I finally finished Red Dead Redemption this month — 16 years after I started it.
I first played it not long after it appeared on the PlayStation 3 in 2010. I loved it, but never got to the end. Over the years I went back several times, usually on a different console, and invariably discovered I’d forgotten what I was doing, where I was going and why everyone wanted to shoot me. So I’d start again. And then stop again.
Late last year Rockstar released an enhanced version for the Nintendo Switch 2 and I decided to give it another go. This time, for whatever reason, it stuck.
Perhaps it was the Switch itself — being able to pick it up for half an hour rather than commit an evening to sitting in front of the television. Perhaps Breath of the Wild had changed the way I play games. Or perhaps I’m simply more patient than I was 16 years ago.
Whatever it was, I stopped worrying about getting through it and just enjoyed being there.
And Red Dead Redemption is a wonderful place to be. Its version of the dying American West still looks beautiful, despite the game’s age — huge landscapes, tiny settlements, changing light and long journeys on horseback when very little happens. Especially those journeys. I did a lot of riding around.
I’ve realised that’s increasingly what I want from games. I’m not interested in being particularly good at them and I’ve no desire to play competitively online against someone a third of my age who has killed me before I’ve remembered which button draws my gun. I like exploring — going somewhere because it looks interesting and getting distracted along the way.
It’s why I’ve loved Breath of the Wild. I can spend an evening wandering around Hyrule, climb something simply because it’s there, spot something else from the top and head off in completely the wrong direction. Hours later I’ll turn the Switch off having entirely failed to do whatever it was I intended.
Red Dead Redemption gave me much the same pleasure — but something else happened as I got closer to the end. I became surprisingly invested in John Marston. He’s a former outlaw trying to escape his past and get back to his family, and after all those years of starting and stopping I’d somehow become attached to him.
So when the end finally came, I found it genuinely emotional. Some of that is testament to the writing, but I think some of it was simply the strange history I had with the game. I’d been returning to John Marston’s story, on and off, for 16 years. Finishing it felt like closing something.
It also made me realise why I’m enjoying games again. I don’t really care whether I finish them anymore. I’m quite happy for a game to be somewhere I occasionally visit — somewhere to wander around for an hour before returning to real life.
Although if I do start another one, I’d quite like to finish it before 2042.