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

5. Chapter 5's Overindulgence And Chapter 6's Pacing

Another negative that comes from Arthur's diagnosis happening when you still have a good 10 hours of game-time left, means you REALLY start to see the strings in regards to Rockstar's mission design.

The arbitrary "take quest, ride to place, see cutscene, optional fight, rinse-repeat" structure is in full force, but so is Dutch's "just one more job" rhetoric. Rockstar crowbar in an entire subplot with a Native American tribe leader and his unruly son too, and it all feels incredibly tacked on.

For the entire chapter you're weighed down by Arthur's disease; not wanting to mop up side content or do anything other than pursue the story, meaning all the worst parts of Red Dead 2's bloat are front and centre.

This all comes after the meandering oddity that is Chapter 5 too, where Arthur and company travel to Guarma and you get forced into a few hours of Rockstar trying to make an Uncharted.

Yes, you can revel in the sheer opulence of the dev's ability to craft whatever they like, but at some point you have to wonder: If Sam and Dan Houser were introduced to more stringent editing process, would it have made a better product overall?