Red Dead Retribution

Why Rockstar got the game right but the name wrong

Leo Cookman
8 min readFeb 26, 2024

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Red Dead Redemption is an indirect sequel to the 2004 video game Red Dead Revolver. They are both hard-boiled Western RPG games, full of gun fights and heists in the Ol’ West. For the third game in this series — for some reason— Rockstar decided to call it Red Dead Redemption II. Even more confusingly, part 2 is a prequel to Redemption 1. One would think a better naming convention would be to simply add a different “RE” word after the ‘Red Dead’ part, like so many other franchises of this century: Reloaded, revolutions, requiemrevengeance? And there’s one word that would have fit this game perfectly given the nature of the story it tells: retribution.

Much of your playtime in-game is spent with the character Arthur Morgan, a man presented as a dumb lump who is bad with words but good with a gun. He is given a fatal diagnosis half way through the story as a result of an unkind choice early on. The ‘redemption’ of the title comes in the form of Morgan attempting to mend his ways and become a better person by helping others and making up for the bad things his gang has done. It is a slight but well told story and comes to a satisfying climax where Morgan (depending on your choices) acquits himself with honour. But, frankly, that isn’t what the game is about. Red Dead Redemption II is about killing…

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Leo Cookman

Peripatetic Writer. “Time’s Lie” out now from Zero Books.