Playing the End of the West: Agency, American Identity, and Historical Change in Red Dead Redemption 2

Abstract

This preprint examines how Red Dead Redemption 2 uses the tension between player freedom and narrative inevitability to explore American identity, historical change, morality, and the decline of the frontier myth. Drawing on game studies approaches to simulation, narrative, choice, immersion, embodiment, and player agency, the paper analyzes the game’s open-world structure, honor system, construction of Arthur Morgan, representation of capitalism and modernization, use of sound and embodied play, and the player’s desire to resist the game’s fixed ending. It argues that the game’s central achievement lies in allowing players meaningful local agency while preserving a historically determined macro-narrative. This tension transforms the limits of player freedom into a reflection on the end of the American West and the instability of national myths of freedom, reinvention, and individual autonomy.