Red Dead Redemption 2: 9 Reasons It's Not Game Of The Year 2018

8. The "Rockstar Mission Problem" Is STILL Here

If you're not acquainted, the "Rockstar mission problem" is the act of designing a "quest" where the only thing you do is "travel to place, see cutscene, occasionally have quick combat encounter, travel back."

It's effective, sure, but the vast majority of missions across the entirety of RDR2 are 70% horse-riding, with only that 30% being split across a punch-up, gunfight, duel or - if you're lucky - a robbery.

Despite the latter front-loading the trailers and general marketing for the game - and the fact GTA V had such a problem implementing heists when it came to expectation, launch-day execution and a MUCH later GTA Online component - you'd think RDR2 would knock them out the park.

Sadly, though the handful of main robberies are fun enough, you can't actually rob a bank outside of these staged events. Train robberies are a blast, but overall, Red Dead 2 does very little to fix the same stale mission design problems that have dogged Rockstar's more "serious" games since GTA 4.