Just the other night I finally finished the 2010 open-world American frontier game Red Dead Redemption. Although tedious at times (HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO HELP YOU, DICKENS), the game did an amazing job of sucking me into the environment of the waning American frontier and I can absolutely see why it’s considered one of the best games out there.
The first thing I did after the credits rolled was probably the first thing a LOT of gamers did, I imagine: look up whether the game’s ending is unavoidable or whether we just did a really bad job in that final face-off. (Spoilers for the ending ahead, y’all.) What I found was surprising, although not in the way that I had hoped.
While searching for details regarding the game’s ending (It is indeed unavoidable, although if I really want to see John Marston again I’m told I should play Undead Nightmare) I came across a lot of posts on gaming forums complaining about how the ending sucked. This threw me completely for a loop.
Although Red Dead Redemption initially frames itself as a story about redemption and being able to forge your path through life anew, what it’s ultimately about is the close of the very era that produced frontier gunslingers like the protagonist, John Marston. In the game you, as Marston, are just trying to go straight and get your wife and kid back. (It’s very Thomas Jane of you.) But the larger conflicts that you become embroiled in are all about instituting widespread change. The year is 1911 and your mission is to hunt down a series of outlaws as an unwilling tool of the U.S. government reps newly arrived to the Texas border area that you live in. While being forced to institute order in the region, you also end up helping initiate the Mexican Revolution, which succeeds in changing the hands of power in that region. (There are also hints of a continent-spanning war brewing in Europe, although that particular shot is yet to be heard ’round the world.) Change is coming for everyone.
Even the secondary characters you meet along the way rarely make it to the end of the game, becoming lost in the wilderness of the west, succumbing to their own vices, or getting ground up in the battles across the region. They don’t belong in the future that is to come, but it’s all your character dreams about. So when you finally finish doing the government’s bidding and are back at home with your wife and kid, why doesn’t the game end?
Because John Marston is himself the last lingering thread in this story about a dying frontier. You get some nice days with your family, but it’s not long until the government arrives at your farm in force. You manage to save your wife and kid. But in a tense final stand-off against nearly 20 army rangers, you, the player, finally meet your end.
Although I hated not being able to survive this moment, to do so would have cheated me out of the satisfaction of the story’s conclusion. After the game had gone to such trouble to immerse me in a world that felt utterly real, having Marston survive such an impossible situation would have devalued my investment in its reality. This was always how the story was going to end. And it’s not like Red Dead Redemption hadn’t warned me time and time again.
To see others protesting this ending left me wondering—very much in a thinking-out-loud way—if the very concept of narrative, or cause and effect, is simply broken in maturing gamers who have spent their lives absorbing narrative as it is constructed through games. Stories are typically elusive in video games, and even games that attempt it (like RPGs or similar adventure stories) usually have to ignore their own world and their own rules from time to time just so the characters live to see the next scene. If you grow up with that and only that, does this kind of jagged, cheat-able style of narrative become your baseline for how you judge all stories? John Marston’s death violates a core expectation of video game narratives; that there’s always a way to win.
This kind of speculation pigeonholes young gamers though, and ignores my own main counter-argument to this, which is that I grew up playing video games, reading comic books, and watching blockbuster films, and I was able to learn how narratives work beyond those sources. My speculation doesn’t hold up long against this, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s that little sliver, that tiny percentage of gamers, whose understanding of stories becomes stunted by their immersion into video games.
There’s a more likely explanation for the anger that the ending produces, however, which is that Red Dead Redemption’s ending actually does its job too well. You spend a lot of time leading the main character John Marston through the world and the game is open-ended enough that you determine how his interactions play out. Either you’re a selfish monster or an honorable hero, and you can switch back and forth between the two whenever you like. By the end of the story, you as the gamer identify wholeheartedly with him because you essentially made him what he is through your own choices.
So when the unavoidable ending arrives, you feel a very real sense of loss. You failed. It’s the kind of emotional holy grail that video games strive for and rarely pull off. Red Dead Redemption does it, though, and I wonder if the anger at that ending—dismissing it as poorly done—is really just the kind of misplaced anger that one feels over having lost a loved one; when something is gone, when there’s really truly nothing to be done, and nothing to fix or direct your anger towards. Simply put…does Red Dead Redemption put gamers in mourning? If so, a gamer could certainly be forgiven for dismissing the ending, especially if he or she has never actually had to deal with loss in life.
Nothing’s ever simple, so I imagine the reaction to Red Dead’s ending consists of a bit of both. Plus a little outrage at being left with the less than ideal Jack Marston. (I mean…c’mon. Not even Anakin Skywalker liked Anakin Skywalker, you know?)
Personally, I think the ending to Red Dead Redemption is nearly perfect, but even I can’t completely accept it. I still like to imagine how the Marston family’s life would have played out had everyone lived. I can see Jack heading off to university as war rages in Europe. He’d be too old to be shipped out once the U.S. became involved in World War I, but maybe he’d be a war reporter, considering his love of adventure writing? If the Marstons get to keep their farm, then it would wax as the area became more developed, then wane as the area become over-developed. I’d like to think that the Marstons would do well during the Roaring 20s, not making too much of a fuss and enjoying the onset of modernity.
John and Abigail wouldn’t survive long through the Depression of the 30s, I imagine, but that seems all too appropriate. The United States after that is a shiny, hopeful, atomic thing and not really a fit place for a frontiersman who can’t drive. Perhaps it is best after all, that the sun set over Marston when it did….
Chris Lough is the production manager of Tor.com and if you liked this just wait for his think piece on the Bolshevik politics of Pac-Man.
I wasn’t really aware that there had been a lot of outrage at the ending of Red Dead Redemption–as you say, the ending perfectly matches the narrative of the game. I could not imagine John Marston’s story ending any other way. It’s not like the ending violates the premises of its own story like certain games-that-will-remain-unmentioned (don’t want to hijack the thread).
If games want to be taken seriously as art, they have to be willing to do this though. If you can always ‘win’–if there is always a clearly and obviously correct ending to be reached–the the narrative is basically a hostage to math calculations. Tragedy in a game becomes impossible, because by definition the conclusion of a Tragedy is inevitable.
And honestly, it seems like a distinctly american objection that you can’t ‘win’ the game–that the player’s control over the main character must remain inviolate. Japanese games have been telling stories where the player is mostly a spectator for decades; it’s practically a defining feature of say, the Final Fantasy games.
A great post on one of my favorite games ever. I kind of had a sense of what was to come while I played; it kind of permeated RDR subtly, and I always had this slight disquiet that I forced myself to ignore until John’s execution. Kind of like re-watching a beloved TV show or movie in which you know a fave is going to bite it, but you just lose yourself despite knowing what’s coming and trick yourself into thinking “Maybe not this time.”
The I Know You stranger mission really fits the game perfectly, IMO, and is really intertwined with the ending — in fact, I’d go so far as to say that the stranger missions were my favorite part of Red Dead, and this particular mission was the best of the bunch. How your last conversation with the strange man in the hat is at the location of your future grave… wow. Just so awesome.
I personally didn’t do a tonne of digging online after the ending to see how general gamer sentiment was trending, but I’m not surprised to hear that there was a great deal of outrage. I think your point regarding how a certain percentage of younger gamers are constructing their idea of narrative through games is valid and probably plays a role in some of that reaction you unearthed.
I was going to mention this yesterday as well but forgot — you should definitely give Undead Nightmare a whirl. It’s like fun B-horror to the main game’s serious spaghetti western.
And Jack… ah, man. If his voice wasn’t so damn annoying, his personality a little less abrasive, and he was a little nicer to his horses, he’d be perfect. As it stands, when I replay Red Dead I reload earlier save games where John is still around.
This is why I designed the Kobayashi Maru scenario for Starfleet Cadets. Many young people simply have no experience with no-win scenarios. Experiencing inevitable failure and learning how to handle it is an essential skill in Starfleet personnel.
@@@@@ Pretty much everything Kickpuncher said. (Ask him who told him about import of the Stranger’s last appearance.) I’ve played the main mission to completion 3 times. 100% only once. And I got all of the single-player achievements, like for hunting and fleeing marshalls over the border. When the story’s done, the achievements are fun challenges to go for.
And until I played Mass Efect’s Citadel DLC 2 weeks ago, Undead Nightmare was my favorite DLC. Totally different in tone, it’s a really fun romp. You can dress John Marston in an Ash-from-Evil Dead 2 outfit as you hunt zombies from the back of a unicorn that leaves a trail of rainbows n’ butterflies. It’s insanely fun fan service.
I really enjoyed this post and having any opportunity to talk about what is still my favorite game ever. I’m a big Rockstar fangirl, but I totally acknowledge that they’re not known for their storytelling. How many “69” jokes can you make in a game? Their GTA series took a more mature turn with IV’s sad story of broken dreams, immigrant hopes, and a very dark look at human trafficking. But it was still pale in comparison to the epicness of RDR’s storytelling. I pretty much cried when I finished the game for the first time. It was so sad and so perfect. But mostly bitter. John’s son became just the kind of outlaw his father didn’t want him to become. It’s tragic. It’s be moreso if Jack’s wasn’t so freaking awful and rude. You DO NOT call an American Standardbred and “old nag,” bitch. Do you know how hard your dad had to work to earn the deed to that horse?!
I’ve been very fortunate enough to meet 3 people who worked on RDR and it sounded like sheer hell. But the end product is so great and it’s clear that even though they’ve moved on from R*, they’re really proud of what they did.
Everyone should get the soundtrack. It’s absolutely incredible. I wish there was a Vol. 2 because with 15 hours of original score, all of it couldn’t fit on one CD.
I’ve been in post-RDR depression for a long time. I love my Mass Effect, but nothing since RDR filled that desire for a really great story with a lot of emotion. Until The Last of Us. It’s not the same, but it’s the first game since RDR I’ve liked almost as much and satisfied me with its fitting ending.
Stories are typically elusive in video games, and even games that
attempt it (like RPGs or similar adventure stories) usually have to
ignore their own world and their own rules from time to time just so the
characters live to see the next scene.
Seems like every second game-related post on Tor these days is going to pump up my probably futile desire for a non-broken English-language version of Pathologic.
Oh. my. god. Comment #3, that just made my fucking day. So perfect.
Colin, in the grand scheme of things I don’t think there is a lot of outrage over the ending. The outrage I did see was focused on gaming forums and, for the most part, poorly articulated and clearly from younger gamers. That’s what made me initially wonder if it’s an issue with growing up with one’s sense of narrative being formed by video games. If we had today’s internet back when Final Fantasy 7 came out, I wonder if I would have done the same regarding Aeris’ death. That was a devastating plot development, but would I have thought of it as a development that didn’t serve the story? I’m not sure I would have been able to recognize that as a kid.
Funnily enough, Final Fantasy is what comes to mind for me first when I think of role-playing games that have to ignore their own narratives at times. Mostly due to the impossible physical feats that the characters get up to. I remember being wryly amused by Final Fantasy XIII being sure to include a device that allows Lightning to flip around as much as she does.
Nice piece. As much as I love video games, the stories while epic do have the tendency to be secondary to mechanics and most importantly ensure a sequel is possible. I can get so wrapped up in a story only to have it fall on its face at the end, that my love for games becomes diminished. There are some shining examples of great narrative though, Red Dead being one of them. But for me the best example of a game putting story first is Telltale’s: The Walking Dead, never in my entire gaming life has a video game completely wrecked me emotionally, that game left me in a quivering lump, and all I could do after was take a nap. If you have never played it before give it a try, it’s an amazing ride, devastating but amazing.
I think developers prefer games where everything works out narratively, purely for replay value. If you go for a tragic game ending you risk hampering the players urge to boot it right back up and try again or even better load up multiplayer and drop some cash. But even though I have only played Red Dead twice and am not even close to being ready for a second time through The Walking Dead. I value those games more than Skyrim, because they gave me better experiences narratively.
@theresa_delucci
Oh, the Citadel DLC. Sigh. I will hate the way Casey Hudson and Mac Walters botched the end of Mass Effect 3 to the day I day, but Citadel had me laughing, cheering, whooping and punching the air… and tearfully sighing. It was an absolutely joyful revisitation of the characters and universe I adore so much.
I’m not sure ‘ignoring the narrative’ is the way that I’d phrase Final Fantasy’s flights of whimsy–it’s more that Final Fantasy games have different, dreamlike narrative conventions. It’s simply accepted that the battle mechanics operate in a visually dramatic theater that doesn’t necessarily correspond to what is really going on. It’s like how Superman can always find a phone booth when he needs one, or Sailor Moon has a 30 second transformation dance that takes no actual amount of time.
But there are definitely some games where the seams show more obviously. Bioware games rather obviously are divided up into ‘theme parks’, with their own internal narrative and setting that is usually cleanly divided from the others–this is a production technique that lets different teams work on different parts of the game. Group 1 works on Joe’s story on the abandoned Freighter, Group 2 works on Mary’s story on the ice planet, etc. As a result of this, and of the open-ended nature that seems to be popular among gamers, the narratives often feel pretty misshapen. The different parts have been strung together into a larger plot, but they don’t always feel like they belong together.
Rockstar’s games are kind of remarkable, because they offer you a lot of freedom, but are still quite good at maintaining a uniform tone and feeling. What I’m sometimes less thrilled about is Rockstar’s extreme cynicism–they’ve never seen an idealist they didn’t think deserved to be mocked.
I’m glad someone else mentioned Mass Effect becuase I felt that a lot of the complaints about the ending were actually motivated by the fact that it was The End.
The character I’d been playing was my Shepard, and I’d been playing her for years and finally it was all over, and my Shepard was done.
Sure, I’d have liked an ending were everyone lived happily ever after, but the whole series was about the choices you made, so having the last choice have an unambiguously ‘good’ answer would have felt a bit like cheating. In the end you have to make one last choice, and like all the other ones you make there are no easy answers.
That said, I am looking forward to playing through the Citadel DLC purely for the fan service of seeing my favourite characters again.
You DO NOT call an American Standardbred and “old nag,” bitch. Do you know how hard your dad had to work to earn the deed to that horse?!
Bwaaaahaha. I wonder what Jack is going to do with the 12 grand that me/his daddy managed to steal from a country’s worth of gangs?
What did you and Kickpuncher think of the Stranger when he first showed up? He seemed really transparent to me. I think I was practically yelling at the screen, “Hi Death! You’re Death. Just say you’re Death I know you’re Death.”
But! Because he was around I thought the game was going to involve some huge paranormal twist at the end. Like…maybe you were in your version of the afterlife this whole time. I’m glad it didn’t end up having a twist though. I DO want to go hunting for ghosts that I hear are in the Tumbleweed mansion, though. This game definitely needs more ghosts.
Might have to pick up The Last Of Us. I’ve been going back and forth on playing it…
Fuzzy, interesting rec on The Walking Dead! I usually eschew zombie games (unless it’s Resident Evil 4…LEON!) and I’m not a fan of the books or TV show. But I think I would be if they were done with a little more care. Is that how the game plays out or does it require an already existing emotional attachment to the series?
I’m not sure ‘ignoring the narrative’ is the way that I’d phrase Final
Fantasy’s flights of whimsy–it’s more that Final Fantasy games have
different, dreamlike narrative conventions. It’s simply accepted that
the battle mechanics operate in a visually dramatic theater that doesn’t
necessarily correspond to what is really going on.
That’s an excellent point. I’ve had a harder time accepting the whimsy as the series and I age, though. It’s exceptionally easy to accept this when you’re young or when the representation of the game remains a bit vague. (Rydia can totally survive being swallowed by a Leviathan! Hooray, Rydia’s back!) But the more realistic the games get, and the older I get, the more I want to see something more concrete. That’s probably why I favor FFX the most amongst the next generation FF games, because it takes the perspective of an outsider who needs the world explained to him, so it’s more thoughtful about making sure the details connect.
Although even in that regard, the Final Fantasy series has proven deft enough to dodge that concern. The ninth installment isn’t at all realistic, and it’s by far my favorite of the series.
I think you are making all of this too complicated.
Video games are a form of entertainment, just like books, movies, etc. The majority of people appear to like happy endings where they win – therefore a videogame publisher who wishes to appeal to the largest possible market will make a videogame that has a happy ending.
As hard as it is for me to believe, however, there are people who actually enjoyed Of Mice and Men. People who like slasher flicks where everyone dies horribly, who think GRRM is a fun read, and that 24 Season 1 ended well. Who enjoy the ending of RDR. There’s nothing particular surprising about that fact, nor is there anything particularly surprising about the fact that they will be a minority, as most people are looking to be entertained by their videogame and end feeling good, not depressed.
Jane Austen did not kill off Lizzy Bennett for a very good reason, phooey on “realism” or “logical outcomes”.
Narratives work or fail for a reason though. Even slasher films create narrative expectations, and people will notice if the story does not follow its narrative imperatives. Otherwise they could just show scenes of carnage with nothing stringing them together.
As for Mass Effect, the problem is not that it ends–the problem is thatthe ending does not flow from the story; it is tacked on. It fails to do what RDR does–provide a natural outcome for the protagonist, and a natural resolution to their goals.
Narrative is, by definition, the author’s voice. The issue with games is that player voice is elevated to equal (if not superior) footing. The connection to the character is not empathic, it is self-identification.
This will always make game narrative problematic. We certainly are nowhere near solving this.
@@@@@ Tor Chris. Telltales The Walking Dead does not overlap with the books or show other then a couple cameo’s in the first episode. Thematically they are similar in that; Zombies are bad but people are worse and there both set im Georgia. I had never watched or read the comics until I played the game, I’ve tried them all but in my opinion this game puts them to shame, it’s almost a joke how much stronger the game is than the show or books, when it usually goes the other way around.
In terms of game play, it’s a point and click, so some light puzzles and QTE’s are about it but where the game shines is in story, character development and voice acting. It’s pretty much the opposite of every zombie game ever made. For me while its not the greatest game ever made, i do rank it’s story as one the best I have ever experienced in any form of entertainment not just video games.
@9, That Sailor Moon comparison is particularly apt, looking back on FFX-2, where the party members could change class by changing clothes, MID COMBAT!
I want to pummel Phuzz for his assessment. Not a single Mass Effect fan minded the trilogy having AN end…everyone saw that coming. It wasn’t surprising. It having no variation in any of its three endings after the hook, line l, and sinker of that three-game story BEING the repeated promise of “what you do will vastly affect the ending. All your choices matter!” Dude if you’re into a bullshit-illusion-of-choice-over-a-lot-of-play-through, you should check out The Walking Dead game series as well! Me? I hate which-way books where all paths lead to the same ending.
@11 I think The Strange Man was Satan. Sometimes. Or Death. Or John’s conscience. He gives John choices. It’s very unusual and spooky and I definitely got a chill when I saw Marston’s grave location.
All those stranger missions were pretty melancholy and creepy and kind of cynical. I particularly enjoyed American Appetites (the cannibal) and California, about the man making his way out West. Ugh. That one really got to me.
Tumbleweed ghosts and such are part of a long Rockstar fan tradition, whereby gamers send other players on wild goose chases. The house in Tombstone is pretty glitchy though. It’s like the search for UFOs and Bigfoot in GTA: San Andreas. RDR’s Undead Nightmare even makes a hilarious Sasquatch in-joke. Kudos to them.
#3 has it right. Kobayashi Maru situations are bad game design. The writer forcing failure upon the player is bad (game) writing. There’s a reason we all applaud Kirk when his solution is revealed.
In a game, the outcome must come from the player’s actions. The problem of course, is that it is incredibly hard to get the player to choose to fail. The only games I have played that have ever come close to that are Planescape: Torment and Bastion.
I dunno. The endings of the few games I’ve finished (mostly Final Fantasy series ones, or the related Kingdom Hearts ones) tend to strike me as pretty ambiguous as well. For example, Final Fantasy VII ends on what could be said to be a pretty tragic note. The major city on the planet is gone – destroyed. The biggest corporation on the planet is gone, and as a result so have a lot of people’s livelihoods. Do the remaining mako reactors still work? Nobody knows, although given the actions of the Lifestream, I’d argue there’s a high probability they don’t. And as for our heroes? They’re in an airship that’s close to crashing.
And the only closure we were given in the original game was set five hundred years later, when the last surviving character leads two more of his species up to the bluffs over Midgar, and shows us a city in ruins, overgrown by vegetation.
It wasn’t until Advent Children was released about ten years later we were told yes, the other characters had survived the ensuing crash.
However, given that the actual narrative of Final Fantasy VII was a revenge tragedy which wouldn’t have been out-of-place on the Jacobean stage, I’d argue this ending was entirely appropriate. The story isn’t a comedy (in the Greek sense of the word – a story where the hero triumphs) but a tragedy in the purest sense of the word.
Final Fantasy VIII, a couple of years later, continued the trend of ambiguous endings in what would be really bad places. For example, one of the major political powers of the world has just lost two leaders in a row, and is basically in complete chaos. A previously secretive nation has just stepped onto the world stage once more – what happens next? In a more character-centred moment, does anyone really believe a relationship between Squall and Rinoa is likely to survive once the pair of them come down to earth after the multi-month adrenalin high of fighting Ultimecia? I mean, the only things they have in common are that his dad once dated her mother, and oh yeah, they were in a lot of the same battles against the same sorceress.
By the way, Ultimecia isn’t actually defeated per se – she’s still out there, in the future of this world, and she’s still going to become a threat. Is there anything they can do to defeat her before she gets started? Probably not – because that would create an open time loop.
Final Fantasy XIII – you’ve literally destroyed a world, and sacrificed two of your team members in the process. You’re going to be in the position of dealing with a bunch of refugees who really don’t like having to give up their pampered, technologically cushioned lives.
Kingdom Hearts ends with an uncertainty as to whether the hero is ever going to get home again (we know he’s survived, but will he get back to his home and his friends) and as to whether he’s going to be able to find his best friend again. Kingdom Hearts II resolves a lot of the floating plot threads, but if you’re able to see the final content, you’re led to believe that things are going to pick up again.
To be honest, I actually appreciate those sorts of endings. It’s almost respectful of the world that’s been built in the game, a place that’s complicated and wider than just the immediate game actions. Plus, I’m a fanfic writer – these uncomfortable endings give me places to start writing stories.
While I’ve played and enjoyed all the GTAs (yep, even the overhead one), I still think about RDR – it’s the deepest felt video game I’ve ever played. While I think about the beautiful vistas and the fun gameplay, it’s the story that stays with me. The ending makes it so much more bittersweet and real. I sat there stunned after he died. And its because of what you mentioned, that i became so identified with him, in ways deeper than i have with gta characters. (And don’t forget, the true ending is the son ending his story by getting revenge. ) When he died, I was actually sad, like I was losing a friend, but I was never outraged. And I am a person who mostly enjoys “happy endings.” (Though I’m not going to count my dislike for the Abercrombie trilogy because what’s the point of having characters change and grow for 2.85 books and then having them all return to their despicable selves in the last .15 book? Sorry I got off on that tangent again)
I suppose if this occurred more frequently in the games I played, I would have been less affected. But here it seemed perfect and right. And powerful.
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that John’s death was a tougher blow after making so many choices to mold the character’s development. It felt almost as if I had made a mistake somewhere back in the game play that led to this ending… blame those “Choose Your Adventure” books, which I could never get the hang of.
I remember sitting there, watching it unfold, with real tears and a definite sense of loss. I had to call my mom afterwards! TOO MANY FEELS!!!
To continue as Jack in order to exact revenge was cool, and as far as I was concerned, a foregone conclusion. However, I was conflicted about it; I felt that his mission of revenge was cliched and I couldn’t put my finger on why it bugged me for the longest time. I think its because John worked so hard to make something else possible for his son and it was so damn sad that Jack ended up being just like his dad.
Of course, that’s the damn point. I know. I believe something along the lines of DIE MF DIE echoed around my living room after that final duel :)
Most people play games, read books, watch movies, etc, with the idea of being entertained with this notion of escaping the inevitable, ie death, and when a game, or whatever, doesn’t play to that but rather forces you to meet it head on, a lot of people cry foul instead of recognizing that for what it is; a long, hard look at their own mortality.
Thanks for such a compelling, well written post!
drc413@13: People who like slasher flicks where everyone dies horribly, who think GRRM is a fun read, and that 24 Season 1 ended well. Who enjoy the ending of RDR. There’s nothing particular surprising about that fact, nor is there anything particularly surprising about the fact that they will be a minority
People who think GRRM is a fun read don’t seem to be a particularly small minority, fwiw.
Phuzz, as ColinR and tenth mentioned above, the ending of Mass Effect was one that failed to grow out of what had been previously established in the preceding narratives and utterly failed to reflect any of the choices you had made. The Catalyst’s stubborn and ignorant insistence on the inevitability of conflict between synthetics and organics was contradicted by the presence of EDI as a member of Normandy’s crew, by the previous involvement of Legion, and by the peace that many of us managed to broker between the Quarians and the Geth. Worse yet, there was not so much as a single bit of dialogue that could be voiced to protest the Catalyst’s demonstrably false assertions. You are fractally, and self-evidently, wrong in your analysis of the motivations of those who justifiably complained about the ending.
When reading a book, or watching a movie, if a favorite character dies, it sucks, but usually it lends to the story. It was written by someone else. It is merely a form of entertainment.
When playing a game like RDR, I have control of the character. I make choices, I defeat enemies. If I’m in a shootout and I die, it was because I was not good enough and lost. The ending takes away that choice. It doesn’t matter how good you are or prepared or anything, you’re going to die. I think that is what irritated a lot of people, especially since the game was a little more open ended than typically following a linear story where you figure you’re probably going to die to save the world.
Sure there are no win situations, but there is always that small chance, that hope, yet there was none in RDR and that is what is annoying.
Outrage over the ending? No, but a little disappointed with it.
Very well written article. I completely agree. I too was disheartened by the ending, but it only made me like the game that much more for having the courage to kill him off.