Red Dead Redemption 2

People buy RDR2 for the story, and it is worth it. Arthur Morgan, the right hand of Dutch van der Linde, lives in 1899, when the cowboy era is already dying under the pressure of the state and industrialization. The main emotional arc is the slow collapse of the gang and Arthur's personal tragedy; the ending is considered one of the strongest in the history of games.

An outlaw's life is not a metaphor. You feed the gang camp, hunt (with real carcass-skinning mechanics and pelts for crafting), rob stagecoaches and banks, and ride across five states, from the snowy Grizzlies mountains to the swamps of Lemoyne and the streets of Saint Denis. The horse is a companion with its own bond level, not just transport.

The Honor system changes NPC reactions, available scenes and the branches of the ending depending on your moral choices. Between story missions there are dozens of random encounters: help a traveler, run into bandits, have a drink at a bar and start a fight.

The numbers speak for themselves: 85M+ copies, the 3rd best-selling game of all time (it passed Wii Sports), 92% Very Positive on Steam (~880,000 reviews). In February 2025, almost 100,000 people played at the same time. In the last fiscal year, Rockstar sold more RDR2 than in any previous 12 months.

The game includes the Red Dead Online multiplayer, with roles such as bounty hunter, trader and collector. To be honest, though, Rockstar froze major RDO updates back in 2022 (the last big one was Blood Money, July 2021). The servers are up, but the content is frozen. Buy RDR2 for the single-player campaign, and treat RDO as a pleasant but frozen bonus.

Activation through a Steam key requires the Rockstar Games Launcher. It installs automatically, and you need a free Rockstar account (Social Club) and an internet connection only for the first activation; after that, single-player works offline. Localization: Russian interface and subtitles, English-only voice-over. The install size is ~150 GB (an SSD is recommended); Steam Deck status is Playable with low to medium settings.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is Rockstar's largest single-player campaign: you play as Arthur Morgan, the right hand of the Van der Linde gang at the end of the Wild West era. Hunting, robberies, the gang camp, the honor system and the slow fading of an entire era. 85M+ copies sold, making it the 3rd best-selling game in history. Russian interface and subtitles, English voice-over.