Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open world game that’s often too closed for its own good. One of the best examples of this lack of flexibility comes from the low stakes of in-game poker. Winning or losing huge sums of money isn’t available in the game, and it’d be great to see the benefits and consequences of a real, tense card game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open-world game that’s unusually defined by its limits, and I hit one of the most frustrating limits whenever I play a round of in-game poker.
The problem isn’t with how Red Dead Redemption 2 handles the game of poker itself or how the card game is presented — both aspects of in-game poker are exemplary — the issue is that no single hand of cards can ever really mean anything. Poker is an exciting game to watch because it has stakes. But Red Dead Redemption 2 presents a version of poker in which very little can ever be won, and almost nothing can be lost.
And that means that rounds of poker might as well exist outside of Red Dead Redemption 2’s canonical timeline. You leave the story when you go to play some poker, and you also leave behind the ability to make any meaningful decisions.
The dollar amounts at risk are insultingly low, and I have yet to be put in a position where anything of note will happen if I win or lose each hand. The characters shoot the shit and discuss their play, but none of it matters. The only thing I ever changed in the game’s world by playing poker was shift my own budget a few bucks either way. Rockstar reduced poker to a secondary activity in which you could fulfill a few challenges that are also safely ignored.
I understand why risk was never added to the game. Winning a hand of poker often comes down to getting the other player, or players, to act against their own mathematical best interests.
