The actor behind Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan says the game does not have a happy ending - and he's not afraid to tell fans that.
This article contains story spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2.
In an interview with Gamology, voice actor Roger Clark, who plays Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, runs through the various endings of Rockstar's epic. "Arthur has four endings. He has the high or lower honor version of going to help John, and he has the high and low honor version of going back for the money. None of them are happy endings for him."
Clark is pretty definitive about the fact that Arthur's story doesn't end well, no matter what version you pick or how honorable you've been along the way. Unfortunately, it seems that perhaps not everyone is comfortable with the idea that there's no actual redemption on offer here, and Clark says he's had to set some fans straight in that regard.
"It's funny, too, you know, because sometimes I'll speak to fans, and I'll say, 'Which ending did you get?' Sometimes they'll go, 'Oh, I got the good ending!' And I'm like: 'There's a good ending?! What are you talking about?'"
Later in the video, Clark does go over the quieter moments towards the end of Arthur's story that show that it's not all bad. He says the scene with Sister Calderón, for example, is a rare example of vulnerability within the Western genre and also shows that Arthur contains multitudes. And when it comes to Morgan's final scene, Clark says that he's able to find "peace in his last few moments." That's an important character detail, but it's also, Clark says, about giving "the player some solace" at the end of a story that's pretty unambiguously unhappy for its main character.
Clark goes into a lot of detail about his time on Red Dead Redemption 2 during the video, including revealing the aspect of the recording process that he found most difficult.
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I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.