I'd listen to someone who has played both to completion regarding playing the first RDR first.

That's fair. After I responded to the question, I realized that I generalized the question to "Do I NEED to play the first one first?", and I feel qualified to give an answer to that question :)

I played a decent bit of the first RDR, probably 8 to 9 years ago, but I don't remember a lot of the story details of the game.

I never beat it because there was one mission I kept failing until I just rage quit: You had to ride your horse for 10 minutes during exposition and then chase a guy? shoot a guy? I can't remember now--but I kept insta-failing the mission and the checkpoint was extremely harsh on my time. It was taking me 10 to 15 minutes each attempt to fail this mission.

Luckily Rockstar became a lot more forgiving in their savepoints / ability to skip sections once you failed them a lot starting in GTAV and continuing in RDR2.

If you want to play RDR1, do so. It’s a great game. I would not say it’s necessary, however.

My only regret is that I didn't have a good checkpoint saved up pre-tuberculosis.

Totally understandable. That story twist took me by surprise and I didn't even think to keep a save file from before. I knew this game was large, though, and I was playing with the express purpose of making it through the story.

The game world does open up after the epilogue and you can do all the challenges and stuff still, but then you're not playing as Arthur anymore... So I understand where you're coming from.

[*]Would playing the first Red Dead Redemption help with the enjoyment of Red Dead Redemption 2? (A rather classic question.)

I had played a little bit of the first one. I don't believe you need to have played the first one at all to get a lot out of this one.

[*]Is the Single Player merged with Online or are they separate modes? (I've seen some videos of griefing.)

Completely separate.

[*] Is this essentially an "outlaw" game, GTA Western Style?

Storywise, this games is easily Rockstar's most emotionally mature game. Yes, it is a Western game set in a Western world, populated primarily by an outlaw gang, and you often will fight other outlaws. That being said, it isn't a generic outlaw game or a reductive western story. The world is interesting and exciting; it lives on the cusp of modern technological progress, often referred to as "civilization" in the game's dialogue. In other words, sometimes you see telephone poles.
Mechanically, the game is handled in a similar way as GTA. Weapons handle as you may expect, there is a "weapon wheel" to choose guns and items, etc.

According to the Rock Star Social Club, my playtime was roughly 61 hours. I don't possibly see how that is accurate. It felt like much longer--not in a bad way. Perhaps that doesn't include time that I died and reverted to a checkpoint? I have no idea. I started playing in summer of 2019, took a long break, and started playing again around June of this year.

I finished the story with 85.6% completion. I did every main story mission and I tried to do every Stranger (white dot) mission I could; I was not able to complete the Marko Dragic stranger story thread. I mostly ignored the "challenges" etc and I only did 5 legendary animals (4 of which were this past week; I wish I had done them sooner for the leveling bonuses they grant.

This game had one of the best, most fleshed out storylines of any game I've played. Dutch has more presence that possibly any other character from a video game I've ever experienced.

The world is beautiful and detailed.

The game definitely has some flaws--wonky and/or confusing controls primary among them--but by the end, it was all worth it.

Just curious how many people here started the game and finished it? Or never finished it?

I've never started it. I wanted to wait until I could afford a "Higher Tier" Xbox. By now that means I'm waiting for "Next Gen", presuming I can even afford it with all the everything happening right now.

• Would playing the first Red Dead Redemption help with the enjoyment of Red Dead Redemption 2? (A rather classic question.)
  
• Is the Single Player merged with Online or are they separate modes? (I've seen some videos of griefing.)
  
• Is this essentially an "outlaw" game, GTA Western Style?

Thank you. ^_^

I won't be waiting to finish RDR2 so that I can play CyberPunk 2077 for example...

But I am looking forward to play this game.

-SR

The island chapter wasn’t good at all, but loved everything else.

Yeah, totally agree with this. I think after that segment was when I stopped playing and took a long break.

I like how the epilogue really drove home the "it's a changing world" message of the game.

I loved the game. It’s gorgeous. I honestly stop kind of can’t believe how good it looks. I also loved the story. Arthur is such a well considered character, and I did like seeing Dutch’s decent. I also enjoyed the use of John throughout the game. I loved the epilogue.

I finished the story with 85.6% completion. I did every main story mission and I tried to do every Stranger (white dot) mission I could; I was not able to complete the Marko Dragic stranger story thread. I mostly ignored the "challenges" etc and I only did 5 legendary animals (4 of which were this past week; I wish I had done them sooner for the leveling bonuses they grant.

This game had one of the best, most fleshed out storylines of any game I've played. Dutch has more presence that possibly any other character from a video game I've ever experienced.

The world is beautiful and detailed.

The game definitely has some flaws--wonky and/or confusing controls primary among them--but by the end, it was all worth it.

Just curious how many people here started the game and finished it? Or never finished it?