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child that he left behind,
even though you didn't know them.

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- When did you know how you were
going to end Red Dead Redemption One?

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- I remember I did
a meeting with Christian, the

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designer. I can't remember
what year. Probably some point

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late 2008, early 2009, and we
were discussing the last bit and,

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and, and said, "I think
he's gotta die." And he

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leapt on the idea and went, "That's...
Yes, yes. No, no, wait, no, it can't work.

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Games can't work like that.
It can't work if he's dead." You know,

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began to think through,

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well, if we... Just technically it doesn't
work because you have to be able to finish

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all the stuff up, and then began
to think through, "Actually,

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I think we can make it
work if we do it this

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way." And so he then
really pushed for that idea,

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and it seemed to... I was like, "Ah,"
and I was still torn. I thought it

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was clever narratively but I
was torn if it was gonna work

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technically as a piece of game
design, but I think it did.

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- Yeah, and spoiler alert,
of course, how do we tell the

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story of that? Well, so he
goes through a lot. He does

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all the... John does all the dirty
work of hunting down his old gang and he

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finally is able to go home
and be with his family,

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be on the ranch, and then
the government betrays him and

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sends troops to kill him.
And there is dialogue. I mean, that just,

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I think the two times I shed a tear
in video game history for me is

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that dialogue.

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I think John talking to his wife,

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if I vaguely remember.
I think he said, "I love you."

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But he said very little. He didn't...
He made it seem like he's going to see

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her and his son shortly. That dialogue was

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masterfully done,
like a definition of like less is more.

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It was just so crisp, that

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and... And, of course, the other one
is again, from memory, Arthur riding

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his horse and the music is playing.
It's very hard not to shed

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a tear during that. Anyway,
the dialogue of John talking to his wife

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at the end when he's in a barn
and is about to walk out.

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to face certain death.
Do you remember writing that?

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- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
But it just... Again, I went...

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The actor was so good and we've already
seen a bunch of his work by then.

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He had such a good... He was so good
at reading those lines that I knew he

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could give us... that you
could feel at that point, like-

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…I think those lines are best when they're
really short and punchy. So I knew—

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- Got it. - I knew he'd be able
to make that line sound good.

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- So you were imagining
his voice. You were just-

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- And I think all
of those actors on Red Dead

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Redemption One were so strong that they
really brought that game to life. If

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them and Rod, the director, hadn't
done such a good job, it would have

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sounded cheesy as hell.

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- You've said that the ending of RDR1 is
one of the best things you've been a part

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of

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creating. Why is that ending so
powerful to you? What does it represent?

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- I think because for the story
to work, just from a technical

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challenge, for the story
to work, he had to

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die. But for a game to work,
it felt like a challenge to

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make him die. It was probably the

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fourth, fifth, or sixth
open-world game I'd worked on, and

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I'd spent all these years before that
working out how these stories worked.

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How to make them work technically, how to
make them feel right, how they interacted

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with the open-form
gameplay as best I could.

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And suddenly we're going to break one
of our golden rules, which was, at the

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end of the game, you're freeing the
character to go and wrap up all the side

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stories, to play

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forever. You're not going to be able to do
that in this game because the guy's going

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to be dead, and we're going to have

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you play as a different character,
and the narrative is going to

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be compelling enough,
if we've done a good job,

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where you're not going to care about that.

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Or you're going to be upset that he's
dead, but you can actually have this

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emotional moment.

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So I think it was a big risk from a
technical perspective for us to do that,

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and then it worked. So I think
that was something that was very…

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full of fear, and it worked out okay.

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And I think people were really upset
and angry at us for doing it because they

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didn't think it was going to happen, but

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I think they also had that kind
of experience you're describing,

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which is that kind of creative

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moment where, you know, a transcendent
moment with characters in a piece

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of fiction, which is what we've
always aspired to giving people.

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- I mean, it's incredible
because I don't think…

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I don't remember a single video
game that has done that before.

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- Well, I would like to have,
at the end of GTA IV, killed Niko,

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but you couldn't do

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it. You know, the game doesn't work
like that. So it was this thing where we

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hadn't done it, thought about doing it,
hadn't done it, and then going, "Let's

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do it. Let's take the risk and do it.
We can't do it. Let's try." And it worked.

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- Yeah, what about the decision
with the son? You know,

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John gives so much effort to make
sure that Jack doesn't end up

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in a life of violence. I mean,
it's very Godfather-like. It's—

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…he's dragged back
into it through revenge.

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- That was also, the game still had to
work as a game. Whether that was the right

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ending, 100% the best ending from a pure
storytelling perspective, I don't know.

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But I know that we had
to make the game work.

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- Oh, interesting.

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- So it was... I think it kind
of worked in that way where Jack can't

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escape, but I always also wanted
a version of it where Jack did

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escape, but that wasn't...
Both were interesting to me.

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- Can you just dig in a little deeper?
What do you mean about for the game

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to work?

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It's such a direct... It's like Kubrick
talking about for this movie to work,

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it has to have... From my perspective,
I just think about the story.

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What's the technical
aspect for the game to work?

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- It's just the mechanical
experience is you have an

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avatar you control, and you know,
the games don't really end.

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You have to be able to wander
around the world and do stuff.

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So at the end of the game, you have
to be able to wander around with your

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fairly limited set of

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features, which is you can run up
to someone and punch them or shoot them or

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rob them, or talk to them. And that's

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kind of... or jump on a
horse or do all this other

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stuff. In order for the game still
to be fun and people to get this full

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360-degree experience with it,
they had to, if they

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wanted to 100% the game as opposed to just
finishing the story, you have to have an

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avatar to do that stuff with. So
that was the sort of challenge of Jack's

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character, wrapping up the story as Jack.

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- Oh, there's real power for the
avatar to end, the finiteness.

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- Yeah. Both the Red Deads,
you obviously change avatars.

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Which we did, and then did it again. I
think there's something interesting about

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that moment when you change
from one character to another,

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because they are you and they're not

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you, you know, and then
suddenly you're someone else.

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- Mm-hmm. I mean,
I was really shaken by that

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experience, but it's a beautiful
experience. It's like an unforgettable

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experience. What else can
video games possibly reach

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for? You know, to create that experience,

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that's what great films do,
that's what great, great books do.

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- It's that. I mean, it's that
and the world building in games.

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I think the experience of being in this

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fake place and then
taking on these narrative

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adventures, when that combines,
you've got the amazing experience.