My predictions for Red Dead Redemption 3

 Red Dead Redeption 2 came out four years ago, and since then articles guessing what direction the franchise will take have been popping up in my news feed. None of them ever seem to agree with my assumptions, so I thought I’d jot them down. This way, in the unlikely event that I am right, I can say “I told you so.” (Not just me, of course)

Oh, and spoilers ahead for RDR1 and 2.

Prequel or sequel?

Some writers have suggested that the most obvious choice for RDR3 would be to follow the story of Jack Marston. This would be great, and I'd love to see Rockstar do a game set during the Jazz Age but since RDR2 is a prequel to RDR1 then it would make sense for the third game to follow the pattern.

Also, I think that the story for RDR3 is largely already written and some of the footage already shot. In one interview the actor Peter Blomquist, who plays Micah, describes a hidden scene in which Micah and the gang leader Dutch dance together. Since that scene still isn’t found after four years, I suspect it has been removed and is meant for RDR3. And because we know Micah dies at the end of RDR2, it must be a prequel. Similarly, the end of the third trailer for RDR2 shows the town of Limpany on fire, but in the game itself the town is already a burnt out husk and nothing ever happens there at all.

All of this implies that RDR3 would be a direct prequel, with events leading up to the beginning of RDR2.

Gravestones give clues to some characters we might meet,

if RDR3 is set immediately before RDR2

Main Protagonist?

Since the main protagonist dies at the end of RDR1 (John) and RDR2 (Arthur) then we could reasonably assume the same will happen in RDR3. We have two possible candidates: Davey and Jenny who both recently died when the game begins.

I think Jenny is the most likely of the two, simply because we never see her body so we know little about her. She is sometimes mentioned in dialogue between gang members throughout the game which makes me think that her backstory is better understood by the writers than Davey's story.

Storyline?

If Jenny is the protagonist, then one would assume that feminist issues (the right to vote, domestic abuse) would feature strongly. But I’m inclined to think that because we never see her* that she could well be black or mixed race. This would imply that RDR3 will focus on slavery or, to be more exact, about peony if we bear in mind that RDR3 would probably be set in the mid-1890s. Peony was the method used after the legal abolition of slavery to keep poor workers (largely black) in low-paid work with few rights.

Epilogue?

At the end of RDR2 there is a lengthy epilogue and the chance for the player (as John Marston) to free roam around the map, occasionally completing any unfinished missions that aren’t story-specific. We know from dialogue in RDR2 that John goes missing at some unspecified time in the past and he isn’t part of the gang at the very start of the game. This would allow, after the story of RDR3 is told, for the player to take up the character of John and free roam for as long as they please.

Map size?

This is tricky. In RDR2, water acts as its southern border, but it has been discovered that there is a “slip zone” south of Flat Iron Lake, indicating that it was once part of the main game too. There are rowing boats, too, on the southern shore even though there is no legitimate way of getting there.

I have found two areas across the river from Thieve's Landing which are marked as hideouts, which is obviously the remains of some mission that had been removed. 

Also, further along the coast, is a right angled patch of discoloured ground which might have been part of a yard, indicating that a settlement was once going to be here. 

Finally, there is an area opposite Annesburg with a large number of wolves and cougars which I wonder might have been part of a challenge to kill them off before the gang was able to set up camp there.

All of these may be reinstated in RDR3. Or they may not. Either way, I expect RDR3 to have Flat Iron Lake more central in the map.

Beyond the “slip zone” the map continues for far longer than is needed. I’ve explored a lot to the south and east and there’s nothing more to suggest that this was ever going to be part of the game, apart from a dirt road that leads from a forest and up a hill but otherwise serves no discernible purpose.

Release date?

No idea. Sorry.

* there is a sketch of her in Arthur's notebook which shows she has long dark hair, which would suggest white or Native American or South Asian. But equally, there are mentions of Lenny (who is black) having been in love with Jenny and, in 1899, a mixed-ethnic relationship between races would have attracted more comments about the racial aspect but in the game there are none, which makes me suppose that Jenny had dark skin. Her surname, Kirk, suggests some Scottish family or Scottish owners.

A wii bit obsessive

Recently I've been playing a lot of Wii Sports, in particular Wii Golf (eight under par is my best so far). This game has a limited number of phrases that it says to you at particular points, such as "Nice Shot!"

Well, I played the game so often by myself that I found myself replying to a couple of these phrases. For example, if I get a one under par at a hole it says "Nice birdie", to which I reply "Pretty birdie!" Then if I get two under, it says "Great eagle", and I say "It is big, isn't it?" And if I just score par for the hole, it says "Nice par" and I say "You've never even met my dad."

Trouble is, now I'm getting a bit superstitious about these phrases and I'm afraid that if I don't say them out loud then I won't play as well. As a consequence I do look a bit odd when playing with friends.

Tomb Raider, mon amor

Since it's the 10th anniversary of the release of the first Tomb Raider game, I'm posting this old (from before the release of TR: Legend) blog entry.

It’s a given, amongst the videogame cognoscenti, that Tomb Raider is a franchise dead from the neck down. An excellent first game that, after the departure of Toby Gard, traded on a spiral of diminishing returns before it finally collapsed into the half-finished mess of Angel Of Darkness. I want to redress the balance a bit for a much-maligned franchise which doesn’t deserve even a tenth of the scorn it’s received.

Every TR game until Chronicles, even the third which I don’t care for much, had glorious sexy moments. The reason I finally finished TR3 (although the last level and the final boss occupied an entire weekend: two days I’m never going to get back and I’ll never really forgive them for that) was because it had previously given me such moments of giddy geek-joy like running around Area 51 or blowing up dinosaurs with an anti-aircraft gun. It’s difficult to discard a game that gave you that: there’s always the idea that they’re going to get it equally right just around the next corner.

TR1 was great for everything. Puzzles, atmosphere, loneliness, and a desire to guide your sexy and vulnerable avitar safely to her destination. TR2 was nice. You got to spin around Venice, Tibet and a sunken wreck. And this was a lot of fun. TR3 gave you the chance to run up the down escalator in a tube station (and Aldwych tube station to boot!) but little else other than it’s new locations.

However, TR4 gave you a proper story and as such it was a proper adventure. You were in Egypt, and you stayed there until you’d sorted everything out. None of this pathetic veering around the globe to satisfy some deep seated urge to be “big”. And I want to take my hat off to the final boss battle. You don’t kill it: you run away from it. Brilliant. When I finally worked that out, it all seemed so obvious: Why should I be able to kill it? I’m an archeologist, and he’s an Egyptian God. What made me think I even had a chance? I loved TR4 even more once I’d finished it, whereas with TR3 (and 2) I thought “Thank god that’s over”. The only weakness in TR4 was that bit where you had to soup up your motorbike so it could make an all-important leap into the next level. It required a standard of recall of various items and backtracking that not even 80’s TV series Now Get Out Of That demanded, and I admit I almost gave up at that point.

The fact is Tomb Raider: Chronicles should have been part of the PS2 debut, and I reckon it’s down to Eidos for the insistence on a fifth anual Christmas chart-topper that left us with this tepid soup of a game. But think about it: the first level of TR5 is in Venice again, and you even get to run across the roof of the opera house that you briefly visited in a cut-scene in TR2. Imagine how good all that would have been in proper next-gen graphics. And later, when you’re being attacked by a loony with a crane, that could have been fantastic with the beef of the emotion engine behind it. As it was, these ideas were stuck in a fading game engine on a fading console.

Even now, I have a pang to buy TR:AoD. My friend bought it, and said it was a laid back version of the previous TR games. But I never have bought it. And I feel bad for not following Lara’s story through to the bitter end, but money’s a bit tight, there are other games I want blah de blah. To an extent, I think of TRChronicles and Angel of Darkness as a kind of official fan fiction. It’s not the real story; just some eager fans making games about what might happen to Lara Croft after she’d escaped. But it isn’t actually what happened. Lara Croft is, for me, still trapped under that rubble in Egypt, waiting for the right game to dig her out and pull her out, dusty and blinking, into the 128bit world.

But until then, Lara Croft will be like a favourite ex-girlfriend who you don’t mention anymore in case your current beau gets offended. Such is life.