

Red Dead Redemption makes use of a morality system where players have the ability to gain positive or negative honor. Besides the American West, the player can also traverse a fictional Mexican state bordering the United States. Urban settlements range from isolated farmhouses to crowded towns. The game's undeveloped land makes up the largest portion of the game world, featuring various rugged and vast landscapes with occasional travelers, bandits, and wildlife. The player can utilize trains for quick travelling, but they can also stop the train by threatening or killing the passengers or driver. These horses must be tamed in order to use them. Different breeds of horses are the main forms of transportation, each with different attributes. The player can interact with the environment and engage in combat with enemies, using various firearms. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. The player controls John Marston and completes missions, linear scenarios with set objectives, to progress through the story. Red Dead Redemption is a Western-themed action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective.

A prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, was released in October 2018 to similar acclaim.


A Game of the Year Edition containing all additional content was released in October 2011. After the game's release, several downloadable content additions were released Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, later released as a standalone game, added a new single-player experience in which Marston searches for a cure for an infectious zombie plague that has swept across the Old West. It won several year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications, and is considered by critics as one of the greatest video games ever made. The game received critical acclaim for its visuals, dynamically-generated music, voice acting, gameplay, and story, and shipped over 15 million copies by 2017. Red Dead Redemption was developed over the course of five years and is one of the most expensive video games ever made.
