A good Western third-person shooter, with a beautifully conveyed atmosphere and narrative. The protagonist-antagonist Arthur Morgan, one of the members of a criminal gang, escapes from the city of Blackwater, in which a robbery went wrong. The gang, which includes our protagonist, has to hide from justice with all the consequences that come with it. Arthur along the way carries out tasks of his friends, henchmen, the leader, or himself, on the way from one place to another, finds adventures in the form of robberies of trains with stagecoaches or meeting strangers who need his help (for example, some small tasks like helping a poor fellow with medicine or freeing a criminal , who is being taken to prison, and others are longer-term, consisting of several meetings).
“Dutch's Gang” lives according to the already outdated concepts of the wild west and does not want (or cannot) accept modern social rules and culture, which makes it difficult for them to exist in modern society. Trying to survive and continuing to engage in clashes with sworn enemies - another gang of thugs, the O'Driscolls, do not stop stepping on a rake and getting caught by lawmen (policemen), because of which the nomadic lifestyle does not stop.
The game is divided into several acts (chapters), the first of which seemed tedious to me, but without it the overall plot would not be complete. Each episode ends with the gang having to change the location of the camp, escaping from new problems.
Each episode has both story and non-story missions. If the first - it is clear that they develop the plot, then the second are needed for variety, in which Arthur will catch criminals, playing the role of a bounty hunter, and can engage in robbery, simultaneously helping the characters he meets in the game world. Each action entails an increase or decrease in Arthur's positive character. Who to be - close to a respectable citizen or a complete daredevil - is up to you to decide.
There are elements of leveling up the camp, as well as hunting and fishing to improve your own or the camp’s inventory. Sometimes you need to eat (both yourself and your horse), sleep or rest, which improves health and endurance. If the first thing, improving the camp, is quite simple to do (not right away, but by the middle of the third episode for sure), for money from the hostel, to which you yourself should not be lazy, but throw in a few dollars, then by searching for the necessary animal skins, and of ideal quality , sometimes difficult to practice and not everyone will like it. It won’t be difficult to get food for yourself and your horse; everything can be bought in stores at inexpensive prices or found.
The graphics in the game are beautiful, but the settings are quite strange and greatly “eat up” the system (yes, we are talking about the PC version). Textures set to High look terrible compared to Ultra. The rest can be set to “High”, but even with a more or less modern PC (I have an Intel i7-8700, nVidia RTX 2080 Super, 32 GB of RAM) for some reason it cannot consistently output 60 FPS, especially for the first chapter and heavily populated areas, respectively.
Conclusion: another good Rockstar game, a must-buy for all fans of Westerns.
8 saloon brawls out of 10