Was Wild West That Wild? – Red Dead Redemption 2 vs Facts and Reality
Red Dead Redemption 2 is full of realistic facts and details, but does it represent a faithful image of the Wild West from a historical perspective?
Table of Contents
- Was Wild West That Wild? – Red Dead Redemption 2 vs Facts and Reality
- Not so wild Wild, the West
- A duel at noon
- A Revolver & A Bowler Hat Just Like The Avengers Classic
- A woman or a hoyden with big gun
A woman or a hoyden with big gun
Women in Red Dead Redemption 2 are not weak or innocent. They can lead an entire gang to bank robbery and hold innocent civilians at gunsight – just like Karen Jones in one of story missions. However, the game doesn’t try to blindly follow the modern trends, but it strictly sticks to some historical facts. There were many outlawed women in the Wild West. They were gang members and committed the exact same crimes as the rest of male thugs and criminals.
Laura Bullion belonged to the Wild Bunch of Butch Cassidy and was often involved in robberies disguised as a man. In turn, Pearl Hart was captured in 1899 (the same year when the action of Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place), after one of the last stagecoach robberies in the United States. Bella Starr was called the queen of bandits, and several movies were shot to depict her life. However, most of her achievements are actually legends, not facts. The only thing we know for sure is that she loved stealing horses.
The Wild Valley Camel
In conclusion, an interesting oddity, which cannot be found in Red Dead Redemption 2, but was pretty unique during the real Wild West. During a certain period, there were camels running around in the wild just like mustangs or buffaloes. It was all caused by the program of the American army, which assumed that weather-resistant animals would perform better during the transport of equipment than mules and horses. So a large number of camels were imported from Egypt and Morocco.
During the Civil War, many of them fled to freedom and began to successfully procreate. Camels lived freely in the United States for about 100 years. The last report of an encounter with a wildly living representative of this species dates back to 1941. It happened in Texas. It is a pity that game developers did not include such a magnificent view in any of the available locations (or maybe such an easter egg is still waiting to be discovered?).
LEGENDARY BEAR ATTACK – A REAL STORY?
At the beginning of Red Dead Redemption 2 we have the opportunity to hunt for the extremely dangerous legendary grizzly bear. It is said that the aforementioned "Wild Bill" Hickok has experienced a similar encounter. In 1860, while driving with a cargo of Pony Express mail, he came across a female black bear with two small bears on the road. He came down from the carriage and shot her in the head, but the bullet just bounced back and enraged the animal. The bear crushed Hickok with its body, but he managed to shoot again and injured bear's paws. When the animal has bitten Hickok's arm with its teeth, Bill pulled out a knife and cut the beast's throat. Due to wounds and injuries all over his body, he was bedridden for four months.
Reasonable compromise
The image of the Wild West, that is much closer to the historical truth, can be seen in the Little House on the Prairie family series rather than in The Quick and the Dead. Red Dead Redemption 2 is focused on action and entertainment, so even large deviations from reality are totally acceptable or even advisable. While on the micro-scale the game sometimes exaggerates with realism (check out our article that explains why it’s worth to play RDR2), on the macro-scale it reaches a quite satisfactory compromise between what is true and authentic historically, and what simply had to appear in the action game.
