Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar

Red Dead Redemption 2 Capstone Prospectus

Introduction

Stories of American outlaws, cowboys, the rise of the railroad, and the rocky road or reconstruction have been told and retold in American culture. However, as modern media continues to advance, so does its means of telling stories for audiences. This leads to the 2018 action-adventure video game Red Dead Redemption 2, a game which was not only constructed ​ ​ with impressive visual graphics, improved combat mechanics, and a massive yet well detailed environment which has been noted to have given gamers the ability to explore a fully immersive experience into the Old American West. A means of interacting and participating in a world and narrative that not only functions independently from the player but allows the player to genuinely exist in the space. Red Dead Redemption 2 has the player interact with a world that is teeming ​ ​ with life. In an opinion piece by Peter Suderman, the game presents its environments and towns as having “daily rhythms, tied to time and weather, that seem to go on without you. Wildlife roams the countryside, growing skittish if you move too close. Many video games allow players to interact with other characters only by attacking them; here, every character, even the least important digital extra, can be spoken to, and often conversed with at length”. Red Dead ​ Redemption 2 is an experience that makes the player live with their choices, and to decide how to ​ best with those choices in a world and a time that is leaving you behind.

Despite the avid praise and financial success of this game, and others like it, have accumulated over the years, there is a lack of understanding as to how a game like Red Dead ​ Redemption 2 can accurately communicate significant cultural themes like those of the Old West, ​ like Colonialism, Industrialization, and Manifest Destiny. Video games, despite showing a strong

1 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar popular appeal and economic relevance on a national and global scale, are still often considered to be a ‘neglected media’. This meaning that despite their populatist in American cultural outlets, they are still considered to have a “lack of cultural prestige and scientific coverage” (Reichmuth

& Werning, 2006). Because there is a lack of understanding, I want to investigate how this game communicates with its audience and players, and how that method of communication conveys certain themes. Aside from the visual aesthetics and the voicework of the game’s characters, the most quintessential component of the video game is how the players actually play the game to understand how they communicate to the player. How do their decisions within the game impact the world, the characters and the experience, and how do they then experience the historical and cultural themes of the American West? To answer these questions, a concrete methodology needs to be constructed not only around frames of study that are grounded in communication theory while still featuring what research does exist around video games like Red Dead ​ Redemption 2. Similarly, a variety of sources around these theories, and the themes they are ​ supposed to be communicating, will also be needed to further construct the role and potential of these mechanics.

Literature Review

Why A Video Game With A Story?

While information regarding video games as a teaching or communicative tool is limited, there is a significant amount of information regarding their narrative and how that narrative can be presented that can then be equated to communication theory. It may be initially perplexing for a game to utilize a theory like the narrative paradigm since one “core feature of video games is that their narratives can be based on non-linear storytelling. Branching structures which allow

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“players to change the course of the story, allowing for multiple directions and outcomes” (Wolf,

2001). How then can an object with different narratives or experiences for everyone be communicated similar themes through said experience? To understand how this video game’s narrative functions differently from other mediums certain sources will be needed. These sources, primarily those dealing with the unique nature of games as a media of communication and entertainment, will focus on the interactivity of games. For starters, these sources will have to understand the varying nature of game structure and the narratives that come with them. For instance, “there are two kinds of narratives in games: the first is the traditional kind, the kind we think of when we talk about plot, characters, and dialogue; and the second kind is the narrative of the player’s personal experience” (MCV, 2013). What is being communicated through the game is based on how the player navigates it, and thus sources that discuss how players navigate or understand narratives are needed.

Since video games are a media that relies on people’s experience in an artificial world, the narrative is derived not just from the experiences of the player’s life and more from the story of the game itself. This led me to a variety of works on the communicative role of storytelling, specifically a study by Anneli Sundin which investigates how “storytelling exists in many different forms and there are many different techniques. It can be applied to visually describe a narrative using different mediums such as video, photography or graphics/illustrations, in what is usually called visual storytelling.” This continues to gain relevance in this study because

“storytelling can be an essential tool to effectively reach a target audience” which makes sense since video games are built for specific audiences to immerse themselves in. Another aspect of this project, and its use of mechanics as a means of communication, and though that a narrative

3 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar paradigm, is a need to convey historical and cultural themes. Certain literary sources will need to focus on whether video games can act as a form of learning experience or some similar means of communicating historical themes. Since the game in question is focused in an era that actually existed in American history, it would be logical to pursue sources that discussed video games as a means of “experiential learning.” Such a source could delve further into an experience like Red ​ Dead Redemption 2’s use of Arthur Morgan, an interactive character that “allows for an ​ immersive experience and through this both a deeper and wider understanding of the played past.” The historical nature of the game and its underlying themes can thus be further investigated because games like Red Dead Redemption 2 represent an “interaction between the players and the past can be discussed or mediated in order for the latter to be more critically assessed” (Boom, 2020). Texts similar to this, like those of Panayiotis Koutsabasis and Jeremiah

McCall can further delve into the idea that the historical yet narrative based component of a video game can have the same communicative potential as other media objects, and thus constructing an argument about the role of the game’s mechanics will be that much easier.

Research In Gaming

Researching video games is difficult, namely because there are so many and all of them are different from one another. While certain genres of games do exist, the varying virtual worlds that inhabit the landscape, and the many characters players can actually be, is seemingly endless.

Within said research, however, is a division of the gaming experience that ties directly into the communicative experience that may be happening in Red Dead Redemption 2. Specifically, ​ ​ research into how the player builds and creates their character within a game and how they play as that character is going to be needed. There is an abundance of research that delves into players

4 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar can become “a game character and adopt the salient characteristics of that character” in the digital world that they now inhabit (Looy, Courtois & de Vocht, 2010). This kind of research focuses on how the player invests themselves into the lives of their character and their experiences. However, Arthur Morgan is already a set character with established relationships, how is that allowing the player to create a character in this instance. Research delving into player characters will help discern this as they show how “virtual worlds give users imagined worlds and tools to test various identities through active processes of design.” While Arthur Morgan is already established in the world, how he acts, how he fights, how he dresses, and how he progresses though the game and narrative is dependent on the players’ willingness to step into

Arthur’s shoes. From there, in his world, they decide how to live their life through him. This dual existence can then be considered as an “identity exploration” and thus Arthur can then “facilitate identification through which players can relate and make decisions based on their newfound identities (Weinreich & Saunderson 2003). From this relationship and having to explore the game through the character and the mechanics through which the player is bound by, there is an increased sense of autonomy and agency to move forward and explore what the game has to offer (Ames, 1992). Sources like these will help to build the case as to how the mechanics given to customize the players’ and Arthur’s experience of the game act as a means of communication.

Works from Selen Turkey, Fabrizia Mantovani and Gianluca Castelnuovo, who investigate the learning potential of player character creation, and the work of researchers like Ganesh, Shanti, who studies the emotional impact and relevance of these characters, will hep to further reinforce the relevance and connection of character customization to narrative and the rest of the mechanics of the game.

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Delving Into The American West

When studying the communicative capacity of a media object, one must ask themselves what is actually being communicated? With Red Dead Redemption 2 taking place during the genuinely historical end of the “Wild” American West, it would make sense to assume that the themes being communicated to the player are those of a historical nature. Specifically, cultural and historical themes of American identity during these times, whether they be economic or social, are being communicated, but how does one determine this? Through investigating sources that range from historical exposés and investigations into Old West style games a clearer image of what themes are being communicated will come into focus. One such source displays this approach, as it discusses how American films often portray the Old American West as a

“simple-minded celebration of the triumph of American virtue over evil,” when in fact it is an allusion to to genuine historical traits of the American West that are believed to be shared in Red ​ Dead Redemption 2, like “private justice and the order provided by law, individualism and ​ community, nature and civilization” (White, 1981). This American mythology further gaining momentum into western culture because it is the violence and excitement of the era that garners the “fixation of filmmakers on such isolated occurrences, history is wrenched out of shape and a great myth is born th at frontier violence forged the essential American character” (Udall, 2000).

Similar cultural and historical themes being historically proven or disproven will hopefully be found in other studies that actively compare the social and cultural realities of the time to what is shown in media like video games. Essays like Walker-Emig’s How Red Dead Redemption 2 ​ Lays down a Path to Utopia will help to understand what is being communicated through the ​ game, for which other works will help to further explain by referencing genuine historical

6 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar examples of said events. This work in particular seeks to discuss how one of the main perspectives of the game is in “opposition to the way society at large operates in Red Dead 2’s version of late nineteenth century America.” Within the Van der Linde gang, whose ideology is in “clear opposition to the way the society around it works serves as a reminder that the vision of

America that wins out over the Van der Linde gang by the end of the game was not an inevitability. The game re-stages a battle over concepts won by its enemies and deeply embedded in modern society, asking us to re-evaluate what words like “family”, “property”, and “freedom” could and should mean.” This being an ideology highlighted throughout the narrative, it becomes further pointnet, and somewhat tragic, as the time for which the game is played is during the end of the West. The players’ are aligned to beliefs that are being encroached upon by modernity and civilization “as the law gradually tightens the noose around the Van Der Linde gang’s neck, it is forced to confront the question of how an alternative way of living can exist in a totalizing system that doesn’t share its principles” (Walker-Emig, 2019). This research aligns with the idea that technological dynamism, endless innovation, and the progress of capitalism in the American

West constantly seek “‘new spaces’ as markets, sources of raw material, and labor power; and its capacity to manipulate the physical world have contributed to insecurity, instability, and endless disruption to the people and places it has affected” (Robbins, 1999). Research into the genuine

American West, and the themes that it has spawned that will give this study its strength. Whether it be Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s investigation into the true culprit of Old West violence or John

Wills’ investigation into past video games which explored the Old West and how their thematic components drive from these historical themes, and thus how they influenced Red Dead ​ Redemption 2, these studies all ultimately build upon each other for the sake of this research. ​

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This connection and collaboration between sources are what's needed to identify and build support on what the themes of this game are and to identify how their genuine historical and cultural significance relates to their ability to be communicated within a video game.

Methodology

What Is Being Examined?

When analyzing a video game like Red Dead Redemption 2 for its gameplay and how it ​ ​ communicates historical themes, I intend to approach the task through a semiotic, and interactive lens. However, I intend to first break down the various gameplay mechanics and controls available to the player, on a general level at this time, so that analyzing them through certain frames will paint a clearer picture as to how the game communicates certain themes. The player experiences a significant amount of the game through Arthur Morgan, a character who has already experienced the world and the skills needed to survive. The character rarely mentions or indicates that he does not know what to do, so the player is indicated through text or audio cues as to how to perform the mechanic. This process occurs in various points throughout the game whenever new equipment, skills, or objectives become available for the player to use. The core mechanics of the game revolve around Arthur’s health, stamina, and Dead Eye trackers. All of these traits can be improved or temporarily restored or boosted upon through various activities the player undertakes. Running, swimming, or climbing upgrades stamina and health while combat scenarios improve Dead Eye. These cores can be replenished by using consumables like canned goods, foraged herbs, or by meats that the player hunted, butchered, and cooked themselves. Items like alcohol, tobacco, or other items can boost one core while harming another. All of these cores are features shared by the player’s horses, who also can be maintained

8 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar and cared for like the player does for Arthur Morgan. Aside from managing Arthur’s health and wellbeing by other means the player also is in control of how they dress to survive in certain climates, how to maintain and improve their weapons, how they provide for their camp, and they approach making money in this world. The option as to what kind of character the player makes

Arthur is completely up to them, especially as the game utilizes an honor system, where depending on what kind of activities the player takes part in will determine certain aspects of the game’s story and ending.

What Tools Will Be Used?

Since video games are a heavily visual experience, it would make sense to utilize a semiotic approach to understanding how gameplay mechanics communicate to the player. The video, audio, and environmental components that contribute to the experience overall and the mechanics themselves need to be picked apart to understand what they accomplish communicatively. Semiotic analysis can break down the three aspects of the visual material:

Contact, Distance and Point of View. Contact being the connections made between the viewer and the actors within the image. Distance being how far the viewer and the actor are between each other. Then there is the Point of View, where the angle for or means of experiencing the media object translates or engages the observer to the actors within the media (Visual Social

Semiotics, 2016). A visual understanding can then direct this research towards how the mechanics themselves are themselves a component of the game’s narrative or story which then acts as a form of thematic communication. This leads to how the story of the game is not functional without the player’s interaction and recognition of activities within the game that

“help bridge the gaps left in the computer-generated virtual world” (Wei, 2010). From the idea of

9 Cameron T. Nelson COM 75-964-01 2/25/2021 Dr. Bob Bednar the story being communicated through player action, it is impossible to not mention how Walter

Fisher’s narrative paradigm plays a factor in this frame of study. Specifically, through the narrative paradigm and the game’s storytelling techniques it can be understood how gameplay communicates thematic messages. Walter Fisher indicates that in a story where the character, or in this case the player as well, faces the struggle of who exactly “owns” the proponents of the journey, or what exactly is compelling the narrative to progress. In readings by Marie-Laure

Ryan, David Herman, and Michael Nitsche that the world of a digital game and what is available for the player to do that creates a draw or a compulsion from the player through textual, visual, auditory, and haptic cues, to complete the game through said mechanics and to absorb the thematic cues said game focuses on. The connection between the mechanics of the game further acts as a conduit of communication because the player experiences the narrative through the gameplay, and thus reasoning to pursue the narrative paradigm as a frame of understanding to know what is being communicated. Further understanding though scholarly works and playing though the game itself will further reveal as to how the historical and cultural themes are communicated through the narrative, and thus through the gameplay mechanics of Red Dead ​ Redemption 2. From this, a better understanding of how ideas or cultural themes are ​ communicated or passed on through new media objects can be discovered. What has once been thought to be only feasible in books, classes, or films can now possibly be done by immersing people worlds that can better represent the past than anything else.

I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not. – CTN

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