UK, February 23, 2010 - Even as the sun was just setting on its first Western game, Rockstar and its San Diego studio were laying down plans for a sequel – and for a game that would not only be on a bigger scope than Red Dead Revolver but quite possibly more ambitious than anything the company had ever attempted. The game that they wanted to make was an open world take on the Western world that Red Dead Revolver established, and it's a logical step. The pairing of an open world game with the Western sensibilities of Revolver was tantalising, and combined with the fidelity that Grand Theft Auto IV brought to the table it suggests that Red Dead Redemption will be more than just a sequel to a fondly remembered if unspectacular shooter; it's nothing less than the next step for the open world genre.
"If we were going to do a sequel or going to do another Western game we were going to make the game that we wanted to make," Dan Houser, Rockstar's co-founder and creative VP tells us, "What was exciting to us was to continue with this game with a very tight shooting mechanic, but build it into an open world game to make this kind of countryside epic. From the very first discussion that was very much the goal."
It's this move into the rural that's one of the most exciting aspects of Red Dead Redemption, marking a return of the sense of scale that made Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas a series' highlight for many. Indeed, critics of the more restrictive playground that Niko's sombre tale necessitated in GTA IV will likely find their reservations washed away in the plains of Red Dead Redemption, the three areas of New Austin, West Elizabeth and Nuevo Paraiso offering the exact thing that many thought was missing from Rockstar's 2008 hit.
Redemption's world is consistently gorgeous.
Taking the open world genre to the wilds required more than just going big – the added oomph of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 meant that bringing the untamed expanse to life would present its own problems. "Computers draw straight lines" Houser offers by way of a simple explanation of the technological challenge Red Dead Redemption posed.
"They don't draw curves, but nature is all about curves - so it's much easier to make a space base or even a city and make it look pretty believable to the human eye than it is to make a rural environment. You've got so many more rounded surfaces, such a great variety of textures and light behaving all kinds of different ways. Just making it look right was a huge challenge that we didn't have [before], and I don't think anyone has because no one was doing it.
"We are really, really pleased with the results because it looks really beautiful. We managed to give you this wide variety of environments that feel like they're in one section of the world and it feels consistent but varied and looks spectacular and behaves the way we want it to."
The results speak for themselves; Red Dead Redemption is rarely less than sumptuous, surpassing the impressive achievements of GTA IV and Midnight Club: Los Angeles and proving that the RAGE engine is equally happy dealing with both town and country. Without the high rises of Liberty City or the tangle of downtown LA to act as a buffer much is asked of RAGE in Red Dead Redemption, but it proves up to the task, delivering deliciously lit vistas in abundance thanks to a generous draw distance.
"We can now get these environments that look beautiful, have dust particles coming up, have rays of sun coming through cloud," says Houser, "You simply couldn't have done that before in a big setting. You might be able to do it over a very narrow, not very interactive environment but then that doesn't feel like the West. The West, when we thought about it, was as much about geography as it was about people. And getting the geography right you couldn't really do on anything before 360 and PS3."
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