It looks gorgeous and I'm sure will play great as well.

In spite of that, my uncertainty about the lead character and the plot are keeping my hype suppressed.

the thing is about the story stuff I recall feeling similar with the first Redemption. A lot of the gameplay setup and systems sounded fascinating to me, and the story and characters didn't even register. I came to like a lot about that in RDR, but it was never the draw for me.

Yeah, that was the aspect I wanted to know the most about and they kind of glossed over it. It looks mostly the same which as someone who thought the shooting in the first game wasnt great I cant say i'm too thrilled. Looks pretty though.

@dan_citi: Personally, I thought the first Red Dead Redemption trailer was incredible in terms of establishing a tone, and it completely hooked me. Nothing shown from RDR2 thus far has really done the same.

It looks interesting. Graphics is also very cool. Can't wait

I'm in the same boat. I have no memories of being excited about the story in that game, other than I thought every story from Rockstar so far had been better than the last (in retrospect, IV's drama was on par with San Andreas' comedy, but at the time I was so ready for GTA to get serious it floored me) so I was sure RDR would have fun characters and an interesting arc. I was blown away by what that game provided, and to be honest I don't expect its sequel to offer that again. To me, that's what all this incidental experience stuff is about, to fill in for the depth of character that first game had.

I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but all I'm looking for is a cool world and a working horse. Everything else will work for me however they go about it as long as those two things are true. I played the GTA V campaign four times over (twice myself, once guiding a girl I was dating and another entirely in first-person) and realized after the second time around I didn't actually like most of the characters that much, whether primary or secondary. But the world was good, the cars were good and the guns were good, so on I went a-playin'.

So, here we go, waiting for October. Looks quite good, just hope it will be as good to play.

@steveurkel: the only thing they said about deadeye is they will talk about it in the next trailer...

This is literally the only game I have been excited for this year.

Very interesting.

I hope that the friendship system is a bit more robust. In teh last game you could open up "story" elements in some cases with certain NPCs. They seems to be hinting at a tiny bit of "dynamisms" in that system this time around, in that sit seems like you can make friends or enemies of certain NPCs. It will be very interesting to see what that will entail or how dynamic it can be with NPCs.

@nodima: haha yeah similar situation with GTAV. I've played it twice (once on 360, once on PS4) and I definitely noticed some characters grating on me far more the second time through(my god Michael's son is painful to experience, and it's even less funny the second time.) even if I didn't hate the story the second time around it's weaknesses shown through pretty clearly.

@chaser324:goddamn that game is good.

Wish it had some women characters for us to switch to and use, but I doubt they'll have that. GTAV would have been the perfect way to do it, but they went with 3 men... oh well.

Otherwise it looks fine I guess, none of the characters seem cool or interesting to me yet, but I also don't have the game in my hand so who knows.

@sam_lfcfan: I don't mind that it's a prequel given that we have zero idea what happened to or happens with the protagonist in the future. In that respect, I'm not sure it's even really fair to call it a prequel. At least — not any more than ANY historical game from RDR to Vice City to Assassins Creed 2 is a prequel

Aw man, this looks like more-or-less the same game as the first RDR. I know Rockstar prints money with these open world games, but they need to do something to change up the formula, since they've been using the same basic template since GTA IV (heavily scripted and talky story missions punctuated by inconsequential minigames). I gave GTA V a spin because the heist planning stuff looked really cool (and to be fair, it was; there was just very little of it), but I'm struggling to find anything that makes me excited about this game. Bonding with your horse? Seriously?

Figured I'd bump this back up in the wake of all the hands-on previews that came out. If anyone missed the info dumps and don't want to waste a ton of time reading articles, GTAForums has a good breakdown of all the tidbits from the various impressions.

Based on all the hands-on info, I get the sense this is going to be a really polarizing game. For better or worse, it seems like Rockstar has crawled up their own ass when it comes to attention to detail. I personally couldn't be more stoked, but I'm also the kind of guy who spends hours wandering around Los Santos marveling at cracks in the sidewalk. For people who aren't my particular breed of crazy, I have a strong suspicion Rockstar's approach here will create significant barriers to having fun. Stuff like gun degradation, eating/sleeping/bathing requirements, custom animations for picking up every item and a separate button press for raising a gun's hammer before firing all sound really cool and immersive and very much My Kind Of Shit. But the people who understandably find that sort of stuff a hassle (for instance, the people who always made sure to park their horse on top of carcasses in RDR1 to avoid the skinning animation) are gonna have a real bad time. I can already hear Jeff's Bombcast rant in my head.

I'd like to think that Rockstar would have the sense to put in some toggles to turn off some of the chore-like systems or at least cut down on repetitive animations, but knowing their design philosophy I doubt it. Gonna be real interesting to see where the Metacritic winds up.

man, I really hope you can turn off some of those animations. Otherwise, most of that stuff has been around for ages and I can imagine R* has taken a pretty tasteful approach. the idea of raising the gun's hammer sounds really fun actually, I love tactile shit in games. The gun degradation stuff doesn't sound one dimensional though, it seems like how and where you use the gun will have an impact on that (i.e. getting the gun dirty or wet often) and it seems like less of "well I went thru 4 magazines with this rifle now its gone" than it might seem from just hearing the headline.

As well I'd like more inherent depth to just existing in the world. I'm not a fan of most survival games, but doing it a game with the narrative, production values, and design of Red Dead really bring those elements to life, just like in Breath of the Wild. In the first Red Dead I yearned for that, but there was only so much of your own fun you could make. This game seems to serve up basically everything that game did in that regard, and a hell of a lot more. I always wanted to sit and soak up the world, go hunting, camping, fishing, and have it have an impact and have it feedback into the rest of the experience sounds great.

In general a lot of these features make me feel like Rockstar wants you to take things slower in general. Soak in the world, the people, take time out of your day to do some hunting or fishing, take care of your gear, eat and get some rest, but don't forget to check up on a few people in your brigade. It sounds like Red Dead becomes more Red Dead and succinctly distancing itself from GTA's wacky crudeness as much as possible.

P.S. I can't wait for the fashion.

I always prefer it in games when you're given an incentive to rest and eat (with buffs) but not punished for deciding not to. Otherwise it could feel like a meter management survival game which i'm not a fan of. I'm also not a fan of the honor system they've mentioned. I thought we were moving away from paragon/renegade/light side/dark side meters in games. One of the best things about Fallout: New Vegas to me was that it got rid of the karma system and instead replaced it with a reputation system relegated to each faction. That game had a lot of problems and needless systems but I thought that one was pretty cool.

Anyway, the game is not that far away and i'm going to get it regardless just because it's a big new Rockstar game, so I dont think it's worth getting obsessive over these details.

I'm extremely excited about the game - enjoyed the previous outing (as well as liked the original), but I've *never* liked the way the horses control. I understand on the why (immersion, etc.), but after 60+ hrs of gameplay, it gets tiring.

I highly doubt they'll change the way horses controls (especially since they're adding more detail and finer control options), but would love if they did. MGS V and AC: Origins IMHO got it right.

All the previews I read made this system sound much more like the reputation system you're thinking it's not than the Mass Effect system you're thinking it is. Kotaku and Polygon both made it clear that Rockstar's reps said your decisions would impact how the world of the game reacts to you and that that varies from character to character, even down to different people in your gang having different reactions to things like taking or leaving prisoners.

Based on everything else they've revealed about this game so far, I'm expecting Rockstar is at the very worst going to try and reinvent the wheel with most aspects of this game, but we'll see soon enough.

I am so fucking excited for this game.

I think there is a good chance a bunch of people are really going to hate it, but as far as I am concerned they are doing just about everything I could ask for in a game like this. And like many people sometimes I don't want to deal with systems like weapon degradation (BotW) or encumbrance (Elder Scrolls). I get why that turns people off. But to me those games are not grounded in realism and play very arcadey which is why it feels out of place and just sucks.

RDR2 appears to be going for hyper realism and I think a western is about as perfect a place as any to push that envelope. Another Red Dead with 2018 graphics and gameplay would be cool, but they had to bring something new to the table. I want to clean my horse and maintain my gun. I want a worse shave when I do it at camp and not the barber. I want to tuck my pants into my boots or roll up my sleeves on a whim. I want my horse to need more than 1 second to come to a stop from a full gallop. I am so glad they are just going for it. This is the exact kind of game I want to live in when I boot it up. We have plenty of arcadey run of the mill open world titles, give me something fresh.

Also, they brought back the Max Payne 3 style of gun holding. Fuck yes that shit was so cool.

new trailer, don't know how this has not been posted yet here. god damn this game looks good. this is going to be the ultimate harassment and cowboy simulator.

I’m excited for the customization options. I basically want my cowboy to be the personification of death. Or grim reaper. A very clean cut with no dirt in all black just cold killing fools. People will wonder if Arthur is a man, or the devils work. Mhm

I’ll also try to recreate the look from back to the future with pink. Everything in moderation

@dan_citi: It looks pretty goshdarn good. I was thinking of getting Odyssey to tide me over with some open world exploration.. but I think I'll just wait. I know it's not out yet so who knows maybe it's a boring slog of a mess, but from the outsets it really does look like Rockstar has this magic touch when it comes to putting out these sort of games. An unlimited budget and never ending development time might weirdly have something to do with this.