Its world feels fully realized, as if players could live in it and put down virtual roots. Unlike with most current games, there’s no waiting for a scene to load you move without interruption from game play to movie-like cut scenes. The game is a mix of stunning artwork, smart writing, and crafty artificial intelligence that makes even non-playable characters on the side of the road seem sentient. RDR2 is set in 1899, at the end of the Wild West era, and features a character named Arthur Morgan, a square-jawed, mostly moral cowboy who begins to question the motives of the outlaw gang he belongs to. What I see convinces me that Rockstar may have once again pushed games forward as an art form. I’m here today to watch an hour’s worth of game footage. Even though RDR2 has been in development for seven years, there’s still much to be done. So there’s a feeling of excitement in the Rockstar offices in early June, five months before the launch of its next project: Red Dead Redemption 2, a prequel to 2010’s open-world Western game Red Dead Redemption, which sold over 15 million copies.
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( Avatar, the highest-grossing movie ever, earned only a measly $2.8 billion in theaters.) In April of this year, GTAV - made on a reported budget of $265 million - passed $6 billion in sales, making it the highest-grossing entertainment product in history. Rockstar’s last release, Grand Theft Auto V, the 2013 action game for which Dan was the lead writer, earned $1 billion in its first three days and has sold nearly 100 million copies. On the company’s website, they refer to themselves as “impressionable idiots on a mission to entertain.”īut the work sells itself. And in exchange for that, you give up your whole soul.” Rockstar hasn’t had a booth at E3, the nation’s biggest game convention - which Sam considers “a big sort of willy-waving exercise” - in over a decade.
With fame comes annoying obligations and, as Dan has observed by proximity to celebrities he’s worked with, “lots of girls who only want to speak to you or have sex with you because you’re famous. They hardly ever give interviews, and they’ve never taken a PR photo together. Dan and his brother, Sam, 47, who emigrated from London to New York to found Rockstar Games in the ’90s, prefer it that way. Along with the team he oversees, Dan Houser, 44, is in no small way responsible for a great portion of tens of billions of dollars in video-game sales, and unless you’re someone who pores over credits, you probably don’t know his name. Inside this highly secure enclave, one of the world’s most successful writers dwells. “You’re not supposed to be out here without someone watching you,” he says. Even in the bathroom, a placard jabs, “Lift the Seat Before You Leak: Offenders Will Be Sacrificed.” Outside it, a worker bee looks at me suspiciously and escorts me back to reception. Signs warn you not to post anything about your visit on social media. It’s quiet, save for a mix of Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” and the sounds of a video game cowboy riding a horse on a nearby TV.
After you’re buzzed inside, you’ll need to wear a laminated visitor’s pass to get beyond reception.
If you make it past the downstairs lobby and up the elevator, a thick metal door blocks your way. You can’t simply stroll into the Manhattan offices of Rockstar Games. Red Dead Redemption 2 will be available October 26.