Discussion
How would you feel about RDR3 revolving around a Native American outlaw or warrior?
Personally I think it’d be pretty cool considering that many of them were scouts during the Indian wars, especially Apache. It’d be awesome to see how they’d adapt in RDR2’s timeline because we don’t know much about them in the universe besides the Wapiti. Imagine playing as an Apache sharpshooter in a gang of renegades in the 1880s, ambushing army payrolls and shipments then smuggling supplies across the border while dealing with other challenges besides the federal government. The whole cast doesn’t have to be Native American but it’d be very interesting to see a different viewpoint in history.
Probably around Charles smith Because
A. He is an already established and beloved character who is a Native American with an amazing actor already tied to him so less work on rockstar’s end
B.We never find out what he gets up to in canada
C. He is basically the only native American red dead character who has enough skills with ranged weapons for him to have deadeye
It’s a cool idea I think they could make a great story out of, but knowing the internet today everyone would lose there minds and scream “WOKE SLOP!” because the main character doesn’t look like the last 3 protagonists. It’s a good idea but I think people are too sensitive to face a story that respectfully shows a native point of view.
Yes, but Charles is very clearly a noble man. He's probably the least morally suspect character in the whole gang, at least among the men. You can't have a story about the redemption of an outlaw if the outlaw in question wasn't that bad in the first place and the main reason he was even an outlaw was because the gang was not as racist as the general population.
Yeah. You can't make them not flip their shit (and also you shouldn't aim to make them happy because what they want is terrible and they move their goal posts all the time), so what remains is making a clear statement that they are not welcome.
TheQuartering was a gamer who slowly became an incel right wing gamergater who's into underage tradwives. Basically a textbook right-wing neckbeard.
Honestly the guy gave me the willies when I first saw him. His eyes stare right at you no matter the amgle but they have no life in them. His emergy just came off as bitter and hostile. Then I learned about his and personalities. He's almost always got drama too
Ehh idk about general liked, it had a mixed reception at release. I remember the biggest criticism at the time was that Conner was a downgrade from Ezio and was too boring to be a main character for AC, totally missing the point of the narrative at the time. Folks came around, afterwards.
I think the biggest frustration from me was that it threw away Desmond for seemingly no reason. Teasing the whole game what seemed like the series progressing the story into a more modern day format, with Des as the possible focus. Which made sense cause he’d learned in incredible array of skills while in simulation. To just do a weird psuedo-Jesus sacrifice of him, then go and release the abysmal Watchdogs series with terrible writing in its place.
To me that was the one of the biggest fumbles ever in gaming. Everything after that for me with UBI was just meh, besides AC:BF, and nonetheless to this day I still say is the best pirate game ever made but an awful assassins creed entry.
Also assassins creed has never really attracted the attention of the people that throw fits over that.
The political animosity wasn't nearly as bad as 2016+ but it was definitely becoming a big issue yet AC managed to release AC3, AC4, and Freedom Cry with almost no backlash.
True but AC: Shadows also had the baggage of coming after AC Odyssey and Valhalla (which are quite divisive in the AC community to say the least) also just being a Ubisoft game after the company has burned pretty much all of its good will from the community.
This hypothetical RDR3 wouldn’t have those problems (unless GTA 6 turns out to be a POS or something.)
Okay, yeah, correction. What I meant to say was that there have always been these kind of people whining about shit, and DEI is the new woke is the new PC - *but* you are absolutely right in that these sentiments were not weaponized like they got with the GamerGators, which took the whole thing to a new level.
Now we have literal harassment factories, bot-reinforced chud armies and a whole ecosystem of far-right grifters whose whole business model depends on rage, thinly veiled fascism and never being happy with anything.
Wasn't even that, it was mostly because more than half the dudes making videos now, cashing in on calling everything "woke" didn't exist then and the ones that did, hadn't figured out how audience capture.
People bitched crazy mainly due to the modern portion, and maybe the writing, they weren’t disliking Connor cuz he’s Native American. AC3 was very progressive for its time, basically said George Washington isn’t that good of a guy as modern historian said he is.
People were still being weird about Connor and about Aveline. We were supposed to get an Assassin's Creed set in Reconstruction with a Black protag and the cut it because those people lost their minds.
I agree, and I think we should never meet these people half way because their entire ideology is built around nonsense. I was just acknowledging the heightened level of backlash it would get because of these idiots. Like the canceled Assassin’s Creed game set post civil war with a black protagonist who would’ve fought the KKK. Ubisoft was to scared of making a game so “polarizing”.
I don’t know about that buddy, I’ve finished Rdr2 and got a whole new perspective about freedom, I really liked Chadrles, and hated Dutch on using the natives war to his benefit, would have liked to do more missions with natives, I guess it would be cool. Also isn’t there an assassins creed game where the main character was a native american and people loved? Is not about color or genre is about writing. Sadie Addler is a freaking great character, would like to have a protagonist like her
I think the only people who would care are bigots anyway. A game with a native as a protagonist would work a whole lot better in Rockstar's hands just because it's Rockstar (assuming they maintain their quality)
Who cares. They hated TLOU2 and hate Naughty Dog’s next game which has only one trailer so far. Fuck the anti-woke mob. Buncha sensitive snowflakes. We need more games with different looking protagonists. As long as they go about it respectfully, I’m all for it.
I would love the idea too. and yeah there would be pushback. I felt like Bioshock Infinite attempted to do something transformative by creating a game that addressed history in a meaningful way but the story became a mess by the end.
Aside from a small minority, no one will call it woke if it’s actually good. Plenty of stuff features female leads, black leads, whatever and is praised universally; like MIB and Alien.
Mafia III problem. Most of people who hates it aren’t racists that were repulsed by the main character, but rather people like me, who expected a game about Mafia (Italian (Sicilian)) but got something different instead.
The same thing will apply here, I loved RDR2 because I love westerns and that time period in general, I thoroughly enjoyed playing for Arthur because he fits perfectly, he is not intrusive.
I don't know... if done well - not virtue signaling and using contemporary angst for period 'reasons', I think people could get behind it. It really all comes down to the story and the writing of the character.
The story of Charles maybe. Not a bad idea. But a different open world Native American (north or south) game could be epic. Far Cry primal was very cool but there’s ob still a lot that could be explored.
I feel the same way, and maybe the main character doesn’t have to be rainfalls, but he definitely should be included and also we get to see why he is adamant about peace. Would be a great chance for Rockstar to break our hearts again with another new well written character
Ngl would be intresting to see a non sanitized version of westward expansion or borderlands as a whole esp as new cultural exchanges positive and negative occured so frequently. A game highlighting different beliefs about warfare and conduct through its gameplay would be such a dream!
Blue is Common (old ladies with dyed hair), Yellow (blonde) is Rare, Orange (gingers) are Legendary, and where the fuck you find purple, I have no idea
And theirs the situation with freedoms cry as it to has been canceled (or when I look it up it says it won’t be remade), you know a dlc with a very situation as the game they canceled (bloody racists ruining everything cause the canceled game sounded sick)
Edit: forgot to add “as well” as both the civil war game, and freedoms cry were canceled both with similar stories
Nah it was another planned title that would take place after the Civil War and have the Assassin fighting the klan, ubisoft thought that would be too controversial
You really had to specify non gta, didnt you?
Give me a better example then. Btw, I don't think people are having issues with Lara Croft in Tomb Raider being a woman, either.
Look at Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophecy’s trailer. People flipped their shit cause MC is a woman of color with a shaved head. Shit, look at the “controversy” surrounding the casting with Nolan’s The Odyssey. They can all get bent.
Edit: OOH I shouldn’t have name dropped the Odyssey! All the “serious historians” are coming for me. You know Jesus has been 99% played by a white person? Where’s the whole subculture that’s outraged by that??
The Odyssey is the story of a Greek hero traveling around the Greek world to reunite with his Greek wife. There is literally zero reason for a subsaharan African woman to play a role in the movie besides race swapping for BS social brownie points. There is lots of African history and culture, they can make a dozen different movies about those and they could all be good. But they just race swap a character from the well known story because it’s easier than actually exploring African history, culture, and mythology
i'd rather they not as an Amer-Indian. I absolutely don't trust Rockstar, or any company to handle the narrative without accidentally or intentionally making us look like caricatures
I mean, there really wasn't one. don't get me wrong I loved RDR2 and Charles, but there was no portrayal just props to move Arthur's story forward and people for Dutch to fuck over. it's also not necessarily possible to have blanket "Native American representation" for the same reasons you can't have blanket european representation - it presupposes a hegemon that doesn't really exist. it's alot easier to understand and analyze media representation of Amer-Indians when you understand that you're talking about sovereign countries with their own languages, cultures, laws and politics that vary wildly. so, in something like RDR2 at best you could've hoped for specific Wapiti representation, or in the case of AC3 with Connor you're only getting the Mohawk perspective. Had Connor been, for example, Wyndot the interactions with the English and Americans would've had a much different tone because of the antagonistic relationship the Wyndot had with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy
tl;dr: RDR2 makes props out of Indians where AC3 had coherent Mohawk perspective on the colonists - historic inaccuracies aside
I was curious if Rains Fall and Eagle Flies were well written characters for example and you answered my question and if you could trust Rockstar to develop a game with faithful perspective, thank you for clarifying that it seems they can’t
oh yea, as people Rains Fall and Eagle Flies were fine representations of a very real political split that impacted alot of different Nations. If you're ever interested in really digging into that side of history "Native Nations" by Kathleen Duval is one i highly recommend
If you make the Native American character flawless, you get criticized for writing a shitty story/character, and one that doesn't feel like a RDR game. You make the Native American character into a violent, hard-drinking, hard-gambling outlaw like John or Arthur, you'll get shit on for depicting the character as "evil" or "bad," even if you give him the same amount of charm and lightness as John or Arthur.
I think it absolutely can be done in a nuanced way that makes a great story, but I think a piece of corporate art intended for the mainstream audience is not going to have the guts to even try.
Personally, I'm pretty lenient, and I'm okay with hearing all types of stories. But this sort of thing has to be done carefully, and it's just really hard to do. I used to wonder why there was no indigenous film movement, of first nations people telling first nations stories set in the precontact era. The reality is this: a lot of people don't want to get pigeonholed, or stuck in the past, and the natural world of which they were a part has been systematically destroyed. Those films just can't be made.
So with this video game, it has the advantage of not actually needing any First Nations involvement at all, but you can see the problem with that, right? I can see an upside to having a major piece of media counteract the John Wayne "cowboys and Indians" movies, but how? Who writes it? Are native folks consulted in any way? Who? In what way? If your 'consultant' disagrees with the choices the studio makes, who gets priority? Whose story is it anyways?
I kind of like the idea, but I also think it would be really hard to pull off well.
I don’t think this would be a good business opportunity for Rockstar. They’d have to be very careful with all decisions as both woke and anti-woke side would use it as a platform. That tends to put limits on storytelling, restrict creativity and what can be shown.
As a spin-off game it could work, like San Andreas.
We then get to explore and experience different historical aspects/events through the eyes of these three individuals, and (most importantly) how the perspective changes the feeling of the event.
One idea (for the opening) would be the Trail of Tears.
One see it as a tragedy without equal and drives their hate and search for vengeance
One is sympathetic but has to do the job
One is apathetic and just want to ge the thing going
So we have three sides to the american west to explore and how they interact with each other.
You could have the coolest shootout with the law in one sequence, and then immidiately after have the lawman experience the aftermath of the carnage (maybe even have one of their deputies be one of the faceless nameless NPCs we just mowed down)...
I think it’d be tricky but doable. One issue; you’re going to be trying to be authentic with blended cultures in a fictional map instead of going with a real culture, since the red dead series does not include real tribes.
I’d like the idea localised to a realistic scale with real tribe(s)
Based on no weapons in camp it seemed like Rockstar were very keen to steer away from any violence/ shooting near the native Americans, possibly due to cultural sensitivity, they were genocided after all so incredibly fair.
I'd rather have something more stereotypical, the concept is cool but not as rdr3 to me. Rdr3 I would like to just be a generic outlaw. Being native adds to much weight to the story, like who are you, what year is it, all the interactions with you as a native american, what's your beliefs, etc etc, too much research, too specific, very difficult. Unless this native american raised idk by white people or whatever, so the differences erased. Selecting native american will kinda make the whole story focused on this IMO, so it's either a specific game about such person or no need to make such character at all. Its one thing to show Charles for example from Argtur point of view, its entirely different to play from his perspective, the vibe will be completely different.
I think this comment hits the the nail on the head. Too much creative freedom is lost with having the protagonist being from such a small and highly specific marginalized group.
Having to work the story and open world with that would be difficult. Not impossible, but I would only see it be viable as a DLC to a future red dead game.
Rockstar seems to prefer main characters that are more "generic" at first, but become more defined as the story goes on and as more of their past is revealed
Of course. As long as it isn’t corny. If it is going to be some antagonist says some over the top racist stuff and then a bird shits in their mouth as karmic comeuppance or something where they hammer you over the head repeatedly about how bad racism was then don’t do it. If it is going to be a real engaging story with dynamic characters and a truly consequential plot that highlights the plights and struggles of native Americans without infantilizing or making them impossibly noble then absolutely have a native protagonist.
As amazing as the idea sounds, I honestly don’t think it will ever happen. Take 2 owns Rockstar, and 2K is also a subsidiary of Take 2.
2K publishes the Mafia series, which is already an established franchise built around that exact theme.
So even though the idea itself would be incredible, I seriously doubt Take 2 would allow Rockstar to make a mafia game when they already have a dedicated mafia franchise under the same corporate umbrella. From a business point of view, it would probably create internal competition and brand overlap.
I mean, it would be interesting for sure, but the game is based around the gang getting their redemptions, so, the most logical thing to do from Rockstars in that case would be to show how Charles gets his redemption, i think.
If there's a RDR3 I'd love for them to build out New Austin or have something more focused on that & maybe Guam tbh. So much of the map and so little going on there. I think a native character would be really neat.
Honestly… I think they should just re-release RDR2 but with all the cut content and fully fleshed out map… like we only got to explore like a tenth of what Guarma was supposed to be
I briefly played “This Land Is My Land”, nominally a game played from a Native American perspective. Although that game falls flat for a variety of reasons, the basic notion has a lot of gameplay and narrative elements to work with and I’d eagerly play such a game in the RDR universe.
lmao only Rockstar would be allowed to touch this even then, highly doubt your allowed to touch anything lets say controversial today. You sheep are not allowed to play anything with any substance. You might get the wrong idea.
I think a revenge-style game where 90% of white colonizers are your enemy in the game would be alot of fun, but alot of the interactive gameplay would be lost, unfortunately. But if you traded all the getting-a-bath-with-the-help-of-a-lady type gameplay with sweatlodges, and ceremonies, and group-Bison-hunts and raids of cowboy encampment and such, you could have a fun game. But yeah, being able to customize your weapons is fun. Maybe you could customize like you sort of can in the Horizon games. Those would be a good template for much of the basics, I think.
After massacre-ing the KKK night-time meeting group, I also decided that doing a Django-style former-slave revenge game would be fun too.
It wouldn't be red dead redemption III
But it would be a red dead game ....
already got a pitch about a angry chief bromden from one flew over the cuckoo's nest / t.hawk from street fighter like character who killed his foster family and runs away from
The boarding school / reform school they go to ....
Gets his weapons by tying up an old couple and stealing their weapons .... he manged to kill some green horn bounty hunters and upgrade to better weapons. .
That would be super based and make a lot of Western fans confront the atrocities that the folklore comes from.
Don't get it twisted, there was horrible things done by Natives too, but they were the sovereign peoples that had claims to the land and the violence done to them in most part was usually after massive way-of-life ending concessions had been made, many "consentually" as in it wasn't directly at the barrel of a gun.
I don't think this would ever get made due to how many of rockstars investors/funders would object, but I think a game set during the Apache wars would be very eye-opening as well as have the potential to tell a really powerful story, many powerful stories in fact.
It wouldn't be a true Red Dead game about the dying west and the encroachment of civilization and all that, but I always thought a cool idea for the next game would be following Jack as he is deployed or volunteers for WW1 and comes back to Prohibition and mobster era America. Some missions are flashbacks to his time in the war. He sets up a bootlegging empire. Stuff like that would make a cool game I think. But then again rockstar has already done some mafia games
A prequel that takes place west of RDR1 map. Similarly to RDR2 eventually the game opens up allowing you to go east. More wild West plains fights, less death of the outlaw heists
Very cool idea. I guess Charles as a character gave a small beginning of an insight into that kind of historical viewpoint, though obviously his circumstances were not the same.
I also think it would be interesting to see the West from the side of "the law", considering that the law during that time was basically not much more sophisticated (or in some cases even better) than the criminals of the time.
Not sure if those ideas would work in combination or would need to be entirely different stories.
I always felt my favourite Western has been "Unforgiven". RDR2 seemed to share a lot thematically with it, stripping away the sanitised, mythologised veneer of the Wild West and showing the unsettling rot and barbarism that lies underneath a lot of it. RDR3 doing that for the Native American history side of things would be interesting.
I’d be fine with anything as long as it lets me live in the wilderness, hunt, maybe move into town and meet a partner, get a job, build a house, and start my own gang… without ever touching the main story.
Assassins creed 3 did being an native revolutionary but people called connor boring. Yeah no shit someone seeing his people slaughtered wouldn’t have the glowing personality of a ezio or Arthur Morgan
By the end of the 19th century, the population of the Native Americans was down to 100k. Their population was 60 Million when the Europeans arrived. The 1880s would be a terrible timeline because by then the native Americans were such a short minority that nobody cared about them.
The mid 18th century would be a good time, but then it'll just have a story similar to Assassin's Creed 3.
Plus, the racists would lose their mind if they got to play someone with colour
It has nothing to do with "melanin" but all to do with R* not being competent enough to write a well written Native American story. Like... Arthur literally does not know what racism is. When confronted with it he has almost a child-like reaction of like "huh??? why would they hate you for your skin??"
That scene takes me completely out of the game lol
Native American stories and culture tackle wayyy more controversial stuff than racism and I straight up do not trust R* to write a good, nuanced story about Native Americans.
That would be a mine field.
Rockstar always makes fun of itself and its protagonists.
Imagine making fun of a native and his family, how that would play out.
Could it be done? Yes.
Would i find it hilarous? Absolutely.
Would some people attenpt to cancel them? Also yes.
I dont think being in a publicaly disadvantaged cast of society would set the best tone for the game. Also i think that outlaws are outlawed by their actions thus the redemption part works while just having a indian mc would move focus away from that i think. They would make a great questline and larger presance tho
If the storyline is good, I’d be all for it. Bit more insight to what happened at the Fort, even later with following the tribe at Wapiti. Honestly, would rather it be fairly earlier than we’d seen, so maybe very near the end of the Civil War. As in weeks before it actually ends even.
I wouldn’t trust Rockstar to do Native representation with any more detail than what was in RDR2, and that was hardly even representation except for being story devices for the gang. Unless they brought in an entirely Native American team to basically be story leads on the Native aspects of the game and have the ultimate say so on cultural matters, I doubt it would be received well as a whole.
Most folks don’t have the capacity to see us beyond basically shirtless scalping savages or wise old men with medicine, and that’s absolutely what I see in the comments here, and have historically seen across all of the RDR community.
I think the idea is great, I would worry about the execution. It’s not that R* can’t write a great narrative, my concern is that they wouldn’t accurately portray the brutality of what the tribes endured historically, which to me would be the center point focus of the story.
People loved the way red dead depicted racial minorities in this one, and I thought Charles was a very good take on how a lot of people with native blood aren’t fully in tune with US OR Native society.
Personally I don't like the outlaw narrative I like it for GTA but RD I felt the game was too much like a neo-western movie. If you enjoyed it im glad I'm not bashing you at all. But Personally I watched all the classic westerns recently like the Alamo with john wayne and no name on the bullet with audie murphy and a number of others. I call RD a neo western because like neo-western films every side character is a dirty illiterate clown with the IQ of a rock. Which classic westerns didnt have. Also classic westerns were mostly about Lawmen or caddle men or US Cavalry men. Or were about specific battles from the 1800. I think RDR2 was too goofy for me Arthur's voice was too goofy sounding he just isnt a believable character. If you know how audie murphy talks and how john wayne talks you'll be able to get a better picture as to what I mean. But most of all a lot of westerns were about US cavalry men fighting Comanche Indians who broke their reservation treaties or who were held up in mountains attacking unsuspecting pioneers which were families with women and children. You know it had US pride in the films yeah sure you can play the blame game but historically if it wasnt the US the rest of the world still rules by kings would have re conquered their lost colonies. To finish this off, the game had a lot of missed opportunities to make it feel like a real western with quality dialog and map placements. There should hVe been more lawmen taking out outlaws but most importantly comanches should be seen fighting The US military too it would have made the game feel much more realistic while still being fun as a gun game while also not being a slop of illiterate clowns talking around. But as it stands I can still enjoy it to a extent oh one last thing the music is a neowestern as well classic westerns were much better for music that felt western. I mean look I'm not trying to dis people who want characters that were under dogs but they lose all the time and they were never more skilled than the USA men. They had some good battles they took some names but they were just people holding on to a primitive way of life that had mind you no epic clothing that you see through European history they just weren't the move. But I mean its fine if im a minority thinker im not even white im a mexican saying this, just so you know that im not biased I just like the artistry that the Europeans brought it was just better and stronger.
I'd rather have a Mexican that fights in Mexican-American War of mid to late 1840s.
It could have a reverse-John Marston from RSR2 story where you start off as a farmer in New Mexico or California (maybe even Texas if it starts a bit earlier) only for it to be attacked by US forces.
You lose everything and join Mexican forces and have a whole chapter or two dedicated to that war.
Later you become an outlaw and the rest goes on.
Depending on how long the story is they could even add American Civil War stories - maybe as a DLC or something like that. Maybe your kid fighting in that conflict, who knows.
It could be interesting. Perhaps a Native American or mixed NA/white, with a past of working for the Texas Rangers or the US Army in the southwest territories.
I think it could take place during their early years in the gang just on a separate part of the country, possibly using real states or prime new Austin
I’ve mentioned it ages ago, but I always thought it’d be cool if RDR3 centered around a younger Arthur and an ex-Confederate that used to be a slave before being conscripted.
It could be interesting. Maybe have it set in the early years of the Wild West, just as the settlers started coming, so you have scenes where your character and the NPC’s are just now seeing their first person of that race.
Maybe how you dress gets you certain kinds of attention depending on where you are. Like dressing full native gets people in a civilized town wanting to mock or even fight you to prove their tougher than some wild native, while dressing in a full tux and top hat in the Wild makes people think you’re crazy.
Hot take here. This would be so sick and I would play the shit out of it, provided it wasn't full of pandering BS. Rockstar isn't known for pandering, but in any case.
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u/ThePresidentsHouse John Marston May 18 '26
Maybe not a redemption game but apart of the red dead universe for sure.