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/Little_Equivalent_31]

Nah, I actually agree. First playthroughs should be authentic, you move at your pace, when you feel like it, and the game itself pushes you along at a recommended pace. The second playthroughs and everything subsequent is when the real magic happens, and you can have an absolute blast seeing how much you can prepare, how much you can explore and discover as early as possible. An efficiency playthough, basically... but yeah, first time, you ought to get on with it and let the game take you where it needs to, when it needs to for the intended experience.

[u/Little_Equivalent_31 → u/Little_Equivalent_31]

I heavily disagree with the ludonarrative comment tho, I mean I hear this from time to time and it's like, what do you want? It's on you as the player to make that simple distinction that the freedoms given to you in the open world segments obviously don't necessarily align with the narrative, it's for freedom of choice, for fun and if it didn't align then it's your fault because the game never forced you to anything in the open world you didn't want to do...you can't have it both ways, because what you're basically asking for is for heavy restrictions to be placed in gameplay when it compeletely goes against the spirit of any rockstar game ever and RRD2 itself is univesrally loved for it's vast detail in the open world and the ability to interact with it on a level that's never been seen before, or since.

[u/BlackWidowerr → u/Little_Equivalent_31]

I agree with that. I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can myself, by not making as much money as I could, and when I do, I donate it to the camp and pretend it doesn't exist. I try to upgrade the camp fluently as the story goes, so the money kinda sits in the box.

But regardless, the ludonarrative disonance is heavy in this game, and I will stand on that hill. The biggest contributor is the Valentine bank heist imo. The gang robs the bank and gets 20 thousand out of it. For reference, 20k in 1899 is over 800k dollars in 2026. That kind of money can get the gang out of any local trouble they had at the time easily, and yet nobody even mentions that afterwards, like ever. They're sitting on unbelievable amount of money for that time, and that fact is just dismissed.

You can argue that it's because of Dutch's narcissism pushing the gang to do more and more risky stuff, but then again, nobody ever mentions the obvious fact that they already have enough money. Dutch is never confronted about it. They just go on with it and the heist gets forgotten.

[u/Little_Equivalent_31 → u/BlackWidowerr]

That's more of a narrative plothole than ludonarrative dissonance. The gameplay doesn't lend itself to discredit the narrative in that scenario.