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A blazing arcade-style third person game fueled by precision gunplay, Red Dead Revolver is a classic tale of vengeance on the untamed frontier. The addictively fun, innovative combat scheme rewards accurate and ruthless elimination of backwater lowlifes. Ride down outlaws on horseback, fight bloody duels aboard trains, command stagecoaches and more in your quest for justice. Punctuated with dark humor and filled with the elements that make the Wild West so compelling, Red Dead Revolver's story is told through full motion cutscenes and breathtaking in-game visuals.
Official description [1]

Red Dead Revolver is a 2004 western-themed third-person shooter video game developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games.

Originally a concept developed by Japanese game company Capcom, Revolver was eventually picked up by Rockstar Games. Set in the 1880s, it follows the story of Red Harlow, a bounty hunter on a quest to avenge the deaths of his parents. The gameplay involves arcade-like elements and shooting mechanics, alongside a multiplayer mode called Showdown Mode.

Red Dead Revolver was released to mixed reviews, gaining praise for its western aesthetics, uniqueness among the third-person shooter genre and story, but criticism towards its outdated gameplay elements, repetitive action, and difficult learning curve. Despite the lukewarm reception, Revolver was used as an inspiration for a spiritual successor, 2010's Red Dead Redemption, and became the first installment of the Red Dead series.

It was originally released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox home consoles on May 4, 2004, and was re-released as a PS2 Classic for the PlayStation 3 on December 19, 2012, and the PlayStation 4 on October 11, 2016, alongside a trophy list; the PS4 version is backwards compatible with the PlayStation 5, released on November 8, 2020. In 2021, as part of Xbox’s backwards compatibility, Rockstar Games released Red Dead Revolver on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

Overview

The game's development stalled when it was dropped by Capcom. In 2002, Rockstar Games purchased the game and expanded on it. Changing from a supernatural American western to a Spaghetti Western allowed the developers to add more blood and over-the-top characters.

The lead character appears to be an amalgamation of various Western Clint Eastwood-inspired characters from assorted movies, particularly the Man with No Name character, with whom he shares many similar traits. The game reproduces a "grainy film" effect and uses music from many different Spaghetti Western soundtracks.

Gameplay

The game allows the purchase of goods at local town stores. Goods range from general store items, which unlock extras, to guns and multiplayer characters. Each individual character has a unique ability which can be activated after so many kills or a certain amount of time. For example, Jack Swift can quickly empty his guns on a single target and Buffalo Soldier can impale men with a flare from a rifle. Guns can be purchased at stores and are chosen before each mission. The game offers a wide selection of shotguns, rifles, thrown weapons, and, of course, revolvers. Weapon repair plays a minor role.

There are four difficulty levels available for the single-player campaign.

Multiplayer

Main article: Showdown Mode

Cheats

Main article: Cheats in Revolver

Contents

Journal

Main article: Sheriff Bartlett's Journal

Soundtrack

Main article: Red Dead Revolver Soundtrack

History

Development

The game was originally under development at Capcom and had a very different gameplay style. According to Hamish Brown, Capcom's game was "uber-arcade," and "It even had a character who could fly."[2] Rockstar decided near the end of development of Revolver that an open world environment was "the only way to do this subject matter justice."[3]

Release History

Red Dead Revolver was released in North America on May 4, 2004, for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox; in PAL regions on June 11, 2004, and on May 26, 2004, in Japan.

On December 19, 2012, Rockstar announced that the game had been added to the PlayStation Store as a downloadable "PS2 Classic" for use on the PS3. Since 2016, the game has been available for purchase on the PlayStation 4.

On November 15th 2021, as part of Xbox’s 20th anniversary, Rockstar released Red Dead Revolver to the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S as part of Xbox’s backwards compatibility with original Xbox games, allowing anyone who owns a Red Dead Revolver Xbox disc or who purchased the game on the marketplace to play the game on a Xbox One or Series X

Reception

The game received mixed to favorable reviews. It holds 75% on GameRankings, and 74 on Metacritic. IGN gave the PS2 version a 7/10 and 7.5/10 to the Xbox version. Reviewers praised the game for its plot and unique style, but the game received criticism for its gameplay, graphics (IGN noticed that the Xbox's version has better graphics than the PS2 version), and sound. 1Up gave the game a "C" score.

Red Dead Revolver was included as one of the titles in the 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, alongside its sequel and other games published by Rockstar Games, such as Grand Theft Auto.

Sequel

Rumors of a sequel began to circulate around 2005, when Rockstar showed a video of an Old West horseback rider. This ran on early PlayStation 3 hardware. The project was only known as the "Old West Project".

Although not a direct sequel, on February 4, 2009, Red Dead Redemption was announced for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Said game was released on May 18, 2010, in North America, May 20, 2010, in Australia and May 21, 2010, in Europe.

Setting

Universe

The entire story of Red Dead Revolver takes place in a timeline unconnected to the later Redemption continuity, although some events from it are taken into account in order to make Easter Eggs[4]. The world this game is based on has several parallels to the America seen in the Red Dead Redemption series, even featuring its own parodies of historical events that occurred in the Wild West.

Place

The exact state in which the events of the game take place is unspecified, however it can be inferred that Brimstone is located somewhere in the Southwest, as General Diego finds himself fighting a battle at a bridge bordering Mexico in the Rio Grande, something that would fit with Texas or New Mexico. Additionally, there are a few other references to the Southwest: in the item description of a lasso that belonged to frontiersman Longhorn Luke and when talking to Billy Cougar he calls himself "The fastest gun north of the Rio Grande".

Time

The chronology of the game is unclear. The developers deliberately included influences from various periods of the Old West to make the game more inclusive and less of a period piece. Weapon design and architecture feature influences going back to the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, but there are also other pieces of information that hint at a setting sometime in the 1880s.

  • Sheriff Bartlett mentions in his Journal that Brimstone's first settlers arrived nearly 40 years ago, which would put the town's founding year around the 1840s or 1850s.
  • Pig Josh was a demolitions expert during the Civil War (1861-1865), but before that, it is confirmed by Abigail Peppercorn that he used to live in Brimstone. When she was Joshua's teacher, he blew up the wall of a "bath house" for unknown reasons, and then left Brimstone. This being a possible motive for Joshua to go to the war due to his appetite for destruction.
  • "Young Red" is between 14 and 17 years old, which could suggest that Red's birth year is located in the early 1860s, based on his voice and appearance in the Prologue.
  • Sheriff Bartlett states that the events seen in the missions "The Traitor" and "Bull's Eye" occurred "about 12 years" prior - likely in the mid 1870s.
  • The Bayonet Rifle and the Old Pistol were adopted by the US Army in 1873 and 1875, implying that they were produced in those years, and both weapons were already in service by the time the Prologue takes place.
  • In the mission titled "The Cemetery", the player can find a tombstone with name "Black Bart" on it. Black Bart was an actual stagecoach robber who was born in 1829 and later died in 1888, this could set the game taking place slightly after his death, most likely 1889. Although references to real-life events or characters aren't always canon to the game's timeline.
  • Chris Bailey is a character/level boss that appears in Red Dead Revolver and was also featured in the Red Dead Redemption: Multiplayer. One of his optional taunts reads: "Whatta ya think this is? The goddamn 1880's?". This is a nod to the time period Red Dead Revolver is set.[5]
  • The map used for the game's fictional "Twelve States" does exist and is an 1882 edition of a Progress Map of the U.S. Geographical Surveys, confirming that Rockstar intended the game to be set in the 1880s.[6]
  • Jack Swift in the multiplayer claims to know the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, a commonly accepted code in the sport of boxing. These rules were written and published in the late 1860s, indicating that Swift learned boxing during his youth and perhaps before joining the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Due to these factors, it is inferred the game is set in the late-1880s.

Trivia

  • All references to Red Dead Revolver characters and its storyline are one of the many examples of Rockstar Games turning three-dimensional characters into "mythical characters from a bygone era" after the series' reboot with the release of Red Dead Redemption in 2010 - a similar case to that of the Grand Theft Auto franchise.[7]
    • Red Harlow, Jack Swift, Annie Stoakes and Shadow Wolf being brought back through campfire interactions, along with the dialogue between Jack and John Marston in "John Marston and Son", is an obvious double meaning referencing the fact that the Revolver canon is over and the characters in this universe are complete different entities, who may or may not have existed in the past.
    • Mentions of Grove Street Families in the HD Universe are similar to Red Dead Revolver lore and characters being treated as folklore and legends in the Red Dead Redemption universe.

Gallery

External links

References

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