⋆ This entry contains general spoilers for RDR2, and a wee bit of spoilers for RDR1.
yes, I enjoyed Chapter 1 and the Guarma portion of Chapter 5. yes, i’m the most woke RDR2 fan. sue me!! all jokes aside, it really feels like players either shit on these locations because everyone else shits on them or this fandom is full of trigger-happy GTA fanboys who play with their brains off. maybe it’s a combination of the two. frankly, the hate these two locations get is so unwarranted- yes, they had their limitations and downsides, but they were also beautiful and important setpieces for really key story development.
let’s start with Colter, the first chapter of the entire game. obligatory shoutout to the graphics and especially the opening cutscene with the opening credits, setting a bleak and dismal scene in a midnight snowstorm as the Van der Linde gang desperately looks for temporary shelter. we get some soft introductions to some pretty important characters- notably, Arthur appears out of the foggy night to rejoin the main group, and in another cutscene shortly after, Micah appears out of the fog in a very similar manner to rejoin the main group after their respective scouting ahead.
I started my RDR journey with this game with very little knowledge, so much of the first chapter of the game was spent in confusion over the characters lol. it’s a big group and a lot of different faces, and on top of that, the chapter opens with the echoes of conflict the gang had freshly escaped- a conflict that we, the players, are not privy to. the gang is running away from something, licking wounds and trying to regain wounded pride, but why? and why are they up in the snow like this? despite my confusion at what the hell was going on this chapter, i liked that there was already some context surrounding the opening of the game. we’re starting in the middle of things, with trouble already brewing on the horizon (by this, i mean the shitshow that chapters 4-6 become- we just don’t know this yet).
we’ll learn quickly about the Blackwater business, but we’re in control of Arthur now, so what we learn is what he learns- extremely vague and muddled details. what REALLY happened in Blackwater?? who knows? i really like that throughout the course of the game, we the players know as much as Arthur does at any given moment- we do not see all or know all, and that definitely helps make the plot as gripping as it is. i love an unreliable narrator, i love nuance. this murky confusion pairs perfectly with the snowstorm whipping around the gang.
stepping away from the plot for a moment, yes, I’ll admit that there isn’t much to do while the gang’s at Colter. I never tried going out into the world free-roam style, so I had the impression that the whole area was just sort of “do main story missions as they appear until the chapter ends”. That’s exactly what i did. however, for me personally, that was totally fine. I understood that this first chapter was largely meant to be a tutorial. I was to learn how to ride a horse, how to use weapons, how to take care of Arthur’s cores (which are extremely limited in ch. 1- another factor), etc etc. the immediate plot we’re thrown into along with the many, many controls and item wheels and menus I had to keep track of were daunting- i had no desire to FAFO in free roam (yet, at least).
the story missions of ch. 1 were all fun and interesting anyway- i wasn’t bored whatsoever, and was happy to keep the plot chugging along. besides, the story missions took you all around the area anyway- up the mountains to find John, down to the Adler ranch to encounter Sadie and the O’Driscolls and Kieran, further down to jump Cornwall’s train for his bonds, into the wooded areas to hunt with Charles- and I had plenty of time to pan the camera around to look at the environment and enjoy what it was.
i think now’s a good time to mention that i started this game as a very cautious player LMAO, if it wasn’t clear already. i was afraid of messing up big or doing something wrong yadda yadda. eventually i really take advantage of how free and open the RDR2 world is, but they just throw a lot at you in ch. 1, yanno?! i was still figuring it out!
anyway. I don’t quite remember specific dialogue or sequences of events of ch. 1. I try my best to pay a lot of attention to facial expressions, word choices etc during missions and cutscenes and whatnot but ch. 1 was about 100 hours of playtime ago (at the time of writing this) and again i was generally confused till ch. 2 lol. I keep an analog journal for game notes but i only started around ch. 2 i believe. i’d definitely be interested in starting a new playthrough when i’m done with my current playthrough and really paying attention to everything in Colter to see if anything in this first chapter hints even remotely at events down the line.
overall, i liked Colter a lot! definitely not my favorite chapter, but also definitely not remembered as a nightmare to progress through. i see players all the time who say they quit during ch. 1, and idk if some of them are joking or whatever, but it’s sad to see. of course the game “gets good”/ramps up later on- you need a little patience. i put “gets good” in quotes because the game IS ALREADY good in ch. 1! i think the setpieces, the characters, the quests, everything is introduced with care and love and attention. video games are a lot more fun when you take the time to look at everything around you, to listen to everything going on around you, and understand that there will be plenty of time later to kill NPCs with reckless abandon lmfao.
unrelated side note but everyone’s also so cute bundled up in their little winter outfits are you kidding me? i’ve got to do a proper fashion discussion on this game cuz so many characters have genuinely good fashion taste lol but this is the only chapter we get to see all their winter shawls and coats and boots and whatnot! i specifically reminisce about Dutch’s snazzy black coat, Arthur’s toasty blue coat and Javier’s stylish poncho and leg warmer combo fondly.
⋆★⋆
let’s discuss the second part of this post: Guarma, aka chapter 5. by the time i got to Guarma, I was… ehh… close to 80-90 hours into RDR2. i had just gone through the absolute shitshow that was the last couple of missions of chapter 4 (and oh i would GLADLY talk more about those events- another day) and waking up on Guarma was sort of like “you’re kidding me right. are you being fr.” like in the most exasperated way like have we not suffered enough. dear god. LOL. i think it is so so so interesting that Guarma is the closest the VDLG will ever get to their fabled, beauteous Tahiti… and in reality, Guarma is an absolute nightmare, the complete opposite of their dreams. it’s a pretty in-your-face indicator that Dutch is and has been full of shit, but what are Arthur, Bill, Micah and Javier supposed to do but grin and bear it?
speaking of the gang subgroup that made it to Guarma… Guarma was a death sentence. if Horseshoe Overlook was a breath of fresh air, of potential in the air, of things to come, Guarma was the devil signing these five men’s death certificates. or something. idk i tried to make a cool analogy out of this leave me alone. i mean this pretty literally- all five of these men die during either the course of 2 or 1, as a direct consequence of the gang, regardless of who (or what) kills them. I think the idea of death as a form of divine/ultimate punishment for those in the gang who especially need to atone for their sins is a really cool theme so having this particular combination of people in Guarma just seems so intentional to me.
not to mention that aside from Arthur, well. the other four men are EVIL… lol. Dutch and his fuckass group of yes-men. i say that with a lot of love in my heart- i really like Dutch and Javier so unfortunately im a little bit of an evil man apologist but like the other two are going to hell. there’s a certain prevailing feeling of loneliness throughout the game, both thematically and literally (if you’re the type to ignore the main story and the camp for IRL hours at a time to go exploring), and ch. 5 was LONELY. lonely because of the group’s literal isolation from their world as they knew it before this chapter, but also lonely because inter-gang hostilities were rising and soon, none of these men would want to see eye-to-eye with Arthur any longer. at this point in the game you really start feeling for Arthur- even if you didn’t know his tuberculosis had likely fully set in at this point, recent story events up till now have just sucked so bad. im still not over the saint denis bank robbery mission </3
quick unrelated fashion aside! now dont come for me w pitchforks and torches but… WHY WERE DUTCH AND JAVIER KINDA YUMMY……. LMFAO. i absolutely hated how overgrown my Arthur looked- idk if they default make his beard level 5-6ish during Guarma to show the timeskip regardless of how long his facial hair was before the shipwreck, but anything beyond level 3 is like gross to me i was like i need to speedrun this chapter so i can get to a damn shaving mirror!! but the scruffy overgrown-ness worked soo well on Dutch and Javier #sueme. i dont wanna hear it. im right and i know it. NO, Bill and Micah looked absolutely disgusting this chapter- the former’s balding head and the latter’s fuckass bare beer belly incite a violent urge within me. i did really enjoy how sunburnt and miserable-looking they all were though, very cute.
anyway. if the rest of the game is a mess of squiggly lines in terms of how much freedom you have to do whatever you want, and Colter is a slightly wavy line, Guarma is a stick-straight line. there is absolutely nothing else to do except the story missions. for one thing, your status for the entirety of your time on the island is wanted dead or alive. there was a pretty amusing bit i got myself into before i did any of the story missions there where i wanted to explore a bit and see if there was any side content and while i was studying the parrots and whatnot, red blips appeared on my map. i was like whatever i need the loot anyway (missed my shawty LoTE satchel BAD) and waited for them to come to me and i killed them all… but as i was looting them, more guards showed up! idk if it was because of the noise of the gunfire or because your wanted status made it much more likely that enemies would find you or what, but i was stuck in a never-ending loop of looting and accidentally spawning more enemies for what felt like a solid 15 minutes lol. eventually i got fed up and ran and they stopped spawning but jeez. if anything would deter me from trying to explore, it’s the random red blips on the map like i’m just trying to live.
getting back on track, regardless of how little there is to do on Guarma, the main story missions are, again, super interesting. i want to touch on one specific one as a testament to how important this chapter was for plot development: the one where you accompany Dutch to rescue Javier. you’re led most of the way by a woman who lives on Guarma, and when she stops to demand she get paid more, not knowing that Arthur and Dutch were virtually penniless due to their circumstances, Dutch’s knee-jerk response is to strangle her. huh. Arthur has expressed his disapproval of Dutch’s actions a few times before this, but this is one of the first times he expresses it openly and to his face. he remarks that Dutch has been killing a lot recently- killing a lot of innocent people. all Dutch can say is that there was little else he could do. if he could do anything else, he would- but he needs to put him and his gang’s survival before anything else for now. Arthur just responds by asking him if he was going to snap his neck next. :/
Dutch’s words were pretty cult leader-y, but is it bad that i have a tiny bit of sympathy for him in this moment? i actually have quite a bit of sympathy for Dutch in general- yes, he’s basically a cult leader, and yes, he’s a little insane, and yes… there were a lot of consequences the gang faced that were easily preventable or mitigated… but he tried to keep it together for as long as he could. if i were him at any of these story beats, where the gang was violently falling apart and time was running out, i’d be a little stir-crazy too. i’d be scrambling to figure out how to work it out too. especially at this point in the story: Dutch just watched his best friend die in front of him and all his money sink into the sea. I’d be a little frazzled too! if anything, Dutch is a fighter, and I have to respect him a little for that. he’s a fighter who doesn’t know when to give up, sure, but that perseverance and charisma to get others to rally behind his choices (up till a certain point, at least) just make sense for the VDLG leader.
going back to the mission, the pair navigate to the area where Fussar’s men were dragging poor Javier to, and Dutch ends up formulating a plan to cause a distraction to rescue him. poor Arthur- i was cringing listening to him hack and cough in that sugar mill as they dumped all that sugar out for the distraction lol. anyway, the point is that Dutch led the charge on this mission- and Javier recognizes this. I think this mission was key in Javier’s decision in siding with Dutch at the end- not the only factor, of course, but such an important one. i think a lot of players are pretty disappointed with him because he’s genuinely a really cool man and has only ever been cool for the entirety of the game, just to switch up on Arthur at the end, but I think it’s easy to forget his lore and relationship to Dutch specifically. yes, Javier is amicable and got along with Arthur, but Dutch is like a god to him- Arthur is no such thing.
writing this essay of a blog post has made me realize i have so many more RDR2 deep dives i need to make lmfao but man i need to psychoanalyze Dutch. that man is just a token cult leader, who took in so many of his gang members when they were at their lowest, who essentially saved them. i think quite a few gang members- like Javier- are blinded by the loyalty they develop as a response to this, where in their eyes, Dutch has nothing but their best intentions in his heart. I’m reminded of a random campfire conversation i overheard in i believe ch. 4 where Javier confesses to the others around the fire that he was unsure of the fate of the gang, but that all they need to do is believe in Dutch. he says out loud- as reassurance to the others, as reassurance especially for himself- that Dutch loved them. even as everything falls apart around him, he’s saved yet again by Dutch in Guarma- he’s blinded even further, to the point that reasoning against his beliefs is futile.
now let me get off my soapbox about Dutch and Javier lol like i said i love these two a lot. there’s a lot to take in on Guarma, from the wholly unfamiliar sights to the entire subplot with Fussar and the civil unrest occurring on the island, and forcing you back to square one inventory-wise on top of it all just adds an extra layer of challenge. that isn’t to say i found Guarma particularly difficult, but i like the complexity of it all.
uhh i have a couple of miscellaneous highlights to touch upon. i liked the story missions where you get to use heavy artillery like cannons- the screen shaking violently as you fire them at the soldiers arriving by boat below was awesome. going back even further, when you first wake up on Guarma, you manually walk Arthur up a sizeable but predetermined path before you see the others. I always try to take note when the game makes you manually move him when a cutscene would have sufficed perfectly because it always feels out of place and so intentional and i have to know why every time lol. i think this particular case makes sense- the devs don’t want you to explore just yet, but they’re forcing you to pay attention to your surroundings, forcing you to take the reins, even if they’re very limited ones for the time being. you’re forced to watch Arthur stumble his way up the sand, dehydrated and out of sorts, at HIS pace. the camera changes angles every now and then to demonstrate the scale and bleakness of the island, but there’s no camera cuts like a cutscene may have. they want you to deal with washing up in an unfamiliar and scary place in real time, to soak it all in and experience it in real time. congrats! greetings from tahiti!
I think one of the main qualms i see others have with Guarma is “why?” Why this chapter in the first place when it doesn’t seem to affect the main story much? why keep it in the game if R* devs apparently had to cut game content to meet deadlines and they cut out everything but the essentials in Guarma? but it DOES affect the main story- i just blabbered for forever about how lol! i could blab even further! Guarma is a physical representation of the VDLG fracturing- it was already starting to fall apart before this chapter, but i think this is very much an “oh shit” moment for both in-game characters and real players alike. if, somehow, players were still holding onto hope that the gang would be hunky-dorey after this, well. this chapter surely crushes any remaining glimmers of hope. at least it was pretty fun.
⋆★⋆
well good thing i know how to keep things succinct LMFAO. this topic, in fairness, has been marinating in my mind for a while. i’m all for hyperanalyzing a story-heavy game with a lot of intention in all of its mechanics like RDR2 but i especially like to focus on things that spark a lot of discourse in the fandom- colter and guarma, for instance. I don’t think my end goal was to change any minds though- I wrote this purely for the love of the game (literally).
wait it’s quite funny that colter and guarma are like physically complete opposites (geographically, climate-wise etc). there’s something to analyze about this-
⋆★⋆