Red Dead Revolver - PlayStation 2 / XBOX - 2004

I worked closely with Capcom and Rockstar Games to develop an action-adventure game worthy of both companies. I was responsible for key areas in the game, such as the innovative multiplayer section, the menu flow and HUD systems, the combo/money system that drove the player progression system, level design, and AI scripting for both single-player and multiplayer levels.

• Redesigned and repurposed assets to fit the thematic narrative appropriate for a Rockstar game within a challenging 9-month deadline, saving Red Dead Revolver from cancellation. The game went on to sell over 1 million units in the US alone.

• Building upon the thematic setting of Red Dead Revolver, created a rich and detailed story bible and set of world-building documents that are used as the backdrop to Red Dead Redemption and its 2018 sequel.

When Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in 2018, there was a minor resurgence in nostalgia for Red Dead Revolver. I was approached by Chris Bratt, a journalist who makes videos about the stories behind the making of classic games. The video below is the history of the development of Red Dead Redemption’s production, largely based on an interview we did together in 2018.

Polygon wrote a wonderfully researched retrospective about Red Dead Revolver, published a few weeks after the PMG video (which it references). It is well worth reading if you want more insight into how Rockstar San Diego ended up working on Red Dead Revolver for Capcom in the first place.

Here is another retrospective, this time without my involvement, it is yet another stunningly through documentary about the making of Red Dead Revolver.

Red Dead Revolver’s unique loading experience

This is an excellent article about the load screens of Red Dead Revolver: https://www.gamesradar.com/why-i-love-red-dead-revolvers-gun-spinning-loadscreens/

We tried to keep everything appropriate to the 60s/70s psychedelic vibe that was part of the zeitgeist of the spaghetti western, even when you were transitioning between levels. Instead of loading indicator bars and static screens, we wanted something that would establish the personality of the protagonists.

At the time, it was unusual for load screens to be more than 2D images. In the years since, it has become more popular to use 3D assets and motion art instead of static images, especially in modern gaming, since the data transfer speed of a Blu-ray disc is cripplingly slow.

Case Study: Red Dead Revolver - Reward System

SUMMARY

This Case Study recounts the development team's innovative solution to a design challenge. The team's painstakingly crafted animation system, featuring realistic reactions to being shot, was overlooked by players who favored efficient headshots. Attempts to discourage this by adjusting enemy health or the user interface proved detrimental to the game's enjoyment. The introduction of a new producer, Oz, brought a fresh perspective inspired by Japanese action games: a combo system rewarding skillful play. Initially met with resistance, the idea evolved to reward players with higher bounties for performing specific actions before delivering the final blow, thus showcasing the animation system without compromising player agency. This elegant solution highlighted the team's work and provided a framework for balancing the in-game economy and encouraging replayability, contributing to the game's eventual success.

Red Dead Revolver's animation system, meticulously crafted over four years, was a testament to our animation team's unwavering dedication. This system was a labor of love, with each character hand-animated to mirror real-life behavior when shot. The end result was that enemies could have their guns shot out of their hands, their hats shot off of their heads, and the AI was sophisticated enough to react dynamically and "dance" if you shot at their feet.

The challenge was that the players prioritized headshots during our playtests, leaving all this hard work unseen. We tried increasing enemy health so that headshots were less effective, making the game less fun. We tried different UI remedies to see what we could do—however, each solution seemed artificial and made the weapons feel less impactful.

Our publisher gave us a new producer, Oz, who had just finished working on Max Payne 2 and had been a wealth of good advice and guidance on making the gunplay feel better. However, Oz was a big fan of the Japanese action games of the time, which encouraged players to build combos by chaining together kills to build skill ranks from C to the fabled S rank. Oz wanted us to add a similar feature to encourage skillful play. Yet, all we could see was another reason for players to prioritize headshots, and that would only exacerbate the problem.

For weeks, we debated the Combo idea, with Oz making the case for it and us stalwartly defending our position, until eventually Oz came to visit us. As we walked through the latest build of the game, explaining the situation yet again and going back and forth on the pros and cons, I realized we needed to look at the problem differently.

We had been assuming that the combos would come from players killing the outlaws—what if we used skillful gunplay as the scoring mechanism? Sure, you could shoot an enemy in the head and get $10, but if you shot the gun out of their hand or shot the hat off their head first, what if that made the bounty $15 or $20? At first glance, we would solve our headshots versus animation issue, we could keep the gunplay feeling impactful, and we would reward adept players with more money per kill with the Combo system, adding risk/reward to how you decided to take down the bad guy.

This solution offered other benefits too—something I like to call the "positive momentum of a great idea"—now we had a way to manage and balance our in-game economy; since we knew how many enemies were in a level, we could estimate the lowest amount of money a player could earn and encourage replayability by tying unlockable items to scoring thresholds.

Even in the early gameplay test, we felt we were on to something special—the animation team was ecstatic that more people were seeing their work. After contributing a central mechanic to the game, our producer felt like part of the team and closer to the project, and we all thought we were heading in the right direction with the gameplay.

Red Dead Revolver was a surprise summer hit for Rockstar in 2004, selling one million units in the US alone. However, its success was vastly overshadowed by that of its sequel, Red Dead Redemption, and the Red Dead franchise became Rockstar Games' second-most successful franchise behind Grand Theft Auto.