Western is a theme that is well-received and popularized in old school European comics; in Hollywood cinema until 1960s; and again in European cinema in the decade that follows. In the medium of video games, however, there have only been a few representatives of the thematic genre, such as Call of Juarez (FPS, 2006) and Desperados (one of the few examples of “Real Time Tactics” genre, 2001). So when Rockstar Games published Red Dead Redemption in 2010, it was already destined to be something unmatched in one way or another.

It was also one of the things I had in mind when I bought my second-hand XBOX 360 as a student in Italy: to play the game which was only released to the then-one-previous generation of consoles. As usual I couldn’t find the time to play it then and there. Later on, moving between 3 countries during and after the studies, not travelling for 2 years due to covid-19, taking the time to hone my “driving skills” which are still non-existent; it was only in January 2023 that I could drive back to Ravenna, where I left my XBOX four and half years ago and bring it back home with me. After spending 50+ hours and reaching to a 99.9% (unfortunately glitched) completion with it, this is me talking about how RDR1 feels 13 years after its release.