One of 2022’s best books includes a Red Dead Redemption 2 review

A prestigious short story collection from an award-winning Irish author isn’t the first place I’d expect to find a clever critique of a popular video game, and the double-edged sword of escapism. In the second story of Colin Barrett’s HomesicknessThe well-reviewed compilation of eight stories set mostly in Ireland is titled. It takes some time to assess the pros and cons of the story. Blood Dusk 2, a not-so-subtle wink at Rockstar’s massively successful open-world Western.

Gerry is a young boy who was raised by his siblings after his parents’ deaths. He refuses to get out of his bedroom. While Gerry is not watching his family closely, he enjoys the comfort of knowing that his next game will be the same.

Here’s the excerpt:

Gerry, the flesh and blood boy was sat on his beanbag. The only light in the room was the TV above the dresser. The floor was covered in his slippers as his PlayStation wheezed. Blood Dusk 2 was the game. Cole Skuse was an ex-Yankee soldier turned mercenary. Right now, Gerry was about to attempt the rescue of Skuse’s love interest, a beautiful blonde prostitute named Dora Levigne. Her hostage was the Cullen Gang inside the saloon. The mission was to get into the saloon, ventilate as many Cullen boys possible and then get her out. Cullen’s faction belonged to a larger band of scalp-hunters, murderers and rapists led by the Padre. The Padre was your true and final adversary, the man who, in the game’s prologue, had ordered the murder of your family.

Gerry loved Blood Dusk 2. However, he was less and less fond of the tedious, shootout intensive missions that you were required to perform in order to move the plot forward. It was too favoring you. There were too many auto save points and too many lives. It was too difficult to target your opponent with a nuanced, forgiving system. Gerry was able to return time and again because of the game map. Two hundred and fifty-five miles of beautifully simulated frontier North America in the nineteenth century was covered by this map. While the missions tended to cluster in the towns and settlements that occupied only a small percentage of the game’s physical environment, Gerry had spent countless hours ranging through the enormous remainder of the map. The remains of Indian graves were discovered by Gerry, who chased down buffalo in an open area and drank moonshine along with a deranged prospector near a creek. You could shoot any living thing, but Gerry resisted whenever possible. The area was teeming with wildlife, as well as other people. To watch the setting sun, Gerry would drag his nag along the trail of a hill, to see the rising rays on the walls of distant canyons, as well as the numerous vultures in thermals.

It’s a beautiful bit of prose, wielding Gerry’s feelings about the game to pry open the door into Gerry’s psychology. The story of a man who’s lost his family resonates, but the boy cares less about the violent standoffs that drag the story into the swampy, repetitive violence of shooters. And the hero’s struggle with grief and revenge is too easy, too free of pain. Gerry can’t stop playing, though, because this sprawling facsimile of the world is a respite from his own, so totally disconnected in time and space.

Barrett really talking about it? Red Dead Redemption 2? He doesn’t use the official title. Whether that decision ties to legal boundaries or personal choice, Barrett’s clear about the simulacrum and its function. Barrett encourages the reader to view themselves in the grieving child by critiquing one among the most beloved games. With a couple of paragraphs describing a video game within the context of its player’s life, Barrett holds a mirror to our own relationship with Red Dead, along with all the other games we play for relief from reality.

A certain generation of video game enthusiasts has spent a lot of time seeking out validation for their passion. We have heard for decades that politicians, pundits and parents have deemed video games violent and puerile. Gaming was second to other serious interests like film, literature, music and sports. But that’s changed with time, as people raised on games become great artists, weaving the medium into the larger tapestry of art.

Games are a part of literature. Literature is seen in games. Idealistically, stories are more about us than literature.