Red Dead Redemption 2: 5 Western Tropes Rockstar Must Avoid

You. Three other men. Twice as many shifty eyes. The word “cheat” hangs in the air like your pal who got busted for shooting Longhorns last week. An eerie silence. Then, like coiled vipers, you all spring up, grabbing your pistols and eyeing up who's getting a bullet.

The Mexican standoff has become a trope so universally employed that it seems to have transcended its trope status entirely, fading into the legend of the Wild West as a whole. In film, a Mexican standoff can be the high-tension highlight of the whole picture.

Why? Because an audience knows that if their hero dies from a lack of reflexes and speed, they won’t just load an autosave and start the whole thing over again.

A prime example of moments that don’t work as well in games as they do in movies, the Mexican standoff loses all of its power when the only tension, stakes or gravitas felt by the player… is the annoyance at having to potentially sit through a long loading screen.