Red Dead Redemption Turn 15: There will never be another pasta like it

Red Dead Redemption celebrates its 15th anniversary today (May 18, 2025). Below, we look back at the West in the context of its film inspiration.

The story about the American West, like the story about the Knight, the Ninja, or other iconic characters, is not a giant. Stories of fantasy, rooted, stupid, serious, traditional and rebellious. Like many of Sergio Leone's films, Red Dead Redemption is a spaghetti western, like a fist, good, bad, ugly and ugly. Even in other open world games and other games in their own series, Red Dead Redemption is a single experience. It takes the fantasy of playing the legendary Gunner in the Dirty American West. And there will never be other similar games.

Review of the Red Death Trilogy

The Red Death Game is a trilogy, although we rarely think of the first work “The Red Death Revolver”. All three games in the series are very different. Even though the recent two have consistent roles and chronological order, they are hardly different in terms of presentation, tone, and style.

Red Dead Revolver, developed by Rockstar San Diego (originally Angel Studios), and partially funded by Capcom, is a linear action game with a simple narrative of revenge. Styleally, it has more common things with manga or anime than any Western movie or the rest of the Red Death series. There were limbs everywhere, and it was wearing the top boss, like a huge guy, with explosives tied to his head and steel plates on his arms like shields.

Red Death Redemption 2, on the other hand, is a Western epic that shares more with real grit or open range than the massive dollar of the fist of Sergio Leone. It can work overtime to represent its role and set as accurately as possible (e.g., with exceptions such as treatment of Appalachian people). This was so interested in authenticity that historian and professor Tore Olsson wrote a book about the success of RDR2 and was underperforming in representing reality, and concluded that despite some mistakes and some places where necessary depth is necessary, the depth of the game is correct.

Red Death Redemption

This brings us to the middle child, 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, a game that draws inspiration from pasta western films. The term spaghetti western refers to the genre of films produced between 1960 and 1978 and was produced in Europe, usually Italy and Spain.

Previous Westerners were usually about mythical American West. Cowboys are clear heroes or villains, and the line between good and evil is clear and easy to describe. Pasta Westerners blur these lines, making it difficult for villains to be charming and heroes to stay with them.

They also work hard. The opening sequence of the Fist is iconic, with the Gunner's outline being different from the support of whistle and chanting music, which is different from anything that the Old West has ever seen in the movie.

We see all this in Red Dead Redemption's work. Graphics and music are often directly influenced by Sergio Leone's films. Music stands out here in particular. Red Dead Redemption is composed of musicians Bill Elm and Woody Jackson, using some traditional instruments like Jaw Harp, but its scores combine, for example, with the sound of a smooth harmonica and dirty, twisted electric guitar.

This story also fully feels the Western sensibility of pasta. Some parts have not aged well. The character known as the Irish stands out here and is built on the overall stereotype of the Irish that will make you replay the entire game. Even if that feels like something straight for Western spaghetti, the characters are broad and often built on simple themes or stereotypes.

More other basic parts match too. John Marston is a good guy, but he is not Good man. He is not going to face the challenge, but is being blackmailed into an impossible situation. He was grated, too. Even those of us who love games can agree that Marston's voice takes some time to warm up. On the other side is the instantly charming Dutch Van der Linde: a man with huge ideas and smooth, affectionate. Associates like Snake Oil Salesman Nigel West Dickens are broad, stupid and unreliable, while characters like Bonnie MacFarlane tend toward John's “honest” life, which brings heavy compromises that he can't even really dream of. The elderly gunman John met in Mexico, Landon Ricketts, represents the roles that characters like Lee Van Cleef play in the movie, such as more killers, who earned blood and lost wisdom. They are not evil triumphs. John didn't want to be there, but the axe on his head forced his hands with his wife and son, and he had to do the dirty work. His old friends became sour, providing some reason for his actions, but they were not evil.

Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid are not American spaghetti, but are American works, but it lowers the Smack Dab in the middle of the Spaghetti Western era and shares a wide enough, comedic tone and dirty quality here to work here. John Marston's final moments are the iconic finale of the film, with the character ending in a freezing frame of hail sound. John opened the barn and saw that the lawyer knocked out more lawyers than he could. He got the last moment, pouring his revolver into the crowd, but he would never live a peaceful life. Although he might try it, it's not just a blow from a lifetime gunman.

When I tried to imagine playing it again, Red Dead 2 felt like a barrier – which meant people made mistakes and killed each other, and a beautiful landscape full of scary people. There is no doubt that this is a beautiful and incredible game of writing and realization. But sometimes, you want Yuma's fist to exceed 3:10. Red Dead Redemption is the answer. Despite its cruelty, given all the grandeur and exaggeration of the films that inspired it, it is an adventure about a reluctant hero with skill and perseverance.

For more information on Red Dead Redemption's 15th anniversary, read Why Its Story The best effect when shutting up.