7 Pointless Video Game Characters (Who Were Actually CRUCIAL)

The unifying philosophy of Red Dead Redemption 2's design is hyper-realism to the point of mundanity. That's the reason for all that tediously slow drawer-opening action, and it's also why, as real life, important occurrences are instigated by the innocuous and the ordinary, rather than Moments of Dramatic Relevance.

And so, grizzled outlaw Arthur Morgan's eventual death doesn't come through an epic duel at high noon (well, actually, it sort of does, but that's by the by), but per an affliction ancillary to the actual 'plot'.

Not that it isn't telegraphed. From the moment Arthur coughs, anyone who's read a Victorian novel knows he's going to pop his clogs from consumption. Characters in games simply don't bother with bodily functions unless it's Important, or, in the case of Oddworld, a gameplay mechanic.

So those alert to errant coughs - which, across in 2020, became everybody - will have twigged Arthur's fate early on, but the signs actually exist much earlier. Whilst roughing up a debtor by the name of Thomas Downes, on behalf of loan shark Leopold Strauss, Morgan gets an eyeful of the man's blood.

At the time, it seems like collateral crimson through the process of cracking skulls - there's no reason for the player to realise Arthur has been spat with a faceful of pathogens (Downes tells him "I don't have it!", a slyly ambiguous reference to the money).

What makes this seemingly incidental scene particularly brilliant is that Downes is just one of several debts Arthur needs to collect, as part of a mission that totally screams 'secondary'. It's literally busywork then - and by the time our stricken cowboy drops down in Saint Denis, the player's probably forgotten who Downes was, let alone recognise his fate-sealing splutter.