Even though Red Dead Revolver is the first entry in the Red Dead series, it is the game most fans have skipped over. As the earliest Red Dead game, Revolver has the most dated gameplay, and since Red Dead Redemption is only a spiritual successor and not a direct sequel, it's not essential to play to understand the story in either Redemption game. However, Revolver is important in that it establishes the themes and character archetypes that will be explored in Redemption. Examining the ways in which Redemption builds on Revolver and how elements of both games contributed to major trends in gaming reveals where the Red Dead series may go next.

Red Dead Revolver was originally released in 2004 to mixed reviews, and the game had been canceled and then later revived by Rockstar before this. Had the game never been released, one of Rockstar's strongest franchises wouldn't exist. While it was 2010's Red Dead Redemption that truly solidified the series as one of Rockstar's biggest, Revolver is Rockstar's first foray into a genre and style of game that would prove to be hugely successful. Not only is the Red Dead franchise part of a long history of Western-inspired games, but it also contributes to the growing trends of large, open-world games set in nature and morality systems in gaming.

Red Dead Dads

red dead jack

Fatherhood is a huge theme in all Red Dead games, and Red Dead Revolver sets the tone for how this topic will be explored in the future. In Revolver, protagonist Red Harlow seeks revenge for his parents' murder, equipped with his father Nate's revolver. Not only is this where the series gets its name, but Red's quest to avenge a parent becomes a repeated motif throughout the series. More broadly, Revolver was released just before the noticeable trend of father figures in gaming picked up steam (as seen in BioShock, Heavy Rain, The Last of Us, God of War, etc.). Now referred to as the "daddening" of video games, Revolver presented an easily adaptable formula for exploring this topic.

While Red Dead Revolver has Red avenging his father in the lawless Old West, Redemption simply switched the motivation to a father, John, trying to rescue and protect his child (while having some major issues with his own father figure, Dutch). Although fatherhood has long been a central theme in Westerns, Revolver set the stage for a game specifically exploring fatherhood in the Old West. As more and more father figures appeared as protagonists of popular games, Revolver's formula of fatherhood being routed in vengeance, legacy, and lawlessness was utilized to make Redemption as successful as it was. Red Dead Redemption 2 continues many of these themes, as Dutch acts as a father figure to Arthur and John, while Jack is again presented as the child that a father must protect.

Natural World

red dead redemption 2 mountain and horse scene

Red Dead Revolver was not an open-world game, but it did establish a setting that would work perfectly as an open-world in Red Dead Redemption. Since the Old West is full of evocative imagery centered around natural landscapes, Revolver established a world that was not only fun to explore, but also fit with the growing trend of open-world games set in the natural world such as Death Stranding , Fallout, and Assassin's Creed. All of these games have established societies and infrastructure, but the player can easily leave these areas to explore a world untouched by mankind.

Red Dead Revolver also explores questions of good and evil and establishes morally gray characters. This gray morality is then quantified in the Honor System for later games. Red Dead Redemption was then able to take the themes and gameplay Revolver had established and pull from popular trends to make Red Dead into one of Rockstar's most popular properties. The change of characters didn't really matter in the spiritual successor, as they mainly serve as explorations of the same topics: the relationship between father and son and an exploration of morality. This leaves future Red Dead games open to explore different stories with new characters, though the themes established in Revolver will surely persist.

Red Dead Revolver was released in 2004 for PS2 and Xbox.

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