Red Dead Redemption 2 is a fabulous, epic, sprawling game. The only issue is that it’s so damn big, seeing everything it has to offer is bound to get in the way of other things.
You know, like eating, sleeping, or seeing loved ones.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are thousands of relationships currently struggling through what I will be referring to as Red Dead Redemption 2 syndrome, wherein partners who might not be into video games have to watch their other halves lose themselves in Rockstar’s digital Western.
YouTube channel Shelby & Daphne has posted one such account, and it’s absolutely fantastic. In it, we hear a girflriend’s review of RDR2. Not a review of the game, mind, but of the experience of watching her boyfriend play through it for the first time.
Her video, which you can watch below, really is brilliant. She discusses the sights and sounds of Red Dead Redemption 2, but from the perspective of someone who doesn’t necessarily give a horses bollocks about any of it.
According to the reviewer, her boyfriend has done nothing but play RDR2 “all day, every day” for around three weeks, and his obsession has grown to the point where he once climbed into bed with her, tipped his imaginary hat, and said “y’alright gurl?’
While she’s more than happy to admit that the game looks fantastic, she also wonders what any of us really gain from seeing things like detailed animal skinnings, and horses dropping turds. It’s a great question, to be fair.
She also laments the guy who says he has a plan “probably 600 times”, which is of course a reference to Dutch van der Linde himself.
Honestly, the whole video is wonderfully edited and genuinely funny, whether you’ve spent hours with RDR2, or really just don’t get why your partner is so invested in this game about the brutal murder of woodland creatures.
We’ve seen a lot of reviews of RDR2 at this point, but for my money this really is one of the best I’ve seen so far. Funny, informative, and creative.
Hopefully she either gets into the game herself at some point, or her boyfriend stops browsing the Subreddit every night and learns to switch off properly.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.