There’s plenty of controversial content in Red Dead Redemption 2. Weeks after its record-breaking release, Rockstar Games’ western adventure made headlines after gamers gleefully published clips of themselves punching (and lassoing and shooting and maiming) the game’s suffragette characters. Yet away from the headlines, players have continued to enjoy testing the (very few) limits of the open-world game.

You can shoot an old lady and, if you like, you can kill a few dogs. You can sacrifice just about anyone to hungry gators and, at one point, you’ll be required to feed a corpse to pigs. While newspapers might be appalled, gamers themselves were never going to be shocked by the limitless gore of Red Dead Redemption 2. Yet, while nothing players could do in the game would upset them, some have been disturbed by something that was done to them.

"It granted me a new perspective on rape”

In a small cabin northwest of Saint Denis, a hillbilly waits in a shack. “Hello there, mister,” he calls to your protagonist, Arthur Morgan. “I got food inside, come along.” If the player enters his cabin they are promptly knocked unconscious, unable to do anything for the next minute. Over a black screen they hear the sounds of a belt unbuckling. “You struggled and you lost,” the hillbilly says, calling you his “pet”. After being dumped in a clearing, a bow-legged Arthur will mutter the words, “Oh, my Lord.”

“I felt like shit,” says Jonas, a 20-year-old gamer from Bahrain. “It did feel weird. As a gamer, you get attached to your character and it kinda feels like you’re Arthur… I wanted to find that monster and end him.”

While the scene isn’t explicitly rape, many players have interpreted it this way. Underneath a YouTube video of the encounter that has been watched more than 100,000 times, some commenters joke about the apparent assault. “When I came across this encounter is when I knew Rockstar has no morals lol,” one writes. Another simply says, “Gayyy.”

It’s clear many gamers aren’t shocked by the scene, or praise Rockstar for realism (one player approached for comment simply said, “This isn’t newsworthy. It’s in the game, period”). Yet, while some are unfazed, others – like Jonas, who called the scene “super uncomfortable” – had strong reactions, ranging from being triggered into recalling their own assaults, seeking brutal revenge on the “rapist”, and gaining new empathy with victims of sex crimes.

“Yes, it granted me a new perspective on rape,” says Kyle Rees, 17, from Wales. Rees stumbled upon the scene before hearing about it on YouTube or gaming forums so was shocked by the attack. “I felt absolutely hanging,” he says, describing himself as “pissed off”. Yet, despite his anger, the teenager felt he learned from the scene.

“Before experiencing this scene I never really gave much thought about rape. I’ve always been a bit negligent or closed-minded about it,” he admits. “I’ve always thought to myself, ‘How can you even allow someone to rape you? Just claw at the dude’s eyes or punch him in the nuts.’”

After the scene, the teen realised many victims are helpless. “They are powerless to stop themselves from being raped either due to fear, lack of strength or simply because they are unconscious, which I don’t even wanna imagine how that must feel.”

Rockstar’s scene is so realistic that little imagination is required. The encounter reminded one 24-year-old from Saudi Arabia, who asked to remain anonymous, of a time she was drugged. “I’ve been in a similar situation once… as soon as I witnessed the scene I paused the game and reached for my fiancé. It freaked me out for sure because I didn’t expect it at all.”

If the scene is so realistic that it can provoke these reactions, is it in any way beneficial? Red Dead’s suffragette storm is just the latest in a long line of controversies surrounding gamers’ apparent sexism. Could Arthur Morgan’s assault somehow be an antidote? A way to make gamers empathise with rape victims (instead of moderating the code in Grand Theft Auto so they can assault women)? Or is the whole scene simply trivialising and tasteless?

“It raises complex questions about the role of gaming in our cultural and social consciousness and how such elements can be responsibly handled,” says Andy Connolly, the director of SurvivorsUK, a male rape and sexual abuse charity.

“SurvivorsUK welcomes the promotion of awareness about the experiences of men who have been subject to sexual violence. This applies across all platforms, including gaming.

“However, we are also aware of the extreme sensitivity of this subject area and that, for some survivors, the idea of this being subject matter of a computer game will be difficult and triggering.” Connolly also adds that the scene could even perpetuate myths about the nature of these crimes and the people who commit them and could “raise difficult questions about differential treatment of survivors based on their gender identity”.

Many gamers certainly feel the latter point. “Where are the feminists now?” writes one YouTube commenter. “Oh, man, if the protagonist was a female just think about the outrage that this would have sparked,” says another. It’s hard to argue with this logic after the headlines prompted by the suffragette controversy. “If I’m being honest, had the protagonist been a female, I heavily doubt they’d include that scene due to, well, you know, PC culture,” Jonas says.

Yet part of the issue is that gamers’ reactions are divided – many value the scene. “I think [Rockstar included it] to show it can happen to anyone,” London, a 21-year-old gamer from the US, says. His initial reaction to the scene was to feel sad for Arthur, “as silly as that sounds to say about a digital character”.

“You never would’ve expected it,” he says, “especially as playing such a rough and tough outlaw cowboy. I agree with their decision to include it.” Anukuare Tsikata, a 27-year-old also from the US, says the scene made her “jaw drop” and “stomach turn”, but also agrees with Rockstar’s decision.

“I’d actually hope any player who comes across this cutscene is disturbed and horrified… As terrible as it is, it does show that Arthur is indeed apt to vulnerability despite how he is generally portrayed.”

In the end, the limitlessness of the game came full circle: while you can be assaulted, you can also enact brutal justice on the attacker. “I went back to his house, hogtied him and fed him to the gators,” said the Saudi Arabian gamer. Rees drowned the hillbilly in a swamp, while Jonas fed him to alligators. Online, most of the discussion around the scene is about the varying ways people sought revenge, with some even quitting the game before it saved in order to “undo” the act.

It is difficult to know the overall effect the scene has had – and how long-lasting that effect might be. Rees, the youngest player interviewed, does hope that others will learn from the encounter.

“I want to believe Rockstar made this scene in order to get people to understand how serious rape cases are,” he muses. “But maybe it’s just Rockstar being Rockstar.”

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