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With the announcement that Red Dead Redemption is getting a "conversion" to PS4 and Switch platforms, I'm excited to have an excuse to easily replay it. I don't particularly want to dig my PS3 out and untangle wires just to revisit one of my favourite experiences, so I'm glad that it's about to get much easier. Rockstar's port is making Red Dead Redemption accessible to both its oldest fans and future generations - a revisit to a beloved game, an invitation to discover an old classic.
And in my eyes, that's all this re-release should be. I don't want this to be a signal of a third Red Dead Redemption game, because the series doesn't need one. If Rockstar decides to do a full-blown remake of the original at some point, I'll still say the same thing. Red Dead Redemption as a series has already made its point -a third game, while fun to imagine, couldn't add anything new to its message.
This article contains spoilers for both Red Dead Redemption games.
Like father, like son
The Red Dead Redemption games have consistently portrayed one message - its characters can never truly redeem themselves in the eyes of society, regardless of whether they play by its rules or not. In the original game, John Marston is forced to follow the orders of government agents Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham, hunting down the surviving members of the Van der Linde gang, in return for his wife Abigail and their son Jack. Despite Marston doing as he was told, he is eventually betrayed and killed by Ross, a loose end finally tied up.
But the game keeps rolling. It ends with us playing as Jack, who rejects the honest life John and Abigail tried to set him up for. Instead, he murders Ross for killing his father, returning him to his family's former path.
The very nature of Red Dead Redemption 2 cements this theme - as a prequel, there can only be one outcome for its characters. We already know their endings, and tragic irony is what makes it even more heartbreaking getting to know each member of the Van der Lindes and watching the gang's downfall. By choosing to make the second game in the series a prequel and not a sequel, Rockstar doubled down on the message it had already set out in the original.
Exodus in America
A potential Red Dead Redemption 3 would have nothing new to add beyond undermining the message set out and then reinforced across two games. A prequel showing us the early days of the Van der Linde gang might give us a glimpse at the dynamics of the group at its most stable - rather than in the disarray it's in at the beginning of Red Dead Redemption 2 - but its characters' fates are predetermined. The dramatic irony would make us feel bittersweet, and the series' message would be repeated.
A sequel following Jack amid his WW1 conscription and into the Prohibition era is more appealing, as there's potential to explore how he might fare after being forced to fight a country that rejected his family and its way of living, and whether he attempts to adjust to a more modern society or chooses to fall into organised crime as a bootlegger. The first option, completing Jack's story with an objective and fair trial of his past, would offer him a chance at redemption, but in a significantly different way to how it was offered to John. Whilst John's required blood and sacrifice not on his own terms, Jack's would see him abandon his outlaw roots. We'd have to discuss the series in relation to modern justice systems rather than the Wild West. The final option - Jack choosing to live as a criminal and die as a gangster - would simply reiterate the series' message without saying anything new.
While I'd love for there to be some sort of happy ending for Jack, that kind of resolution can't be possible within Red Dead Redemption. John, in giving in his life, tried to give Jack a better one than he led. Arthur did the same for John 12 years prior. But for both, the outcome was not what they had hoped for. Red Dead Redemption has always been about tragedy, so it must end in shed blood for Jack, like it did for John and Arthur. Any other ending wouldn't be a true Red Dead Redemption game.
It's safe to assume that GTA 6 will arrive before Red Dead Redemption 3.
