Watch just five minutes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and you’ll be gobsmacked. Experience over an hour and you’ll realise that Rockstar Games isn’t just crafting perhaps its greatest open-world title so far, but an experience that will likely alter the videogame landscape forevermore.

Set 12 years before the beloved 2010 original, Red Dead Redemption 2 transports you to America in 1899 ­­– a time where the “wild” west is increasingly less so, as lawmen around the country do their best to put an end to the last remaining outlaw gangs. The Van der Linde gang is one such group of criminal rascals, and you’ll be able to live their tale through the boots of Arthur Morgan – a loyal and senior member who was brought in by Dutch Van der Linde at a young age.

Watch the Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer here:

Red Dead Redemption 2 features Rockstar’s first world built from the ground up for the new generation of hardware, and it shows immediately. Visuals are positively breathtaking and the level of detail on offer is immense. Horse tracks are visible in snow-covered environments, while blood and dirt remain on Arthur’s clothing until you shell out for the occasional bath. Even his facial hair will grow at a steady rate, meaning a poor choice with grooming can’t be immediately retconned. Taken individually these may look like inconsequential additions, but when combined highlight the fact that the developer, now utilising all its studios around the globe, is in a class of its own.

Cinematics are also scoring an upgrade, with the transition from cutscene to gameplay now smoother than ever and a new cinematic camera option (which can be triggered at any time) that will swap between angles to impart a bit of Hollywood flair to your adventure. It’s a neat inclusion that is most effective on long rides where you can hold X or A to make Arthur’s horse stick to the trail – giving you the opportunity to switch between cameras yourself.

What impressed us the most about the game, however, is the sheer scope it presents you with: a world that continues to live and breathe whether you spend the time exploring its nooks and crannies or not. As we wandered about the wilderness while hunting, for example, we eventually stumbled upon a man tending to his horse. As we began to approach, we were told that we could either greet or antagonise the stranger, but wanting to keep the peace, decided on the friendlier option.

Watch the Red Dead Redemption 2 gameplay reveal here:

But as the stranger made moves to reply to our greeting, his horse, unexpectedly spooked, threw back its hind legs – straight into the head of its owner. Before we even had a moment to process, the man was dead and the horse in the wind. It was quick, brutal, and completely random. Encounters like this are a dime a dozen in Red Dead Redemption 2 and are amazingly dictated purely by chance.

During another ride we struck up a conversation with a stagecoach driver, the two of us halted at a train crossing. This time, however, we’d taken the antagonistic approach, quickly firing off an insult that heated proceedings up equally as fast. From there you’ll have the option to deescalate the situation or further stoke the fire. The former will see Arthur downplay the whole affair, while the latter goes all in on the smack talk. We chose the riskier path, but before either of us could continue the verbal sparring, the train had left, allowing us to bolt off back into the wilderness. As we fled, a Rockstar rep told us that if we had stayed a while longer, things could have eventually lead to a violent, bullet-ridden conclusion.

This time our destination was the Van der Linde camp, which serves as the major hub for most of your activities. Rockstar wants to avoid bombarding your map with unnecessarily messy HUD information, so expect to be seamlessly led into story content. Exploring the camp, for example, we spotted an unknown man tied to a pole. As we drew closer, the game launched into a cutscene – triggering a new side mission which required us to infiltrate a rival camp.

Taking a stealthy approach in this task is now made easier by the ability to order team members to complete specific actions, but the plan still went belly-up after a poorly aimed throw saw a knife painfully land in the arm of a foe, who naturally alerted his friends to our presence. Making the best of a bad situation, we used the shootout to experiment with the return of Dead Eye. The shooting mechanic now sees five different levels – ranging from slowing down time to manually painting targets to unleash a violent flurry of bullets – each of which thankfully remains incredibly satisfying.

Almost every element of the game has been significantly upgraded.

Almost every element of the game has been significantly upgraded, but none is more obvious than your noble steed, which Rockstar has now intrinsically linked to Arthur. There will still be a variety of breeds to discover, each possessing its own set of traits, but the more experiences you share with an individual horse, the greater the bond between you both – ultimately reducing a crucial wildcard element should things spiral out of control.

Unexpected gunshots for example, may spook and unnerve your partner, requiring the need for a calming pat. Grooming and feeding the animal, meanwhile, will similarly develop the relationship and allow you to improve important characteristics like speed, stamina, and the radius in which it will respond to your call. Make an especially strong connection and you’ll even be able to unlock horse riding skills like proper dressage and skid turns – the western equivalent of a handbrake manoeuvre.

Like we said, Rockstar Games is all about the attention to details, and its these details that make Red Dead Redemption 2 an obvious must-buy when it blasts onto store shelves on October 26 for PS4 and XBO.