

[Jimmy0]

Looks very interesting, might just have to pick this up when it's released. (Y)

[Richard Hammond]

Saw the multiplayer trailer the other day i cant belive this is using the RAGE engine from GTA4 it looks stunning. As well as Splinter Cell i think this game will make me buy another 360.

[Sethos]

4 New Multiplayer Screenshot were released today;

[Remysaus]

Been looking forward to this since the first screenshots were released. Rockstar and the wild west = epic win.

[WastedJoker]

:angry: I want this on PC. damnit.

[Icarus ^i^]

I managed to ignore this title completely until about a week ago when I looked into it more deeply... now I can't wait :) Just Cause 2 is keeping me occupied until RDR release.. it'll be a sandboxy spring it seems...

[Pablo2008jedi]

Pre-ordered my copy yesterday :p

[Sethos]

New MP Trailer;

Click

[Spookie]

Looks like a western GTA 4. I wonder if the gameplay will be equally pedestrian.

[Spookie]

Sort of related to RDR, but, eh: FREE STUFF.