Some movies are undeniably Christmas movies – things like Elf or Miracle on 34th Street are all about Christmas spirit, feature Santa Claus, and are set at Christmas time. That’s a Christmas movie right there. Then there are others that lack the spirit or the Christmas imagery, but still happen at Christmas, so still count: flicks like Die Hard, Batman Returns, Gremlins, or The Apartment. Then, finally, there are movies that don’t have any link to Christmas whatsoever but still feel like Christmas because of the tradition of it all. For me, that’s Westerns.
For other people, it may be The Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, or Harry Potter. Movies that just always seem to be on at Christmas and thus become a Christmas event, like the League Cup quarter final or the Darts World Championship (or for the US readers, a Beyonce concert interrupted by a game of football). Over this holiday season, I watched a lot of cowboy movies, and it has made me all the more desperate for a cowboy video game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Casts A Long Shadow
I know what you’re thinking. “But Sophie, there is a cowboy video game! A really famous one!”. First off, my name is Stacey, and second off, I know. My ‘favourite’ game changes regularly, as everyone’s does depending on their mood or current craving, but Red Dead Redemption 2 is constantly in the mix. I love the original Red Dead Redemption as well, and played Revolver many moons ago. I’ve also played the three Call of Juarez games actually set in the Wild West.
My question is ‘What next’? I know there are some indie games that take place in the era of Manifest Destiny, and I’ve dabbled in them, and I could plunge further into the past with games like Gun, but what I really want is a new game. A new, big cowboy game. It’s so odd to me that we have so few. It feels so ripe with potential for the way video games tell their stories (propelled by violence, focused on individual characters, steeped in morality and heroism), and yet the fields go unsown.
The obvious problem is Red Dead Redemption itself. If you make a cowboy game with triple-A ambitions, you will invariably be compared to Red Dead Redemption. And seeing as John and Arthur’s adventures are amongst the best games of all time and cost more money than most studios can afford, you will invariably come off second best in that comparison.
It’s the same reason Red Dead has not been anywhere near as influential as games like Breath of the Wild – the things it does well cannot be recreated by anyone besides Red Dead. This all means the next major cowboy game we get will be Red Dead Redemption 3, which won’t be here until 2033 at the earliest, and that’s if Rockstar goes back to RDR after GTA instead of doing something different. Maybe we’ll finally get Agent.
Death Rides A Patriot Exosuit
But it’s not just Rockstar’s fault. Science tells us there are exactly four cool characters in storytelling: Cowboys, Samurai, Pirates, and Knights. Maybe five if you stretch to Soldiers, but really Soldiers are just modern day Knights. Anyway, the point is, video games have not caught up with the science. Knights/Soldiers? Tons of video games. While we’re sharing very real research, I’d have to say upwards of forfty percent of video games released each year are Knight-Soldier titles.
Between fantasy epics and shooters, this archetype is well sated. And while there is occasionally some comparison over individual games that are clearly quite similar at a deeper, more structural level, nobody looks at Elden Ring (a Knight game) and considers it a rip off of Fable. There are so many that no single game owns the ideal. But other character types aren’t so lucky.
The Samurai is also a little stranded in video games, though admittedly a little less so than the Cowboy. The two are already quite similar – violence, individual paths, morality, heroism – as we see through Seven Samurai translating so well into The Magnificent Seven. For years, people were crying out for an Assassin’s Creed Samurai game, but when Ghost of Tsushima arrived, the feeling was that we’d now been there and done that, rather than relishing the prospect of a second title in the genre.
Speaking of Assassin’s Creed, it seems to have cornered the market on Pirates with Black Flag. Its own follow up came years too late (and importantly, was very bad) in Skull And Bones, while Sea of Thieves does a decent job of filling the void but as a live-service game doesn’t quite have the bite. As with Cowboys, we’ve seen some indie titles set sail with the Jolly Roger flying, but any triple-A game that attempted it would be compared to Black Flag – or, more accurately, our rose-tinted memories of Black Flag.
The gaming world needs more Pirates, more Samurai, and most importantly, more Cowboys. We’re missing out on so many stories as we stick religiously to the Knight-Soldier combo, and while those games can be great, it’s odd that we get dozens of them a year while two Cowboy titles a decade is seen as a little much. Make some Wild West games and hang ’em high for the whole world to see.
-
OpenCritic
-
Top Critic Rating:
96/100
- Released
-
October 26, 2018