I should have known better, as the whole cowboy genre is terrible as fuck. Westerns (as boomer Americans call the genre) have the slowest dialogue, the corniest patriarchal story-line, and are obviously filled with a heap ton of other problematic bits. Of course, I had to try as the game got great reviews. I thought I'd try it with the Steam summer sale.
Fuckkkkkkkk the long boring ass cut scenes. OMG pls talk faster and have dialogue that's interesting. The beginning of the game is just 30 minutes of video and riding your horse so slowly through the snow. I thought that my TikTok brain couldn't stand some old slow game from a bygone era, but I'm checking this shit and it was released in 2018!
If I was some prat who loved the mythology of the "settling of the west", a game with a white dude on a horse on a mountain would get me hard. Why can't more games be like Atomic Heart? I wanna defend the land of Stalin and have cut scenes with good dialogue a talking glove that debates theory and a sexy refrigerator that probably wants to murder me.
OK the main game is definitely boring but it's actually a good game to listen to a podcast in the background. Just vibing and hunting
HOWEVER
The online PVP fighting is the worst, absolute worst game experience in history.
It's SO BORING. SO BORING. I call it "Headshot Sysyphus" It's absolutely fucking pointless. I got into multiple extended fights roughly 5v5 and it's literally a contest to see who can get bored first.
Well there's your problem
The varmint rifle at the release of Red Dead Online was objectively the best weapon in the game. Cheapest ammo, one hit headshots, can take it into any game mode you want.