8 Utterly Beautiful Video Game Settings That Blew You Away
8. American Frontier Red Dead Redemption
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This is a tough one for me because Red Dead Redemption is probably my favourite game, period. For that reason I could easily have listed this higher but when compiling this list I realised that it simply wasnt as atmospheric or unique as the others I had come up with. That being said I still think this is one of the greatest settings ever to grace a video game. Everything in Red Dead Redemption was great, from the fleshed-out, interesting characters, fun and diverse gameplay and the map was a paramount feature of its charm. First and foremost Red Dead Redemption was a very big game, it was long and it was huge with loads of side missions and challenges to keep you busy, it had a lot of replay value. Similarly to an RPG, any open-world game has to have an interesting, compelling map and Red Dead is up there with the best. When starting Red Dead Redemption I remember thinking there was no way Id be able to memorise the map the way you can with GTA etc., in those games you play for long enough and the map begins to engrave in your head. I thought this due to Red Dead being a western with no huge buildings or highways or even real roads to mark your way, however much sooner than I imagined possible I was riding around and not needing the map to guide my way. Vast open plains with tumbleweed and cacti meant that you could see far in the distance and towns like Armadillo often came into view long before you neared them. Its for that reason that the rendering in RDR cant be taken for granted, its the reason you could see towns, rock formations and carriages in the distance to help you on your way. You can compare that to the rendering in a game like Prototype, which is simply awful. The attention to detail in the RDR map is astonishing. Be it the suitably gritty graphics, array of wild animals to skin and sell, the almost-impossible to reach treasure chests and the variety of locale from the snowy mountaintop of Tall Trees to the red rocks of Gaptooth Ridge and from the dirty Mexican town of Escalera to the more modern Blackwater. The game was not simply a re-skin of Grand Theft Auto, which many assumed it would be, rather it was a labour of love that paid off big time. The setting of Red Dead Redemption is one of the most memorable Ive ever played; simply riding a horse at sunset has rarely felt so real and beautiful.