The History Within Red Dead Redemption: Part One
Rockstar Games’ Red Dead video game series has captivated Western-genre fans like myself ever since Red Dead Redemption hit the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in 2010; for some, perhaps since the lesser-known Red Dead Revolver’s 2004 release on PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The series’ setting — the twilight years of the famous and near-mythological “Wild West” period (c. 1865–1912) of American history — is unique among open world games, as surprisingly few video game companies have dared to explore and recrate one of the most popular and riveting periods of American history and folklore, let alone the moment of its demise. Perhaps even more surprising is the lack of attention given to how such a widely-popular and best-selling series can serve not just as a virtual escape and dreamland for Western fans, but also as an incredibly useful educational tool for ardent history buffs and school-aged histoory students alike. In this article, I will briefly detail the merits of utilizing the Red Dead Redemption series as a wealth of meaningful educational experiences; I will explore the particulars in more in-depth follow-up articles in the future.
I am sure that it is nothing short of highly controversial to hold the view that video games can serve as priceless educational experiences to people of all ages; while many in my high-tech Millennial and Z Generations might agree with that idea, there is no shortage of parents, teachers, and academics alike who might argue that textbooks, public-school history classes, or seminars would always be preferable to learning through historical gaming. For those of you who are military history buffs, you will surely recall how the US military made use of Jim Dunnigan’s wargames to formulate winning strategies for the Gulf War and other major, real-world conflicts. For many of you, however, you might agree with the idea that games could be educational, but, with regard to an escapist Western open-world game like Red Dead Redemption 2, you may be wondering what knowledge you might accrue from the game apart from acquiring medical knowledge about lumbago.
Red Dead Redemption 2
While diehard gamers might prefer to discuss video game series by the order in which its individual games were released, I — as a history buff and amateur gamer in equal measure — will start this discussion with Red Dead Redemption 2, as it is set several years earlier than the first major title, Red Dead Redemption (I will not be discussing Red Dead Revolver, as I haven’t played it, and it wasn’t as well-known as the two Red Dead Redemption titles).
Red Dead Redemption 2 is variably set in 1898 (Red Dead Online), 1899 (Story Mode), and 1907 (Epilogue), the earliest years explored by the two main games. Red Dead Redemption 2’s vast open world covers 29 immaculately-detailed square miles of the American West, Midwest, and South, including several cattle towns, frontier homesteads and cabins, ranches, an Indian reservation, the Rockies, the Southwestern deserts, the Great Plains, Southern bayous, the coal mines of the Mississippi Valley, and even an ingame recreation of New Orleans.
Why does all of this matter to history? How can a 29-square-mile, fictionalized map — inhabited by fictional characters, unlimited numbers of nameless NPCs, and impacted by fictional events — serve as an educational tool? Let’s start with the fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in the United States at a certain point in time; its online mode, and the vast majority of its story, is set in the West, Midwest, and South from 1898 to 1899. That’s already an excellent start for historical gamers, as we can contextualize the game’s setting by applying our knowledge of real-world history. In addition, the game makes no pretense of being a fully fictional depiction of the West. Its map corresponds greatly to the real American West, Midwest, and South, its characters talk about major contemporary issues such as women’s suffrage and Chinese immigration, and the Redemption games even feature ingame newspapers which reference real-world events such as the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, and the Mexican Revolution!
References to real-world international affairs aside, Red Dead Redemption subtly retells the story of 1890s America in an innovative fashion: through an open world which allows for players to take in what the American West might have been like during that decade. For K-12 students, the three-and-a-half decades between Reconstruction’s end in 1877 and the start of World War I in 1914 are rarely explored in-depth in the classroom. This is already incredibly problematic for young minds who might wonder how the United States went from a nation wounded by civil war to a world-class power, but even worse for young history buffs who now have to take it upon themselves to study the minutiae of the Gilded Age, the Second Industrial Revolution, the Age of Imperialism, and, most likely for those reading this article, the “Old West”.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in the 1898–1899, two years after the 1896 presidential election, one of the most important presidential elections in American history. 1896 was the first election in which the Republican Party ran to the right of the Democratic Party as the party of fiscal conservatism, big business, the “Gold Standard”, and industrialism; likewise, it was the first time since before the demise of the aristocratic Whig Party that the Democrats ran on a center-left platform, advocating for the free coinage of silver to inflate the economy in the wake of a major economic crisis in 1893, for the prioritization of the needs of impoverished farmers, miners, and laborers over urban businesspeople, and (more prominently in 1900) against imperial expansion. The Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, in his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, claimed to speak of “a broader class of businessmen”, namely the working class; meanwhile, the Republican Party published political cartoons accusing Bryan of bringing about “socialism” and mob rule. America had reached a turning point in its history, and its choice of its next President would shape American history forever. How does this history lesson tie into Red Dead Redemption 2?
Red Dead Redemption 2 has both a magnificent setting and story, hence its 36 million sales as of 31 December 2020. While its setting explores the West, Midwest, and South, its story explores poignant themes such as the decline of the “Wild West”, America’s transition from a rural to urban society, the economic, moral, and human costs of modernization, and rugged individualism. These themes were just as prevalent in 1890s politics as they are in the video game, and the real-world politics of the time manifest themselves in the game in both the most subtle and most obvious ways.
For instance, the game depicts a continually-evolving West in which the Central Union Railroad in the game’s version of Arkansas transforms from a simple campsite in 1899 to a finished railroad by 1907; the Wapiti Indian Reservation is populated by Native Americans in 1899 and deserted by 1907; several gangs roam the West in 1899, but, by 1907, the majority of the outlaw gangs have been brought to justice; and the outlaw protagonist’s gang leader, Dutch van der Linde, repeatedly rails against the effects of modernization, such as corporate greed, the commission of atrocities against Native Americans, and the gradual erosion of a “free” society; at one point, the protagonist and his gang are even shipwrecked on an island off Cuba where they are caught up in a peasants’ revolt against the pro-US military regime and plantocracy ruling the island. These themes were deeply political during the 1890s, with the post-1896 Republican Party supporting and the Democrats opposing governmental support for railroads, corporate subsidies, “rugged individualism” (living without government support), high protective tariffs (prioritizing American-made products to benefit American corporations, but also driving up prices for average consumers), industrialization, the forced relocation and assimilation of Native Americans, and imperialism in the Pacific and the Caribbean. During my own gameplay experience, I even heard two white Southerner NPCs in the fictional Louisiana town of Rhodes casually discussing the threat of Chinese immigration to American jobs (an issue “solved” by the Chinese Exclusion Act).
The fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 can recreate the complex political issues and realities of the 1890s in a massive open world spanning around eleven US states (others might claim that the 29-square-mile map incorporates even greater numbers of US states) is a history buff’s greatest dream. For someone like myself, whose love for history is sustained and encouraged by its popular culture depictions, this game is an excellent way to explore 1890s America in a unique, immersive way. The game is not a perfect depiction of America during that time, just as the ingame map is not a perfect depictor of the US states it seems to imitate; indeed, both the physical and the historical setting are slightly altered to fit the story and the gameplay. However, this game allows for gamers and history buffs alike to acquire a new appreciation for 1890s American issues such as modernization, the US government’s wars with the Native Americans, the rise of the corporate “robber barons”, the clash of rural America with urbanization, and the transition of the American West from a promising land of opportunity (and, perhaps, a “lawless frontier”) to a “civilized” agricultural region with few traces of its lawless past. In motivating the average gamer (especially school-aged gamers) to develop an interest in late 19th-century American history through its recurrent historical, political, and social themes, Red Dead Redemption 2 provides a wealth of unique educational experiences which gamers, parents, teachers, and professors alike should recognize and celebrate.
I have been a huge fan of the Red Dead Redemption series since I was in middle school, and I plan to write more thoughtpieces about its wealth of potential educational experiences in the future. Specifically, I intend to examine how Red Dead Redemption 2 relates to important and pressing topics such as politics, women’s rights, racism, gun rights, immigration, and other hot topics of the 1890s and the 21st century alike. As always, thank you for reading, and I invite you to stay tuned for the next post!
