With all the attention that Red Dead Redemption 2, the saga of the friends and enemies of John Marston has been hitting the ground running. Many people have even gone back to the original Redemption to see how the saga began. Some of these very people might be surprised to learn that this is not the first game. Long before John Marston, there was a bounty hunter named Red who lived in the very same Wild West. The first game of the series was developed by Rockstar in 2004, but it was called Red Dead Revolver.
Red Harlow makes his living tracking criminals and collecting the reward money, dead or alive. After taking on a particularly vicious gang, Red learns that the gold he should be paid has not arrived. This begins a chain of events that concerns a woman who is in danger of losing her land, a governor who used to be a Mexican general and mountain called Bear Mountain that holds a huge supply of gold. It is this mountain that interests Red the most. His mother and father were killed having a stake in that mountain. The person who killed them was under orders from a Mexican general.
Revolver has so many similarities to Redemption that it can almost be seen as a first draft or pre-production the of the same story. Red runs into criminals who abide by a moral code and fights those on the side of the law who are more corrupt then the men and women they pursue. This is not an open world game, but a third person shooter with a story that takes twists and turns. Red also is might handy with a gun, his quick draw ability might rival even John Marston.
If there is a main difference, it is in the motivation of the characters. Martson is forced back into holding a gun, the safety of his family the main reason he goes after the members of his old gang. Arthur Morgan in Redemption 2 is equally forced to stay with the man who has been the only family he has ever known, even as that man becomes more and more unstable. Red is not forced to do anything. He looks for the men responsible and hunts them down with a cold and calculating manner. This is a man who was forged at a very young age to hold and use a gun. No one tells him what to do, and those who stand in his way will be cut down.
While the concept of the Wild West dead or dying was at the forefront of Redemption, Revolver has a West that is bursting with life. It can also boast of having the happiest ending of the three games. While Redemption has received all of the praise, and rightfully so, it was this game that started Rockstar on the path. The story of Marston and his gang is very interesting, I sometimes wonder what became of the bounty hunter with the scorpion printed on his gun.
