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Legends into multibillion-dollar businesses
and, more profoundly, an entire way of life.
Last October, Rockstar Games, the Man-
hattan-based juggernaut behind the long-
running Grand Theft Auto series, released its
latest blockbuster for PlayStation and Xbox,
Red Dead Redemption 2, a prequel to its 2010
action-adventure fantasy set in a fictional-
ized American West. The new game, which
took more than seven years and hundreds of
millions to produce, casts players as a gang
of outlaws who ride and rob and shoot their
way across the frontier. The lush landscapes
of flowing rivers and snowy mountaintops,
inspired by painters like Rembrandt and
Bierstadt, cover many square miles of ter-
ritory. This imaginary world teems with
wildlife: bison roaming the plains, geese
flying overhead, sockeye salmon jumping
upstream. Completing the various missions
that propel you through the story often feels
secondary to simply exploring.
The scope of Red Dead Redemption 2 ri-
vals the biggest Hollywood films: 300,000
animations, half a million lines of dialogue,
1,200 actors (700 with speaking parts),
2,200 days of motion-capture scene work,
and a 2,000-page script. As Rockstar Games
cofounder Dan Houser told New York maga-
zine last year, the result is an experience “in11.19 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 97
which the world unfolds around you, depen-
dent on what you do.” Red Dead Redemption
2 was released on October 26, 2018, and
brought in $725 million during its first week-
end, beating the strongest film opening of
2018, Avengers: Infinity War, by almost $100
million. Seventeen million copies shipped in
just two weeks.
For developers, the goal of this new gen-
eration of open-world games is stimulating
a player’s sense of adventure in ways that
emulate the real thing. Jean-Sebastien De-
cant, creative director for the latest Far Cry
installment, New Dawn—which puts play-
ers in a carefully rendered postapocalyptic
Montana—says, “The key is to provide as
much agency and as many surprises as pos-
sible.” Worlds are designed to make players
expect the unexpected—say, a hermit liv-
ing in a wilderness cave—just as one might
stumble upon a bear in Yellowstone. Maura
Reagan, a former ReStart therapist, suggests
that the simulations satisfy something pri-
mal in her clients, similar to what they might
feel if they were climbing Mount Everest or
descending the Amazon: a sense of pur-
pose, accomplishment, and empowerment.
“These guys are getting the hero’s journey,”
she says, “but digitally.”
New science indicates that digital adven-ture may be just as thrilling as the real thing.
An emerging body of research suggests that
these virtual worlds can stimulate the same
brain activity and physiological response as
offline exploration. But taking epic journeys
without leaving your basement can come at
a price. In the most extreme cases—for peo-
ple like Brian and the other patients at Re-
Start—the gaming world became so alluring
that they left the real one behind.“THIS IS MICROSOFT country,” Cosette
Rae, the cofounder of ReStart and also its
CEO, tells me as we plod down a snowy path
to a large gray-sided lodge with sweeping
views of the Cascades. We’re visiting Seren-
ity Mountain, a ReStart rehab facility, simi-
lar to the ranch, that’s devoted exclusively
to teenagers. Serenity sits on 32 rolling acres
of winding trails and towering trees. There’s
an indoor pool, three koi ponds, and a barn
that’s been converted into a gym and art
room. A sign on the front door reads LIVE
THE GOOD LIFE; another says NO SMOKING
OR VAPING. A few scruffy gamers in puffy
jackets and hoodies hurl snowballs with one
of the psychologists, a middle-aged guy in
worn boots and a plaid shirt.
The proximity to Bellevue—home to
Microsoft, Nintendo, and other giants inA rider in the
landscape
of Red Dead
Redemption 2