Red Dead Redemption 2. Most watchers have already formed their opinion about this game, and my opinion does not influence their view. However, there might be some who have not considered this game seriously as a possibility. I wrote this review for those.
While not an RPG, RDR2 has many things in common with modern open-world ARPGs such as the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 4, and also a little bit less modern games such as Mass Effects or Skyrim. I will call these types of games "action games" from now on, as the "RPG" part is a faint line.
RDR2 is a slow game having a pace which is comparable to Kingdom Come Deliverance out of the games I have played. Sometimes the slow pace was enjoyable, and other times frustrating. The game has perhaps the most detailed, beautiful, and well-crafted open world I have ever seen in games (including TW3). I could almost sense an old house's smell when I entered it with my character. The sounds were so authentic that sometimes I thought there was a bird or an insect in my house until I realized that the sound came from the game. The devs know that they crafted something special and do their best to show all of it by sending you all over the world in quests. Fast travel is possible using trains, stagecoaches or from a camp after investing a lot of money, but not used much. In practice, the game strongly encourages you to ride everywhere with a horse. Most of the rides were enjoyable, increased the immersion, and forced me to admire the incredible open world, while sometimes I thought, "not again, I have to ride to that town".
It took me over two years to complete the game, not because it was terrible, but because I got lost hunting and fishing in the open world and forgot to focus on the main story, which amends from Western movies and books. The game tells the story of the end of an era where a gang of bandits struggle to survive in modernizing world. The main character, Arthur Morgan, is a central member of the gang. The story was good, perhaps even great for a video game, but not exceptional. It did not have to be because the way the story was told is not matched by any game I have played. Almost all main missions were done together with NPCs from the gang, and the story was told in discussions between these characters and the main protagonist. The stellar storytelling felt natural and immersive. I hope other developers would be influenced by it. For example, Ubisoft games would be a lot better had they copied the Rockstar way of storytelling.
Another stellar feature of the game was the characters. After all, NPCs in computer games are just software puppets designed to give a realistic immersion of a person. Rockstar did well by allowing just the right amount of interaction with the NPCs. They had their schedules, talked with the main character when he walked past, and even had parties, but you could not ask them questions like in RPGs. That removed some of the repetitive lines, which may break immersion in RPGs. The only other studio I know of making NPCs as well is CDProjekt Red.
What I especially liked about the game not being an RPG was that there were no health meters on top of enemies, which improved the immersion. All enemies would drop after a few shots depending on where you hit them (headshots would mainly kill always). Further, the itemization was too gamified for me to care about looting enemies, increasing my focus on the story. My character ended up acting like a real person would have done during main missions instead of stopping all the time to hoard everything from dead enemies and every room, which I tend to do in RPGs. Nevertheless, I missed the focus on character development RPGs tend to have. Another feature I had mixed feelings about was how characters/enemies in a mission would magically appear into the open world during a mission. You could only do one mission at the time and had to either finish or abort it to accept other guests.
This brings me to the negatives, which are, naturally, many. The controls felt janky, making me shoot my horse instead of jumping on it or picking a fight with random NPCs just because I could not control my character. Firefights were often over because I ended up coming out of cover by accident. Missions were gamified too much granting the player medals after completion similarly to GTA5. It was impossible to save the game during missions. Some of the main missions could be half an hour long and quiting without losing process was not possible. Further, the slow pace sometimes killed my interest to continue playing. I had to shelf the game multiple times before I managed to finish it. The missions were very much railroaded, which is both good and bad. On one hand, they were tuned well, like a good movie, but on another hand, if you played them once, you’d need to repeat almost the same next time. Despite these negatives, it is not difficult to see why this game is considered a masterpiece and one of the best of its type ever.
This game is not for everyone, but it has similarities to action RPGs making some of the watchers potential audience. If you liked the Witcher 3, like to watch Westerns, don't mind slow games, love to wander, hunt and fish in game-world wildernesses, or appreciate (open world) art when you see it, you may find RDR2 one of the best games you ever played. If you cannot stand railroaded games, playing a predefined protagonist or don't like action games, there is probably no need to try RDR2. The odds are that you won't like it. As for me, this game goes among my all-time favourite action games together with the Witchers, Mass Effects and Cyberpunk 2077.
If you are like me and enjoy story driven immersion rich games, I would encourage you to try this game when you have time. For me, it gave one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had: 9/10.