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Almost forgotten and given away by Capcom. Discussing the story behind the "Red Dead Redemption" series

In 2018, "Red Dead Redemption 2" was released, which was given a perfect score of 10 by IGN and hailed as "one of the greatest games of our time". This miracle product, which took 8 years to develop and cost RMB 5.5 billion to develop, has gained excellent reputation and sales in a short period of time. But did you know that the production of the "Red Dead Redemption" series has experienced changes of ownership and was almost forgotten. What kind of twists and turns did it go through during its development process? This time, let us review the past and present life of "Red Dead Redemption" and feel how the masterpiece was born.

When it comes to "Red Dead Redemption", unless there is no accident, what players think of is "Red Dead Redemption" released by Rockstar Game (hereinafter referred to as Rockstar) on the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms in May 2010. 》. But strictly speaking, "Red Dead Redemption" is not just a single game, but a series that runs through the history of home console games. At the beginning, the story of "Red Dead Redemption" did not start with Rockstar, but with the old Japanese game manufacturer Capcom (Capcom).

Players who have experience in red and white machine games will definitely be impressed by "Gun.Smoke", a game with a very American western style. However, this game comes from a place that has nothing to do with American culture. to Capcom. The first appearance of the translated name of the game "Red Dead Redemption" was also thanks to this game.

In the post-arcade era, Capcom had to destroy millions of game software due to mistakes in its sales strategy. This severe damage was not until the release of Capcom's golden signature "Resident Evil" It was relieved after the sale. The huge sales of "Resident Evil" not only made Capcom a lot of money, but also discovered future star producers Shinji Mikami and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, and more importantly, let Capcom and an American game technology company Angel Studio A good cooperative relationship has been established.

Later, in the process of porting "Resident Evil 2" from PS to N64, Angel Studio shined and successfully compressed the game content belonging to two CD-ROMs into one cassette. This technological innovation that shocked the industry not only made Lao Ka look at this American brother in a new light, but also allowed Angel Studio to gain friendship from Microsoft, the giant in the technology industry: a "Crazy City" development contract worth thousands of dollars. The final result did not disappoint everyone. The highly personalized game style of the "Crazy City" series reinterpreted the old racing games. Both attempts are extraordinary. Angel Studio has officially entered the attention of industry insiders with its excellent game development capabilities.

In November 2002, Rockstar parent company Take-Two publicly announced that it would acquire Angel Studio for US$28 million in cash plus 235,679 restricted ordinary shares (a total of US$34.7 million based on fair value). According to the constraints of the contract, Angel Studio will change its name and become a new studio under Rockstar San Diego under the name of Rockstar San Diego. Rockstar was excited about this sudden gift, especially Rockstar senior producer Sam Houser. He revealed in an interview in 2000: "Since watching Angel Studio's "Crazy City" He fell in love with Angel Studio after the demo...and couldn't wait to work with them.

R Star has already made plans on how to use Angel Studio. "Crazy City" shows Angel Studio's strong capabilities in open world, image processing and artificial intelligence programming, making Rockstar want to Combining it with its own housekeeping game "Grand Theft Auto" series makes the game more detailed and realistic. This also means that in Rockstar’s original plan, Rockstar San Diego Studio was positioned as an assistant to Rockstar North Studio. However, when Rockstar counted the assets of Angel Studio, it was discovered that it had produced a FC game for the old card, "Red Dead Redemption: Death Revolver", a next-generation adaptation of "Red Dead Redemption".

"Red Dead Redemption: Death Revolver" aroused the interest of Rockstar partner and chief screenwriter Dan Houser. After carefully studying the work, he believed that "this cowboy Brother looks very good, I think I can arrange him and get something out." Therefore, Rockstar, backed by a big tree, bought the copyright of "Red Dead Redemption: Revolver" from the unlucky old card and handed it over to Rockstar's San Diego studio for production. With original American IP and authentic old American producers, this spiritual legacy of the Famicom era has become the signature of Rockstar San Diego Studio.

On May 4, 2004, "Red Dead Redemption: Revolver" was officially released. Game media websites such as GameRankings and Metacritic have given good reviews, saying that "the game well restores the real world of the American West, and pays tribute to the classic western movie "Red Dead Redemption" in the story, but the game operations are also tense. Make a lasting impression on those who play it.” For a game development team that has been making racing cars all year round, it is not easy to achieve such results in its first attempt at an action shooting game. But what Rockstar Santiago is pursuing is obviously not a moderate evaluation like "good". Their goal is to amaze the whole world with their next work.

In order to prepare for the launch of PS3, Sony held a small meeting in 2005 and invited all the well-known developers in the industry. Rockstar showed its full sincerity to the boss Sony with its latest game engine "RAGE" and a promotional video that can show the effects of the engine. The game "Old West Project" involved in this promotional video was also "accidentally" posted on the Internet. This "inadvertent mistake" brought unexpected attention to Rockstar, and players flocked to every bit of information displayed in "Old West Project".

All this plays into Rockstar's hands. For this "Old West Project", the company has always conceived it as a sequel to "Red Dead Redemption: Revolver". This is their It's a question that was considered as early as the end of PS2. However, after an in-depth study of the performance of the PS2, Rockstar realized that the PS2's performance at the time was far from being able to perfectly demonstrate the gameplay and features of "Old West Project". Even if the whole team works hard, the finished product will be just the Platinum Legendary Collector's Edition of "Red Dead Redemption: Revolver". Therefore, based on the San Diego team, Rockstar added manpower to improve the team's technical strength, especially the upgrade of the engine, to prepare in advance for the arrival of the next generation of consoles.

In early 2006, Rockstar received PS3 and Xbox 360 development machines from Sony and Microsoft in advance. With the powerful performance of this generation of consoles, the "Old West Project" that had been temporarily shelved was once again put on the forefront of senior management. After a comprehensive analysis of the scale of the "Old West Plan", Rockstar decided to use the San Diego studio as the main force, and other teams such as Rockstar North Studio to cooperate to fully support the implementation of the "Old West Plan". After the decision was made, a production team of up to 800 people and a production budget of 100 million US dollars meant that this western development plan was not just talk. Rockstar was serious about doing the western part this time.

After solving the funding and personnel problems, the team members focused all their energy on building the world view of the game. The lessons learned from "Red Dead Redemption: Revolver" have generally cleared the way for the development team, and what remains is the game's interpretation of western culture. The golden age of American western cowboys belonged to the 1860s-1890s. After entering the 20th century, with the initial formation of the American transportation network, especially the east-west railway lines, the western cowboys completely stepped out of the stage of history. It was not until the global popularity of Italian westerns in the mid-20th century that it once again led to the overall revival of the American western cowboy, and then gave birth to a unique American western culture.

However, the interpretation of culture must be temporal. The time span of more than half a century has caused difficulties for the development team. From the perspective of a historical bystander, the culture of the American West emerged from the confrontation between white colonists and indigenous forces during the process of territorial expansion. It is a cover-up of banditry filled with self-exalted psychology.

But Americans don’t see it that way. In their view, the American colonial process is a civilization advancement full of justice and humanitarianism, while Western culture is the precious crystallization of personal heroism complex in the advancement of civilization, just like in those days. Sacred actions on the battlefield in Iraq, they unreservedly believe that all their actions are full of love and justice, and the same is true for Rockstar San Diego Studio.

Although they retain a deep recognition of American culture, the development team does not want to follow the footsteps of their predecessors and create a game that celebrates Western culture. They finally fixed the time in the game around 1911, which was the period when the American Western Cowboys last existed.

There is no reason to choose 1911 as the story line. The development team believes that a large number of people have spent a lot of energy shaping these "western myths" before 1911, and one more work will not be enough. Nothing can be changed. Compared with the personal heroic stories of this "mythical period", the transformation of the American West from the old world to the modern world during the final period (1911) is more attractive. During the development process, the development team also tried to add allusions to real politics into the game. Through the story of the protagonist John Marston in the game, it showed players the transformation of society from "violent freedom" to "open control by the state" process. Giving the game a realistic meaning by comparing it to the plight of modern American society.

However, no matter how you cover it up, this kind of behavior that touches the government and society will eventually touch the G-spot of certain groups, and will eventually be fed back to the players through public opinion media. From the perspective of the Rockstar development team, this is exactly what they are pursuing. They hope that players will trigger thoughts and emotions during the game. So we can see that Rockstar's game style is very "eccentric", making players love and hate it but are deeply fascinated by it.

From the establishment of the project in 2005 to the official release in 2010, the five-year development cycle and the troubles caused by various factors such as labor disputes and technical limitations made the development of "Red Dead Redemption" difficult. The launch attracted attention from all walks of life. Regarding the evaluation of "Red Dead Redemption", I don't think I need to go into details. With a Metacritic comprehensive score of 95 points and various awards, this American-style work has won the praise of players from all over the world. Favor, known as the long-lasting masterpiece of the PS platform.

We also know the subsequent story. From 2010 to 2018, "Red Dead Redemption 2" eight years later continued the explosive reputation of the previous game, and this series has naturally become a far-reaching classic. From a current perspective, the past experience of the "Red Dead Redemption" series is not so much painful hard work as it is a touchstone - testing Rockstar's technical capabilities, testing Rockstar's persistence in the game concept, Testing Rockstar's determination to defy difficulties, Rockstar did not disappoint players in the end. Perhaps it is this kind of sentiment that allows Rockstar to continuously launch excellent works that people cannot refuse, and that makes "Rstar products must be high-quality products" deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.