Bruce is so right too.

I Platinumed Red Dead 2 ok, but so many times in some missions, I would move ahead of the other character and FAIL. Like, for example, killing people easily (the game is NOT hard at all in any sense of the word) and moving too far ahead, and because I didn't read a little message saying "wait for Charles"... the mission FAILED me.

Using my Eagle Vision and seeing the trail of the bandit, but having to wait for Sadie to get through her lines before I could move. At times the game absolutely forces you to stop. At other times you drive a carriage to the house you're supposed to go to, but nothing happens because you need to get back on and move it one meter into more of the 'yellow section'.

what salmonade says is true - and it was very frustrating.

But it's a sandbox and Rockstar's supposed to be the kings of the sandbox. It's entirely possible to make their missions have some flexibility in allowing you to finish them in your own way, you know, how Rockstar used to make their games.

I don’t think this was a diss of Rockstar or even the game, he is pointing out something that he feels underwhelms or is ineffective because player choice/creativity in his opinion are too high a price to pay just so a cutscene can make sense. He is saying player choice should be given priority and the story has to be implemented so it doesn’t take that away.

Yes you can get mad when the game breaks its own inconsistent rules re. honor, looting, loadouts while harping about realism. In real life, if I hop on my bike with my phone in my pocket, it doesn’t bloody disappear when I get off the bike.

I’ve had missions launch me with only my pistols when seconds earlier I was carrying a bloody Arsenal. My horse is two feet away. It’s right there. Let me go get my BFG. Let me line up my shots. What’s that Sadie? No no no don’t shoot my targets for me I got this wtf I was just choosing my gun!!!! No ones moving! Why you rushing me Sadie? I got this I’m aiming I’m gonna shoot I want my gold medal...argh she shot one of them! Moron! THAT HAPPENED

You could still tackle encounters how you liked in The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 though, the two games he worked as a game director for. And they don't hamstring the experience by making you sit and wait for dialogue to end with a game over screen as the consequence for not staying to chat.

TLOU and UC aren't designed around player freedom to do anything they want. There is choice within the confines of the actual levels or scenes, but beyond that, they aren't sold on the premise, or designed for the player to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want.

RDR2 is set up like that, but often sets up scenarios where there is no choice. In many ways, it's more restrictive, because once you enter a mission, its about as linear as it gets. About the only choice you have is the weapons you can use, and for about 1/4 of the missions, that isn't even a choice. You are forced to follow the narrative, and play the scene the way they want it to be played for cinematic effect. This can lead to all sorts of issues depending on how you're approaching the scene. If you're just playing through, no biggie. If you are trying to try things to see what happens, it's pretty much a failed mission. If you don't follow the path, you are penalized, which is why this game only offers the illusion of choice.

Elaborate why he's wrong?

Look. If you take the butthurt out of the situation and look at what he's saying... he ABSOLUTELY is correct about this. There are soooo many examples of this in so many ways in so many missions. Look, I love Red Dead 2 and I platinumed the game friggin weeks ago, grindy boring trophies and all, and I would rate the game a 9 or 9.5, but his criticisms are SPOT ON

Yes he is

He is talking about an open mission design being reduced down to a singular path because the story required it. He isn't saying players should be able to dictate the story a la Quantic Dreams type games.

I understand the need to do things that make sense in Arthurs perspective for immersion, but they go too hard on it many times. They did the same thing in GTA5 and I assume their game design philosophy changed because their new design contradicts everything outside the story missions. Like you can do whatever you want outside of story missions, but as soon as you activate one you'll be pushed down a specific path.

@razzer: the story missions aren't free roam, so why should people expect them to be?

Yeah, I’m aware he left Naughty Dog. But on his Twitter I think I read something about him doing something new or he hinted at something new.

1. I am not American, so I wouldn't care

2. I was talking only in terms of the gaming industry

They made a structured narrative that takes place in an open world which gives you full freedom outside of the structured narrative.

Like most open world games this generation going over to random parts of the map when you need to achieve XYZ will kill you as it doesn't help drive the story.

We had full freedom in vice city where if you struggled with a mission there was nothing stopping you from driving to a army base and stealing an attack chopper for example gaming has moved on from that because it doesn't work story wise anymore.

That happened to me on a different mission and the fail text literally read "The cart got stuck." I was literally in the process of getting the damn thing unstuck.

And to add to the frustration of going through all the dialogue (again) it pulls you out of the immersion it wants you to experience. How can I be immersed if you keep pulling me out of the story? I always felt under pressure for all the wrong reasons in these missions, and it really hurt the experience for me.

Don't drive that cart too fast (we want you to drive it slow so you take in the sights and pay attention to dialogue) or it may get stuck on fencing. It was a tooth gritting, fist clenching experience to say the least.

Yes. Dear lord yes the looting. Whoever disagreed with you, fight me!

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been yelled at to hurry up. Well then don’t make your search mechanic so #%^* slow!!!!! Don’t pile up a dozen bodies that I damned well know have loot on them, money, ammo, sometimes exclusive weapons like the Mauser. Take “too long”...game decides to play itself and 9 times out of 10 some idiot walks into something he shouldn’t and DIES. INSTA FAIL!

The gold medal challenges are terrible and more on rails than on rails games like RE umbrella chronicles/dark side chronicles. Combine that chain gang gameplay (which I’ve mercifully chosen to ignore) with horrible AI partners getting killed moving ahead without me, losing honor for looting civilian dead bodies you find in the wilderness that also have exclusive items on them, having your load outs reset or frozen on missions, randomly losing honor if you defend yourself in a fight (I fought soldiers at a camp, was attacked, killed like 5 of them but one guy made me lose honor lol wtf). Throw in some online griefing handicaps. It’s a structural mess.

I’m on a mission, carrying a guy outside after being yelled at for searching it (I found documents + the Mauser so stop RUSHING ME)! Night time, big shoot out. Can’t see squat cuz it’s dark and I’m carrying a lump. Trip going down the stairs cuz the game loves rag doll physics. Fell a half foot to the ground and the guy I was carrying apparently died! Insta fail. GTFO

Yeah, the looting of this game is terrible. Outside the animations which seem to take forever, and its even more pronounced where you have a lot of bodies, it's so random on if it's right to loot a specific body. Sometimes, it's OK to loot random bodies....like in missions. Loot a random body on the road, even if you didn't kill him, and you lose honor. Other times, you lose honor, and suddenly you're wanted by the law, then you have to pay a bounty. That really sucks when you maybe get a belt buckle and a few cents off the body. Then you have to either go and pay the bounty, or just hope it doesn't cause problems. God forbid you have great honor, always greeting people. People are all nice to you. Then you happen to lose some honor somewhere because you loot a bottle, then suddenly everyone is an a**hole to you.

This game is so random, it makes me wonder if they even really had a solid design on what is acceptable, and what isn't.

But I certainly agree that the way they rush you through missions to the next point, despite having all these bodies around, which usually have good loot, or lots of money in missions from chapter 3 onward, is really annoying. The one that starts chapter 4, I got so sick of the guy nagging me while I looted the 12-15 bodies around the house. Then of course, once it's all done, I have to carry the bodies in the house out to the swamp, because the a**hole pestering me the whole time to move to the next scripted event couldn't be bothered to loot all these bodies, despite this constant notion that the gang needs money to finally be free of their past.

So many bad design decisions. So many things that don't make sense. Those things take away from the good things the game does.

I guarantee that if they gave the option to have quick loot/skinning options, 100% of people would turn them to quick loot. That's the kind of thing when designing a game you have to consider. It's all great they want realism, but when their choices on what to make realistic are the things that are the most annoying to the player, it's bad design.

Back in the day, the creator of Gran Turismo was asked why crashing in the game didn't end the race, or make the car undrivable. He said, "Because we tried that, and its not fun". This is something R* should have recognized when designing the game, or at least playing it themselves during the many years of development. Surely, their testing crew would have mentioned it, because testing teams are allowed to put in opinions on how to make the game better, so the director can consider it.

GTA IV’s realism is what made it so much more fun for me. I loved experimenting with the physics.

I bought RDR2 also. Put 100+ hours into it and beat it our of respect for Rockstar and all the people saying it was the greatest game ever. RDR blew my mind but might also have been the best time in gaming for me personally. l loved that PS3 gen so much.

I am excited to see what GTA6 is like.