#the first red dead game also has horses :) tht you can tame/buy/etc and ride and feed and stuff but its no where NEAR as in-depth as RDR2

[yj-98]

okay not story related but. how do the horses work

THANK YOU CROW ‼️ for asking <3 hehe i love talking game mechanics and like. details in general dw

so! horses are an important part of this game. to quote my best friend and the biggest horse + horsegame fan i know (gabe @porthavens):

it's not a true "horse sim", in that taking care of horses isnt a major gameplay mechanic with significant impacts. but there are MANY different kinds of horses with different stat levels, and you can tame wild horses OR buy horses from stables, and you can pet+feed+clean your horse, and you can form a bond with your horse by earning their trust. IMPORTANT Is that you can also name them and style their mane/tail differently.

now forgive me as i go into more detail because im allergic to simple answers:

what he said honestly got the basics i think. you feed your horse food or give it medicine to heal it/help it replenish energy, brush it to keep it clean, you have the choice of bringing hay to them at camp, you can use them to hunt or as transportation. etc. in general theyre really useful!! theyre well implemented in the game and thats important imo considering the time period its set in + who the main characters are.

(and thats not even touching how theres like. honestly so much detail put into each breed having a distinct body type + the coat colors and tail dynamics like theyre honestly just so well animated. and horses are notoriously difficult to animate. but they feel real, down to how their coats ripple)

i feel like RDR2 especially handles the horse as not only a mechanic or a vehicle for the player but also like... as a way of furthering characterization + humanizing the characters.

each of the main characters in the gang have their own horse that stays with them, or doesnt, throughout the game. its apart of their personality + identity. something important to know is that in the genre of westerns theres a visual motif with white hats, black hats, and similarly with black horses + white horses. it usually is as cut and dry as "bad buy wears black + has black horse, good guy has white hat and horse" and we dont have time to unpack that but it DOES mean that when we are introduced to certain characters its important to look at whats close to their identity and see

dutch van der linde, the leader, + father figure to the main characters, as long as an antagonist, has a black hat, but the most unique white horse. on the contrast, micah bell, the true antagonist of rdr2, has a black horse and white hat.

^ horse and hat spiel aside its about how each character is talked about in relation to their horse. dutch's horse, the count, looks more like an aristocrats pet. baylock, micah's horse, looks starved and bleeding later on in the game. john and arthur can talk to their horses and hum on horseback and call them petnames. each horse has a personality that informs the characters story yk.

lastly its like...... you do grow attached to your horses that You get. i had a grullo dun mustang named merlin (yk. arthur and merlin. arthur gets compared to the legend by jack his nephew) and i adored her. i also watched her die as arthur thanked her. its like. its about how the horses are more than a game mechanic but also more than just a narrative device. perfect blend