There’s no question about it: Red Dead Redemption 2 feels sluggish compared to other modern games. The game aims to convey a weighty, realistic world, and so this is mainly a creative choice on the part of Rockstar. Arthur Morgan, the acclaimed Western’s protagonist, has exaggerated, hefty animations, all of which help to ground the character in the game world.
However, it can still be frustrating to get the hero (?) to do what you want him to, and this video analysis demonstrates why. It’s not clear, scientific proof by any stretch, but it shows how much longer Morgan takes to respond to inputs compared to other titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. It’s all shot on the same television screen from the same console, and it’s clear that there’s considerable input lag on the Red Dead Redemption 2 character’s motions.
Now, as we mentioned earlier in the article, it’s important to remember that Rockstar’s going for something different here: Morgan is a man, not a Spider-Man. However, it does help to explain why the title’s controls can take time to adjust to. Fortunately, there are some settings changes you can make to help improve Red Dead Redemption 2’s controls, and you can read about those through the link.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 63
Sluggish controls acknowledge by everyone yet it's been considered the GOTY so far 😂
This game has the stupidest horses I have ever seen. It's frustrating at times.
Like the article says it's intentional design — it's meant to feel weighty and deliberate.
Whether that's a good thing is up for debate.
So, bad controls are an intentional part of design now?
That is pretty bad.
When I get around to playing Red Dead 2, I'll adjust to them, but it'll probably take me a little longer than other games.
Funny enough, I remember getting used to, and liking Star Fox Zero's controls while a lot of other people dreaded it and blasted it to hell and back.
Good times.
@RainbowGazelle Ask Miyamoto
@RainbowGazelle It can actually be a very effective tool in survival-horror games. Making the controls ‘bad’ can make scenes even more tense as you rush to get out of a bad situation. In a AAA action game, ehhh it’s still up for debate.
I'm happy with the controls. Not every character/game can be a superhero with speed, strength, etc.
Rockstar games have always controlled like garbage. Every single one.
@hadlee73 they do. just like naughty dog (most overrated developer).
You adjust to the controls and experience arguably the densest, most immersive open world ever crafted.
I wouldn’t say they get a free pass in the slightest, as almost everyone has pointed out the controls are sub-optimal. The reality is that it’s such a good game you can forgive it its one flaw.
@get2sammyb How can a game with bad (intentional) controls sacrificing gameplay over reality be a 10/10 and GOTY
and yes I know nothing is perfect but having sluggish controls in a game is not a good thing in my book
I kinda feel like this thread needs more Git Gud comments. 🤣
LBP had the worst floaty controls of any platformer I've ever played. Had two sequels anyway.
I haven't played this yet so I can't comment on my actual experience with the controls, but I do recall way back when people saying those Lara Croft tank controls in Tomb Raider, and I think a few early Resident Evil games had them as well, were good controls, so there really is no accounting for taste. Though I would imagine playing an old worn out cowboy after teenager superhero Peter Parker is going to feel a little slow regardless.
On the bright side, it's 2018, games get patched literally every day. God of War had patches it's first 10 days. NMS is up for Best Ongoing Game Award, so maybe he'll start cooking crystal meth on a side mission called "Breaking Bad" and speed himself the heck up. Could happen.
Design choice or not the controls are poor and it's spoiling the game for me and it's not helped by a control scheme that often requires buttons to be held down, just looting a wardrobe is a chore, hold square to open, press square to pick up item, hold square to open a drawer and so on. Then there are too many conflicting button commands making it easy to get stuck into a lengthy animation of something you never intended to do or aim a gun when just trying to talk to somebody, or like me the last time I played somehow strangled somebody just trying to get on a horse.
Rockstar need to remember that this is a game first and foremost and there is a 10/10 game in there but it's like a child colouring in that they didn't know when to stop.
Ultimately I am still enjoying it most of the time, particularly when focusing on the main story and they have created an unbelievable world with great characters but I had a lot more fun playing both God of War and Spider-Man mainly because their controls are far superior.
I felt the same way about Witcher 3 when I first played. I remember walking in tiny circles trying (and failing) to pick a flower. A few hours later, I was flower-picking like a pro.
@Deadlyblack I wanted to love SFZ so, so much.... 😭
The controls are why this isnt GOTY for me. There is so much archaic design here in contrast to almost everything else about the game - which is fantastic. I had to come here to find out how to open the map without having to go back to the menu constantly. And the menu is quite unintuitive.
Dont get me started on having to hold buttons down for a second or two every time i want to open a drawer or something.
Having started this off the back of playing God of War and then Spiderman i feel like i have so much less control over Arthur
@Neolit well crap, now I'm curious. What is color banding.
I like rdr2 but these small annoyances keep pilling up, and it's keeping it from being my goty and it goes to god of war which in my opinion is a much better game
@Rob_230 I'm on chapter 4 and still don't know that you can open the map without going into the menu, it took me about 20 hours to realise that you can manually save. Dont get me started on the various menu's 😆
@Neolit "Pffft, people these days. Whatever happened to spending some quality time in the options menu?"
Are you saying people should start reading and making decisions alone? You have great expectations...
I've said it before but I have no problems with these controls. I think they make the game feel better with how weighted everything feels. I hate floaty control systems in games, it puts me right off them immediately. Imagine if Arthur was able to pick up a big hefty grizzly bear pelt and fling it on his horse with no effort, it just wouldn't feel the same.
Honestly, I feel like some people have nitpicked on the tiniest things (not the controls) to ruin the game for them.
It's not intentional because of the realistic world or whatever, its just Rockstar. GTA V has the exact same thing. If anything controlling Arthur is a little easier and quicker than GTA characters.
@GKO900
Well the combats are actually good unlike the Witcher 3 or Fallout 4 for instance.
@carlos82 haha omg, it took ages to work out manual save! That was another google job. Why is it not on the top level of the menu screen!!!!
To open the map you can hold the options button down for a couple of seconds. Rather than take you to the menu, it opens the map. Its much nicer having that as an option, but why on earth does the game not tell you!
i tried to remind myself of the controls in the menu. The controller map was buried under about 4 screens, and then flips between standard and horse riding controls so quickly, its impossoble to keep up.
In the age of increased accessability in games (a wonderful thing) it all seems so....unfriendly!
hes a ageing cowboy not superman controls are fine by me
I really dont know the problem of all the people. I dont feel THAT much sluggishness when playing and feel like can still control arthur pretty accurate
@Neolit
I totally agree. I did same setting. Also in camp people would like to run like mad instead of walk fast have no patience. And they complain of 'immersion breaking'
Controls are slugish and frustrating. For example, happens to me a lot that I run over someone and get a bounty even though I didn't intend to do so. This gets extra frustrating when it's a task - e.g. someone on the way asked me to get him to a doctor. Took me a long ride to get him to one, and right before the entrance horse went a bit off and stepped over someone because of the sluggish controls. Ended up with half the town chasing me and a big bounty.
This game has a few substantial issues and it should not be the game of yhe year.
@Eran
Horse are not mechanical vehicles though. They behave somehow on their own. You get way better handling with a better horse. It's true its not easy not to run over people but riding in town needs extra caution which is fair.
It's not just the controls that are the issue. The story is poor (The Epilogue is so dull I almost stopped playing it) not to mention the "meeting" that is just brushed aside, the chores are just that, the interaction with the gang members is basic, the bounty system is unpredictable, buying involves going in to one set of menus and then backing out to go back in to sell! Weapons reset getting on/off horse, shoe horned in RPG elements that make hardly any difference, constantly having to hold a button for everything, trying to rotate Arthur to pick up something that flashed up in the bottom corner, calling your horse for it to stop 40 foot away and a crap menu selection system. I took my time & enjoyed it up until Chapter 4 (doing hunting & stranger missions etc) then these issues became more and more apparent & detracted from any immersion. It may look good but if feels like your fighting to control Arthur in this world.
@JJ2 I haven't play either one of those and I'm not saying this game is bad just that it should not be considered GOTY or be deserving of 10/10 sluggish controls are not a minor issue imo
@hadlee73 Yup. Many games get free passes for weird reasons. For example, a decent looking AA game that doesn't look amazing gets murdered by critics but 8bit indie games get free passes.
@Neolit and now I have to look up...
I don't care for realism in video games if that means a worse experience. I mean sure, the character needing food and sleep is realistic, so is carrying only a few items, but they make the game less fun.
Is it in the PS4 version only on Xbox version too? I remember GTAV feeling a bit sluggish too. Isn't it just the RAGE engine the cause?
All fine by me. It's a sublime game and deserves the plaudits. You often find when something is wildly successful that people try and backlash against it because a) it's no longer 'cool' to like it or b) they are jealous of it's success.
@carlos82
Wow. First thing I do with a new game is checking out the settings and menus.
@GKO900
Because you misunderstand what scores stand for, like most people. They are just the most subjective expression of an opinion. They are not to be taken as facts. Even worse for Goty which are based on emotional preference.
@JJ2 They could've at least made people move put of your way most of the time, something like in Watch Dogs. Game also has pretty noticable frame rate issues in towns, which makes it even harder to avoid hitting things.
But it's not only the horse, controls feel awkward and slugish. And sometimes different actions are mapped to the same button which results in unwanted behavior - e.g. R1 is used both to take cover and mark targets in Dead Eye. If you're in Dead Eye and you haven't noticed it run out, Arthur will go out of cover even though you haven't intended that.
Games such as God of war, Spiderman, Horizon and a bit less AC Od feel much more fluent, Rockstar hasn't nailed the controls and feel at all in my opinion
tbh i have no problems with the slow controls,and i don't notice the input lag(yet).
but to say that the input lag is intentional design is just giving rockstar a free pass because it's red dead.
again the game is fantastic but the fans need to stop acting like this game is flawless while pointing out the same flaws this game has on other games.
it's not the game of all time,it's not as revolutionary for the open world genre as the media and youtubers say it is but it IS GOTY worthy.
@tomassi this is what i mean.
people calling out a possible flaw in a otherwise fantastic game and the fans call you a hater or jealous.
that's why i love the game,but not so much the fans.
but then again hardcore fans always call people jealous when they call out a flaw on anything they love. so this coment does not suprise me at all.
I love this game!!!
@jdv95 - I'm not a Rockstar fanboy by any stretch (although I do like GTA and RDR). I don't take gaming seriously enough to really give two hoots about any of this discussion or any discussions about games in general to be honest. I'll have my two pennies worth but, really, who cares? It's just video games, it's not exactly important is it.
What I do notice though is that when something is quite rightly critically lauded it always gets a backlash from the internet. I recall that happening with La La Land a couple of years back. Everyone was smitten with it, critics loved it and then, slowly but surely 'the internet' started hating on it for no apparent reason other than to 'take it down a peg or two'.
PRE-ORDER CANCELLED!!!
@Neolit You're not alone, I hope Rockstar sticks to their control scheme and don't change nothing. I hate the pushing left stick forward means running and tilting means walking like in Witcher 3, makes Geralt look like a real douche running around in a building or room or a place where everybody else is walking. Tilting the left stick to walk isn't fun cause occasionally you mistakenly push it forward a bit and Geralt goes into running and everything just looks ridiculous. I dunno how lazy gamers can be if they have a problem with just pressing X along with left stick to run. They make pressing buttons seem like lifting dumbbells. What a whining generation who can't learn to adapt to each game and it's style. They want every game controlling the same way and then come back to whine about all games being the same.
@jdv95 LOL you just had me laughing here. Looks like people praising this game just brothers you so much it's funny. RDR2 is a masterpiece, it's the holy grail. 😁😁
@GKO900 Because it's an outstanding game, just requires a few hours of adjustment.
@tomassi "a) it's no longer 'cool' to like it or b) they are jealous of it's success."
That's just it, like the idiots that buy a brand new device and smash it on the ground just to look cool for YouTube.
@TheArt Exactly, I hate it that 'run' is the automatic movement of game characters. RDR2 is lifelike which I think makes it so much better IMO.
@jdv95
You know tomassi is right though. Nothing wrong with criticism and every game as flaws, yea every game, but there are always haters. You know it, that's how it works on the Internet.
Wow, the response delay is INSANE. That would drive me nuts.
Glad I didn't pick this up at launch now.
I don't remember the original Red Dead Redemption being this sluggish.
@hadlee73 for the same reason Bethesda releases buggy games and people still flock to the stores nonetheless, I guess.
But at least that seems to be changing with F76.
@3MonthBeef you've got to take into account that the first Red Dead Redemption was 8 years and a generation ago and much has changed since then. Not only that this feels a bit more sluggish than that game anyway and the overall feel of the new game is slower too, whilst that one had non of the issues I have with this game either and was probably my favourite game on the PS3.
@JoeBlogs Maybe you need to play NieR: Automata if you think Platinum games are like that and isn't having fun with the game the most important part of a game and since when games need sluggish controls for the players to enjoy the game that doesn't make any sense at all that sounds like just because it's R* it should get a pass and it's part of their vision of the developers, to me it looks like having those people overworked really affected the gameplay they were so tired that they thought Arthur was going to fast for them so they slow him down 😂
@3MonthBeef true though I'd say that's been taken up a notch the last couple of years with the likes of Horizon and God of War. Now I'm not expecting Arthur to start sprinting around like a madman and I wholeheartedly believe it's intentional, I just feel occasionally they need to remember they are making a game and not just an experience. To be honest it's probably the control scheme as much as anything which seems to magnify the responsiveness by holding down buttons for many tasks and then the brilliant but overly elaborate animations which take even more time to finish.
I still think it's a great game and one of the beat games on the system, I just seem to run into one or two niggling issues every time I play that take me out of the experience
@JoeBlogs Glad you recognized NieR: Automata greatness to me that was my GOTY last year
@JoeBlogs I don't think there are lazy or incompetent but I don't see the point of incorporating sluggish controls to make players see whatever the devs see on this game
I can live with the controls. As mentioned, this is intentional. My biggest gripe is trying to walk fluidly through camp. The collision detection is unforgiving and frustrating. Otherwise the controls suit the pace and environment perfectly. It's a minor niggle in what is otherwise an astonishing accomplishment by Rockstar and by a huge margin my personal GOTY.
help me plzz
why yall hating on dis sick game u lot fink ur all ard over a blasterd pc u lot make me sick all haters deserve to be band for all porn sites ever yall are so fake it hurts me
all yall seeking attention because yall don't get attention at home
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