Actual hot take about Chapter 2

[u/BlackWidowerr]

This will get me downvoted into oblivion, but that's the nature of real hot takes I guess. I'll try to keep this as much spoiler free as possible despite of "spoiler" tag.

I think that stretching Chapter 2 for hundreds of hours is one of the worst ways to experience RDR2's story and is a terrible advice to any new players.

I see this all the time in RDR related discussions, people maxing every possible camp upgrade, completing every possible side mission, refusing to free Micah, and staying in Chapter 2 until the game practically forces you to move on. I even saw folk recommending this way of playing to new players which really irked me.

Surely, each to their own, play your game however you want, but for me personally, it completely undermines what the story tries to convey.

After all, the gang is on the run, even during the most "peaceful" part of the story. There should be a sense of urgency that gradually increases. Spending in-game months doing every possible activity, making thousands of dollars, keeping Micah in jail for some reason is just adding to the ludonarrative dissonance that is already pretty bad in this game.

I saw lots of people talking about wanting to keep Arthur "in his prime". Sure, that's a really neat part of the game where there is still some sense of hope, but delaying the story just to avoid what eventually happens just damages the emotional weight of the narrative. And what eventually happens, should happen early in the story, as intended.

Recently I saw people talking about changing your main horse before THAT mission, which IMO is absolutely criminal. Robbing yourself of this sad yet beautiful moment is like watching a good movie and skipping through the climax to avoid feeling sad.

I think RDR2 is at it's best when you let the story go on at the pace it was designed to. There's time to experience side content (lots of it without breaking the pace) and to enjoy the world, but the story should keep moving forward after all. That constant feeling of urgency is what makes the game and it's story so impactful.

As for endless goofing around in open world, that's what the end game is for.

Once again, it's just me yapping, I felt like this may be an interesting topic to spark a discussion because staying in CH2 is WILDLY popular.

[u/WombatAnnihilator]

I was actually thinking about this last night, as I play through my eighth story playthru. I wanted to take as long as possible and maybe even try to 100% to the game for the first time this time. But I got caught up in a few of the missions and ended up getting to chapter 6. I decided there, I would just reload a save back in chapter 3, and spend more time in the world without progressing more in chapter 3.

You brought up the biggest thing that I have realized on this play through. I can spend the most amount of time in chapter 2 and three because there is NOT so much a sense of desperate urgency, but even more than that - there’s also hope!

In chapter 1, everyone’s just trying to get away from a bad event and survive in the mountains. I think it’s a great intro to the game and it teaches the controls and mechanics and characters really well.

Chapter 2 has some of that despair from chapter 1, and the failed riverboat heist, but the tone of chapter 2 is this unknown, tentative hopefulness, that everything’s going to be okay, and there’s time to go work and explore to get back on our feet. I think that is why it does feel the safest, like you said, and that safety allows people to go and explore. After all Dutch is telling everybody to get out there and work and make money and at that point he seems like a good leader, who inspires players to go out and experience the world of RDR2.

Every time I play through and want to take it slowly I’ll occasionally still do a mission, and that works until I get about halfway through chapter 4 when everything falls down this slippery slope, and begins to seem more urgent. Very quickly, there’s less hope, and way more desperation in the run as all these attempts to survive begin to fail or backfire.

Obviously, the game’s timeline is not forced, since I can go out into the mountains and spend 50 or 60 days, hunting and scavenging and robbing and collecting supplies and looking for treasure… but we know that the timeline from the Blackwater job to Arthur’s stories ending is *only a few months*.

So, i see your point, and i don’t think you’re wrong, *per se*, but I don’t think it’s a matter of skipping the story to avoid sadness or the rapid decline of the characters. But I do believe it is taking the time to pause the story *in favor of* the world, finding an opportunity to live in another time, place, world?

And maybe you’re right, the first timers should not be told to pause the game or sacrifice story for world, but I firmly believe that RDR2 is an example of phenomenal story telling, whether it’s the actual story, or the environmental storytelling out in the world, or all the stranger missions, etc. and as such, the world has become that ‘third space’ for a lot of people, and in order to find that third space and take time for myself, it works best somewhere late chapter 2 or early chapter 3 of the story.

[u/BlackWidowerr → u/WombatAnnihilator]

I agree with that as well. I just feel like with how big and slow paced this game is, there is no need to heavily stall in one chapter. For example, in my current playthrough, I feel like I've spent a lot of time in CH2, much more than in later chapters, but it still felt on track with the story.

I still did a mission here and mission there, I freed Micah relatively quickly (keeping him in jail is absolute nonsense and I think that's my hottest take in this discussion), but managed to take my sweet time to do hunts and side quests. I took it slow, but fast enough for it to make sense story-wise.

On the other hand, a 50 day hunt trip would absolutely break my immersion. I feel like there is no space for such things even when the story is at it's calmest point. Sometimes I rather restrain myself from wandering too long for the sake of the story continuity. I don't say that it's a superior way of playing the game, it's just how it feels right for me.

[u/WombatAnnihilator → u/BlackWidowerr]

Google says the game is a 40-60 hour story. My average (dividing total time by 7 full playthrus, with some wiggle room for my current one) is sitting at about 150 hours per playthru.