Red Dead Redemption 2: Ranking Every Town From Worst To Best
Not all towns are created equal. From Saint Denis to Tumbleweed, how do they rank?
Red Dead Redemption 2's maps is one of the best ever put to screen. The world feels well and truly alive - never too active, and never too desolate. It feels real. It feels lived in.
The nature is a masterwork of game design, in and of itself. From the snowy mountains of Ambarino and the towering buttes of New Hanover, to the murky swamps of Lemoyne and the sun-soaked deserts of New Austin, you can play the game a thousand times and never experience the same thing twice. You walk to the edge of a mountain, and a deer may run up behind you and send you plummeting to your death. You may get mauled by a gator while trying to feed it some poor, hogtied prisoner.
It's a living, breathing world, and it doesn't stop at the edge of civilization. No, the cities and towns of Red Dead Redemption 2 are veritable masterworks, as well, each with their own unique personality, flavor, and identity. Saint Denis, Valentine, Annesburg - all distinct, all memorable.
Side-note: we're not including places like Pronghorn Ranch, Beecher's Hope, or MacFarlane Ranch, as they're not really towns. We're strictly talking about towns.
So how to they rank when compared to each other?
11. Honorable Mention: Wapiti Indian Reservation
Just because the Wapiti reservation is listed here as an honorable mention, that doesn't mean it's inferior to the other entries on this list.
it's only classified as an honorable mention because it's not technically a town. There's nothing for the player to do. For most of the game, all you can do is stroll leisurely through the reservation and get yelled at by Wapiti tribespeople who aren't super stoked about you being there. You can't even draw your weapons within the boundaries of the reservation.
Still, the Wapiti reservation deserves to be mentioned because of how powerful it is. It's the only settlement that acts as a reminder of the gross injustice inherent in the "taming" of the American West.
Walking through Wapiti is absolutely haunting. It's a settlement that's not a town; a homestead that's not a home. It's a community that wishes it could be anywhere else, and by all measures of justice and human dignity, SHOULD be anywhere else.
The player may not be able to do anything at Wapiti, but it deserves mentioning just because of how real - and how utterly tragic - it is.