Consider this. If you did live back then, if you managed to survive childhood and weren’t a member of a demographic that faced substantial discrimination by the society of the time, there are still substantial and significant limitations to what you can actually do and where you can go.

Travel could be deadly, especially travel over any substantial distance. If your horse is injured or dies in the wrong place or is stolen, you could end up stranded far from civilization with no way of returning. There’s no making a phone call or radioing for help. What you brought and who you traveled with are all you have. Communication outside of those who you interact with face to face or manage to get a letter to is non-existent. Unless you leave a forwarding address in a settlement with mail or even a telegraph service, there’s no way for anyone you actually told you were leaving to have any idea where you went. Given how long the mail can take and the very real possibility of mail simply being lost, there’s no real way for anyone to know you’re missing on a timeline where they might be able to help. It might take years for anyone to even realize you’re missing. If you manage to put up a smoke signal or something and someone actually sees it, you’d be left to hope it’s the right person, who will find you and help rather than stealing whatever you have left or simply ignoring you for their own safety.

Considering how much emotion and thought you’ve invested in RDR, I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that you’re probably a fan of fictional entertainment in general and interactive stories specifically. It should go without saying that your access to these things would not be remotely what they are now. You would be lucky to be literate and to have access to fiction at all, let alone a constant stream of new reading material. You certainly wouldn’t have access to anything like a video game.

Meanwhile, you currently are able to experience an idealized and risk-free version of that era in exactly the game this post is about. You can even join roleplay servers and interact directly with other people who want to immerse themselves in that world. If you’re really into it, there are all sorts of groups for people who are interested in recreating societies from this era. You could go find a week-long event where you can bring period-appropriate gear and dress and pretend to be in the 1800s with a bunch of other people in the woods. If it’s the city that’s bothering you, you can literally move to a town, right now, that’s in the middle of the woods and just live there all the time.

Both going to an anachronistic real world roleplay event and moving into the woods are trivially easy in comparison to the time period you’re talking about. You don’t even have to lose contact with the people you know to do so, and if you decide it isn’t working you can literally just move back.

Everything you talk about wanting here is attainable with less effort and less risk in the modern era. If you think you’re hesitant to leave what you’ve already established behind now, you almost certainly would have been even more hesitant to do so in a time where there was no safety net and potentially no way back. At least today your can talk to others who’ve done the same, and you can even dip your toes in a bit before you dive in.

Period games and period movies feel romantic because you don’t see the whole thing. You don’t die of an infection playing a video game. You don’t have to feel the exhaustion of being malnourished and trudging miles through the snow while your toes literally freeze off.

I would urge you to take a long hike. Walk a few miles through the wilderness and see how it feels. Go camping for a few days. Find a wilderness rendezvous or go to a Rainbow gathering and bring a canvas tent. If it scratches the itch, maybe push it a bit. Go further, bring less modern technology. Keep an emergency radio in the bottom of your backpack and forget about it until you need it. There’s nothing stopping you from getting a taste of what you want right now, and the barriers to doing so are infinitely smaller than if you lived in the same place 100 some odd years ago.

Have you ever been outside in -40 weather? Or spent a night in it? Or spent a day in 40c weather without ac? I’m only curious cause of your stance. Both suck ass, been at both (thankfully we had cabins available at the -40 weather when the fire went out).

Mean it sounds quant but you can try the actual stuff beforehand, spend a week in the bush with minimal goods, I haven’t and wouldn’t want to. I still treked through them for a month due to a school I was in, that’s the summer side though not hot just usual summer temps.

Not trying to harsh ya or anything it’s just until you’ve been through a month of camping (okay we did have food brought in) or very cold weather for a few nights outdoors it’s hard to be serious about wanting that.

Mean if you want to die hunting? Have at it. I’m just saying you need some build up before you get to what you’d prefer and survive well.

And to those that do it? They have my respect I’ve been in the wild even with food drops, and it can suck for anyone used to modern world. Also I’m in my late 40s my experience was early 90s when gortex was awesome to have as an outer wear and few of us had it.

Also the first game was one of the few games I’ve finished in my life (yes I suck at games plus adhd) and quite enjoyed the second but never finished it. Stuck on a mission where everything is aggro or something it just stopped being fun

I do see your view though for sure and can appreciate it.

there’s so much respect between people

Unless they were black, of course

Please stay far far away from any suspected cults.

I understand that it can feel that way, but remember that video games are romanticized interpretations that make things way easier than they are in real life. Life back then wasn’t RDR2 and there’s no guarantee that you’d find the community you’re imagining, and a much higher chance you’d have to deal with the harsh realities of those times

“Everything is so simple, there’s so much respect between people, they live camping with a simple life, everybody trying to help to survive as they can, singing at the end of nights, having profound and philosophical talking. It’s such a more human focused life.”

Have we played the same game? They are murderers, drunkards and thieves who constantly backstab each other.

I live in my grandparents’ old house. To access my kitchen and bathroom I must leave my house. This winter the lowest temperature was -15°C. Last summer the highest was 42°C. On the one hand the simple need to put on three layers of clothes to go piss is rough on your morale. On the other hand… imagine waking up to take a leak and being FORCED to see a starry sky or being FORCED to walk through the thick snow in your yard. You are simply not allowed to not enjoy it, which is pretty great, cause I am quite a depressed dude, capable of staying indoors for days at a time

I went hiking two days ago, got attacked by herding dogs. If it weren’t for the modern technology I used to defend myself, I would have been in hospital now. This happened 10 minutes away from my house. 20-30 years out in the wild is pretty optimistic, ngl lol

Also, my father (60s) and grandfather had to chop all their wood by hand back in the day cause they didn’t have a chainsaw. I had one and it was still some real hard work heating the house this winter. It gets tedious real quick

But yea, the benefits are fucking awesome. That dog attack, for instance? Right before that I was on top of a hill, listening to my favorite film score, feeling feelings to an intensity I rarely get to. Much like being “inside” RDR2 (or in my case Where the Crawdads Sing), so I absolutely get your point

You should absolutely at least go hiking with a group sometime. Nothing too crazy. Pick someplace with as few dangerous things as possible. It can be legitimately terrifying out there. It takes lots of preparation to make it so you can let your guard down, and even then it’s not a good idea. It’s kind of like being in a car: if you’re the one driving, you can’t enjoy the sights cause you gotta focus on the road. So yea, with a group is best, probably. On your own, you have no choice but stay alert at all times. I can’t for the life of me imagine getting a minute of sleep out there

Yes, this was the main theme of the game. To Arthur and the rest of their camp, they are the embodiment of the American dream: living off the land, doing whatever they want, working hard to succeed, living a simple life. They see “civilization” and the justice system that comes with it as a false promise, taking freedoms away to somehow guarantee more freedom. And they see the industrial revolution as creating the largest gangs of them all, but calling them “corporations”. So big that they can pay pinkertons to bully workers, while also paying the law to look the other way.

RDR2 really is a work of art. It’s not 100% historically accurate, it’s “the lie that makes us see the truth”.

ok now imagine Arthur is black or native or a woman, and re-evaluate these thoughts from that perspective

Sounds like you need a camping trip with some friends!

I feel like I decapitated a lot more people with my shotgun than you did. Also, don’t forget about the tuberculosis and saw amputations. :/

I should also add though, the depictions of nature in the game are absolutely incredible. One of the most immersive and nostalgic aspects of the game that R* really nailed is riding, camping, hunting, and discovering the wide open spaces. They really took a risk at making a slower paced work of art that grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go, and it really paid off.

I hope you play it all the way to the end! Enjoy!

When I started playing rdr2 I thought I’d mostly be focused on the mission like most games but what ended up happening is that I mostly just roamed around the beautiful mountains and plains and forests, camping and fishing because such simple beauty is completely absent in my life, all I have for nature is some manicured gardens and artificial lakes, there’s no personal freedom of movement, no going for a walk in places unknown, no privacy to just relax without worry, I grew up in the 90s pre internet and social media and cell phones, even though I grew up in a city, life still felt enjoyable and more social in so many ways, now I live isolated and disconnected and discontent with what has become of society, if I could I’d choose to live in the world of rdr2 as well

I get it. It’s not that everything was better back then, it’s that the things that were better, were way better.

It’s a feeling of profound loss at what could have been if capitalism didn’t win.

Great post. I’m in the second play of it. Take your time. Enjoy all the ambience. In real life, all we have is now. In games, we can lose ourselves and that is enchanting.