If you don't wanna get spoiled leave now. Heavy spoilers will follow.
I have a problem with RDR2, more specifically how the story played out. I feel betrayed and struggle with playing it after beating the game.
Picture this:
You are Arthur Morgan. A cowboy. You hang with the Dutch Van Der Linde gang. You meet lots of lovely people: Charles, Micah, Bill, Abigail and Dutch himself of course, and many more (I'm bad at names apparently). Throughout out the 40+ hour game, you develop feelings for these characters. You like them all, you don't want anything bad to happen to any of them. You go talk to the people in the camp sometimes to hear what they've been up to and how worried they are about what's going on and what's gonna happen.
Throughout this story you go on memorable trips and missions:
The story missions of RDR2 are quite fantastic and very memorable for the most part (there are a ton of missions where you just need to shoot everything but whatever, they're ok).
On the side of this Arthur helps out a old love of his, which develops his character even further.
Now here's the problem: Arthur dies. That is how the main story of the game ends. The guy you just spent playing 40 hours with dies. He's gone.
Now starts a epilogue where you play as John Marston, a guy that Arthur helped "get out" of the cowboy business. John Marston is the guy you play as in RDR1 by the way, in case you're wondering. RDR2 is a prequel to RDR1.
Initially, John and his wife (Abigail) and son (Jack) relocate to a farm out in the middle of nowhere, where you do farm stuff, like milking cows and shoveling cow crap. Eventually, trouble finds it's way back and John more or less becomes a cowboy again. Although a bit lighter one. However, Abigail is tired of John "not growing up" and leaves him and takes Jack with her.
John really loves Abigail so he gets a farm that Abigail had mentioned was for sale earlier. John takes loans to get the farm and he builds a house and barn and everything and eventually Abigail and Jack comes back. They're really happy together and get engaged and take nice photos together. It's quite a lovely story.
Eventually John kills the big traitor from the main story and the credits roll.
Fine, it's a very epic game and story that is very long. But very memorable and fun.
So what's my problem?
I hated John during the story. I hated his scratchy voice. I dunno why but I just really disliked him, and now Arthur is gone and I'm forced to play as John, unless I make a new game and start over.
Now, I never played RDR1 so I went and read a plot summary of it and as I understand it, something very similar happens there: John dies, and you play as his son Jack. And as Jack, you hunt down John's killer. Very, very similar. Had I known this happened in RDR1 I would probably be less surprised when this happened in RDR2. But alas, I didn't. I guess it's the RDR formula: the main guy dies and you're left with a replacement.
But even if I somehow start enjoying playing as John, that's not the entire problem: I still miss the camp and the rest of the gang too. I miss going around in camp and donating funds and seeing what everyone was up to. I liked eating the daily stew that was cooked. But, all that's gone.
So I'm kind of sad that I can't continue free roaming (and maybe getting 100% completion) the way I liked it. It feels like the game got worse after I beat it. Much worse. The comfyness of Arthur and the camp is gone.
Sure, I could start a new game but I know that eventually I'm gonna have to get Arthur killed and play as the character I dislike again.
I'm considering playing RDR1 instead. Maybe by playing that I can like John better during the earlier parts of RDR2, so that eventually I don't mind playing him in the end game.
But yeah. I'm just sad that the character I invested a lot of time into died.
I think this is one of the first games, movies or tv shows I've consumed where the good guy didn't win. Breaking Bad was similar, my favorite guy died and one of my least favorite guys drove off.
RIP Arthur. I made a lot of memories with you throughout this game.