Red Dead Redemption is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, May 18, 2025. Below, we consider that it may be better at showing than telling.
As a rule, Westerns are sincere. Sure, there are outright farces like Blazing Saddles. Plenty of classic Westerns like Rio Bravo have a warm, comedic side. Even dark epics like the Searchers have moments of levity. But even when they are funny, Westerns play their archetypes straight. They are easy to make fun of because they are so unfeigned. In this context, Red Dead Redemption struggles to find its place. It imports Grand Theft Auto’s satire into a bare and somber world. In many moments, protagonist John Marston is the only voice of reason among cliches and caricatures. When Red Dead Redemption talks, it is often cheap and unserious. When it shuts up, it manages a real poetry, thanks to its austere landscapes and unpretentious world.
First, let’s dig into its writing. RDR is a sunset Western, set in the waning days of Western expansion. Marston is a man out of time: a cowboy criminal in a world that wants to kill him (and will). Marston is foolish. He hunts down his former compatriots on the behest of the US government, because he hopes they will keep his promise to return his family to him and leave him alone. He is wrong. The killings he undertakes swing back on him and his family alike.