Red Dead Redemption changed everyone’s perception of developer Rockstar Games. The Grand Theft Auto series shifted the world on its axis, but in 2010 Rockstar surprised everyone — going from metropolitan criminal syndicates to the Wild West with Red Dead Redemption. Once people got a taste of this cowboy tale, though, they were hooked, and a slew of Game of the Year awards soon followed.
And now you can play it anywhere you want because, for the first time ever, it’s coming to mobile via Netflix.
What’s Red Dead Redemption about?
You play as John Marston, a gunslinger caught between a rock and a hard place. His family’s been kidnapped by the Pinkertons and to get them back, he has to hunt down the remaining members of his old gang across an action-packed, melancholic, and beautiful vision of a lost, mythical America.
Red Dead Redemption takes place in 1911, across fictional versions of the American Southwest and Mexico, when an old world was dying and a new one was waiting to be born. You’ll see folks struggling to use newfangled technology like telephones, and transportation is still primarily horse-powered, although the coming automobile age is foreshadowed in the opening credits. This duality of lawlessness and civilization seeps into every pore of the narrative here. Where Grand Theft Auto veers into satire of modern American life, Red Dead Redemption sees the West as it was, through the eyes of a former outlaw.
What kind of game is Red Dead Redemption?
If you’ve ever wanted to step foot inside your favorite Western, this is one of the best ways to do it. Clear gang hideouts (like an abandoned mine), go hunting for animals, tame wild horses, play poker in a saloon, hunt bounties, engage in duels, and do so much more. If you’ve seen it in a movie, you can probably do it here. There are even unlockable outfits that hearken back to the golden age of Westerns.
The world itself is bigger, with more fauna and flora than anything else Rockstar had created up to that point. High plains (replete with drifters), canyons, buttes, rivers large and small, along with two states and another country await, and the frontier is full of ambient flora and fauna to collect and hunt. Hawks, vultures, and eagles in the sky, rabbits, bears, and cougars on the ground. Can you find the jackalope?
The biggest gameplay difference between Red Dead Redemption and its counterparts at the time: Dead Eye.
A revolutionary targeting system, Dead Eye gives you the power to slow down time and paint your targets for precision shots, then execute them in rapid fire. It’s a little like bullet time, and taking out a group of bandits with it never gets old.
With everything you can do, just don’t forget to slow down and take in a sunset or two — they’re still stunning.
What’s the soundtrack like for Red Dead Redemption?
Given the setting, Red Dead Redemption doesn’t rely on a pop-studded soundtrack made up of licensed music. Instead, this ambient score is rife with harmonica, timpani, horns, twangy reverb-soaked steel guitar, and strings — resulting in a pitch-perfect backdrop regardless of what’s happening on screen.
There are also a few stellar vocal tracks too. When you pass into Mexico the first time and José González’s “Far Away” starts playing, for example, you’ll be hard-pressed to name a more fitting song given everything that led to this point in the narrative.
Does Red Dead Redemption on Netflix include Undead Nightmare?
Yes, Red Dead Redemption on Netflix includes the standalone expansion pack Undead Nightmare. This zombie tale is a campy diversion if you’re looking to hold off rolling the credits in the main game, striking a different tone altogether. It’s more along the lines of your interactions with grave-robber Seth in the base narrative than, say, anything serious or truly scary.
Marston’s wife and son were bitten by a zombie one dark and stormy night, and it’s up to John to find the source of — and a cure for — the affliction driving an affinity for human flesh. There are more missions, a blunderbuss that uses zombie limbs as ammunition, and you can even find and ride the Four Horses of the Apocalypse.
Do I need to play Red Dead Revolver or Red Dead Redemption 2 before playing Red Dead Redemption on Netflix?
Red Dead Redemption stands on its own as a complete experience. That said, if you played the prequel Red Dead Redemption 2 but not the first, now’s the perfect time to see how this story ends.
When can I get Red Dead Redemption on Netflix?
You can pre-register Red Dead Redemption right now, right here, on your mobile device, and play free with no ads or in-app purchases via the Netflix app (when logged in with your subscription) when the game is released on Dec. 2.
Ready for more? Here are all the mobile games on Netflix right now.
