What 10 Great Video Games Look Like Without Visual Effects

5. Red Dead Redemption 2

Sadly, there isn't a whole load of footage out there covering the actual human performances in Red Dead Redemption 2, but how the team at Rockstar managed to bring the game's horses to life has been revealed in a bunch of videos.

The original game set the bar for realistic horses in games, and that was done essentially by drawing a few dots on a horse and filming it galloping around a pretty small set. Cut forward ten years and the scale of the operation grew massively, and this time around the horses had their own mo-cap suits, and were ridden by human performers in their own suits to ensure the most lifelike movement around real, obstacle-filled racetracks.

In interviews the actors revealed some tidbits about how far performance capture evolved during the two games as well. For instance, on the first Red Dead, cutting between angles on set was impossible, which meant all cutscenes had to be accomplished in a single take. Thankfully, that was remedied for the sequel.