During this week’s 2018 GME Conference at the Indianapolis Convention Center, Rockstar Games showcased an extended gameplay demo of RDR2 that went on for more than twenty minutes to several GameStop employees.
The publisher only shared with the public a brief look at RDR2’s gameplay in a six-minute video from a few weeks ago. Quite a few GameStop employees talked about what they saw in this extended demo and their reactions were surprisingly mixed.
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Instagram user undermined_productions (who has since deleted the original post) was the only one to share visual proof of the demo and he teasingly added: “rest assured, it will be the greatest game ever made”.
On Reddit, though, several users were more negative. In particular, they complained about a boring demo that made it look more like a walking simulator than an action title.
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Dutrank
Extended gameplay of what’s already been shown. Almost put me to sleep.
Game looked great but what they chose to show for the first 20 minutes was very boring and not what you would want to show to the people who you want hyped about your game.
WDCombo
You might as well have put lullaby music into the trailer to accompany the narration. I also fell asleep a few times during that demo. I was hoping he would shoot his horse in the nuts at some point.
Screamingchickens
I kept looking at my watch… “the action is going to start…now? Please?”
Canicallyoukp
Rockstar Equestrian Simulator 2k19. Also, the guy talking about it was boring as fuck. It was very anticlimactic. “oh, we have a big surprise for you” red dead splash ::commence yawning::
I mean. Once shit started happening… ok… sure. Until then, though… not so much. Sure it was pretty, but more than half of the presentation did nothing for me.
jgrindberg
Beautiful game, but mostly just saw horse riding simulator. Very difficult to stay awake… Don’t get me wrong, I still think the game will be fantastic, just the demo was kinda boring to watch.
Teenage_Spy
I may have fallen asleep very briefly. While it looked gorgeous, it was just so slow and boring.
Expendables96
Same, falling asleep and my ass was hurting from all the sitting.
Caffeineisbad
Half my district was sleeping through it.
It seems like whoever was demonstrating the game live didn’t run much, which made things worse.
ChronoNova
The dude playing couldn’t find the sprint button. Super slow.
Quigonsin
There was some action, but he didn’t run at all. I fell asleep during it
At the same time, we also found other comments of viewers that were nothing short of impressed even by this demo.
preorderpolice
Yeah second for improved chairs for main programming next year. I hated general sessions just because of my ass hurting for sitting in those seats for an extended period of time.
I thought RDR2 looked great. Definitely GOTY contender and I’m not going to judge by one mission. Anyone who enjoyed the first one is probably love this new one.
Black_Static
This is a vocal minority. The murmurs and talk of how amazing it looks far outweigh the few people here voicing negative opinions. They showed off the graphics and an early robbery. The game looks gorgeous and the physics were amazing. This is easily going to compete with god of war, and I also see Spider-Man making the lists as well.
1001mistakes
To give a little context, everyone was exhausted from the week and it’s the last thing they showed us. I nodded for a minute but the game is beautiful. The world looks so meticulously constructed and the demo was a flawless example of the mechanics, world, and physics the game has to offer. I didn’t play the first one and had zero excitement for the game going into it but came out stoked on getting it.
The last comment might partially explain some of the negativity mentioned above. The RDR2 demo was the last one at the end of a long day, it seems, and fatigue could have certainly led to a few folks going straight to sleep on their chairs.
The comments on Reddit also delved a bit into the nitty-gritty of the RDR2 demo, giving us some insight on what was going on in the mission.
WDCombo
There was a shoot out after a bank heist but before the heist we saw 15 minutes of meandering through some woods and some plucky guitar playing.
After the heist your gang is on the run and some men on horseback will confront you as you ride down trails to escape. Shootout looked decent, the bank heist was slowly paced. The game will be great and sell like mad but the demo they showed was really dry.
MadManInABox1963
No, but the guy was trying to be honorable, so he held the NPC’s at gunpoint as a threat instead of just shooting them. Multiple options to customize your bank robbing approach broke up the gameplay as well. Think about the heist planning in GTA but it happens in between action scenes.
It looks like, I’m sure there’s still some sort of aim assist and they do have the deadeye mode, think like V.A.T.S in fallout. Yes, in dialogue it will pause for a second while you make your choice.
Ultimately, these comments can hardly be taken as a proper assessment of the game as a whole given the extremely brief demo. As usual with most Rockstar Games, Red Dead Redemption 2 should provide dozens of hours of enjoyment at the very least, and that’s just in the single player mode.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Rockstar ever publicly shares the RDR2 demo they brought at GameStop’s event, though. With the release date now fixed on October 26th, we’re bound to get a lot more gameplay footage and details at some point in September; stay tuned on Wccftech until then.
