During the holiday season, we’re republishing select articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2023 series. Enjoy!
Soapbox features allow our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random things they’ve been chewing on. Today, Ollie describes how Rockstar Games’ seminal western influenced his love of the American frontier…
Growing up, I knew what genres I was interested in when it came to books, movies, and games. I’ve always gravitated towards horror first and foremost (and always have want, too), but I also really liked science fiction and fantasy. That didn’t mean I completely avoided anything that didn’t fall into one of those categories; I loved it Godfather trilogy, I’m reading Lord of the Flies more times than I can count, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t watch Stand by me at least once a year. But one genre that always made me dizzy was the western.
In the first two decades of my life, I never watched a western movie, never read a western novel, and especially never played a western game. It wasn’t because I had anything against them—it wasn’t like I could claim to have any authoritative opinion on the genre, after all—but I never particularly wanted to immerse myself in that kind of world.
That was until Red Dead Redemption came along. Before its release in 2010, I was already borderline obsessed with Rockstar Grand Theft Auto IV on the 360. To me, this represented a significant step forward in open-world design, and I was thrilled with the studio’s implementation of Euphoria, an animation tool that could enable absurdly realistic human physics.
So of course, despite the fact that Red Dead Redemption was set in the old west, I knew had play it. And I did. And it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.
Red Dead Redemption’s opening is uniquely calm and quiet, all things considered. It begins with the protagonist, John Marston, arriving by train in the lovely town of Armadillo. There he meets a bearded old-timer named Jake, who rides with John to the fortified stronghold of Fort Mercer, where John will face an old gang ally named Bill Williamson.
The encounter ends with John being shot, left for dead, and taken to the nearby MacFarlane Ranch. Up until that point, however, Red Dead Redemption has its sweet moments, and the only real gameplay is a relatively simple journey that takes you from Armadillo to Fort Mercer. It serves not only as an introduction to some of the core gameplay mechanics, but also to the world itself. Leaving behind the sliver of civilization found in Armadillo only to find yourself knee-deep in what can only be described as the middle of nowhere, Red Dead Redemption manages to make even the most desolate environments feel real and alive.
It was this first ride that ignited a faint spark of passion in my heart. Watching the dust kick up from the horses’ hooves, the distant horizon shimmering in the heat, and a bunch of cackling coyotes nibbling on the half-eaten carcass of a dead deer, I instantly fell in love with the setting. It felt intimidating and terrifying in the same way that entering the vastly vast land of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild felt, but somehow the harsh reality of the Old West appealed to me even more.
So I played Red Dead Redemption from start to finish in just a few long sessions. I was mesmerized by it: the characters, the scenery, the wildlife, the music… all of it. And so, watching the closing credits, I knew right away that I wasn’t done with that genre. However, going back to Red Dead Revolver it didn’t seem like an option to me, because I already knew through friends that he probably wouldn’t stand by his younger brother, so I ventured to other media.
I started off with a trilogy of films that I suspect many Western fans have been biting into: Sergio Leone’s The Dollar Trilogyconsists of A handful of dollars, For a few dollars moreand of course, The good, the bad and the ugly. I loved each one more than the last, and the finale proved to be one of the best movies of all time, aided by killer performances from Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood.
From then on, I stayed with Leone and watched Once in the west, and while it certainly lacked the familiar faces of the Dollar Trilogy, people weren’t kidding when they said it was Leone’s magnum opus. Incredibly wide in scope, countless shots are forever etched in my mind.
With those genre poles in the way, I was very much addicted. I moved on to some more Clint Eastwood classics — Unforgiven, Hang them high, Joe Kidd — before venturing elsewhere with similar Stagecoach, Seekers, The Ballad of Buster Scruggsand Wild bunch. Even westerns set in modern times dug their hooks into me; I love it There is no country for old men and our own Clint Eastwood Macho cries it has its own charm.
However, when I got through a few dozen movies, I needed more. So of course I put aside the likes of Stephen King and Shirley Jackson and picked up a few Western novels. I started with Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove, an epic story that, in retrospect, might have been a little too ambitious for my first foray into the world of (old) Western literature. Having said that, I still like it, even though it took me a while to finish. Then I found out that Lonesome Dove was just one of several novels set in the same world, so I read them and then quickly moved on to Blood meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Oh my God. If there is one novel that I would implore everyone to read at least once, it is Blood Meridian. It’s not just one of the best western novels of all time, it’s honestly one of the best works of literature full stop. It’s not an easy read, admittedly, both in terms of the prose and the excessively violent content, but there are parts of this book that read as if they were written by some higher power. It’s just that good.
I ended up going back to Stephen King with his epic fantasy series The dark tower. While it’s a story that comfortably contains tropes from almost every literary genre under the sun, it consistently felt like a Western to me, with its gun-toting protagonist Roland Deschain and the harsh, desolate wasteland of Middle Earth. What a ride.
The point is, I’ve seen and read works that I would consider true masterpieces at this point, and I simply wouldn’t have come across them if it weren’t for Red Dead Redemption. It proved to be the perfect entry point into the world of the American frontier; an affordable excursion that, while certainly portraying a more romantic vision of the Old West, was otherwise incredibly authentic. I can’t thank Rockstar enough for creating such an exceptional game, and if you’re tempted to buy it on Switch, however steep the price, go ahead. You won’t be disappointed.
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Have you come across any books or movies set in the Old West that you think I should check out? How did you first encounter Red Dead Redemption? Share your thoughts with a comment below.
