Faculty historical past professor Tore Olsson taught the world’s first Red Dead Redemption American historical past class in 2021, on the College of Tennessee, utilizing Rockstar’s open-world epics to have interaction college students on one of the tumultuous intervals in North American historical past. The category is a big success, a lot in order that Olsson was impressed to write a e-book to carry his work to a world viewers. Out in August, Red Dead’s History appears prefer it may very well be successful, and Roger Clark, who performs Red Dead Redemption 2 protagonist Arthur Morgan in one of many all-time nice online game performances, has signed on to narrate the audiobook.
In an interview with IGN, Olsson discusses the e-book and delivers his verdict on Red Dead Redemption 2’s historic “thoughtfulness”, as he places it. However he additionally reveals plans to repeat the trick with the Grand Theft Auto video games in a brand new class and e-book that delves into twentieth Century American historical past, utilizing the likes of Vice Metropolis and San Andreas to educate on Nineteen Eighties Miami and Nineties Southern California. And what does Olsson consider the upcoming GTA 6? Learn on to discover out.
You’re a historian who makes use of Red Dead to educate American historical past in a category you began in 2021. How has that gone?
It’s been an actual journey. And it’s a giant experiment, too, within the sense that no different skilled historian had tried to do something like this earlier than, which is surprising in some ways, as a result of historians, we use popular culture on a regular basis. We use movie and literature and TV sequence, however quite a lot of historians have been reluctant to have interaction video video games for numerous causes. And I made a decision, effectively, no, I need to take this medium significantly, as a result of it’s so dominant. After all, I’ve my very own private historical past with this as effectively. I used to be an enormous gamer after I was a child, and now as soon as once more I’m a gamer, because the pandemic, which has formed quite a lot of this.
It got here as an epiphany after I sat down within the midst of the pandemic in 2020, and performed Red Dead Redemption 2 for the primary time. I used to be solely about 10 hours in, and all these historic nodes in my mind are firing left and proper. I can’t flip off my historian id after I’m taking part in. And I’m actually genuinely stunned at how traditionally considerate the video games have been. I’m not a lot obsessive about this query of accuracy that will get bandied round so much, while you discuss historic video video games. I’m extra desirous about thoughtfulness and the methods a recreation tries to seize the temper and the sensation and the vary of choices and the realities of a time interval. And I assumed the sport did a surprisingly good job at that.
So I acquired to pondering, effectively, what have historians stated about these video games? In regards to the Red Dead Redemption video games? So I search in all the standard educational venues I exploit and I discovered nothing. It was simply full silence from lecturers on this recreation. And I assumed, effectively, somebody’s acquired to begin speaking about it, perhaps I must be the one! And I additionally knew amongst college-age college students right here within the U.S. and world wide, there’s an excessive amount of curiosity in these video games. So I assumed, why not begin instructing an experimental class that makes use of the fictional content material of the video games as a springboard to have interaction the actually massive, towering dilemmas American historians are normally desirous about speaking about, like politics and race and gender and sophistication and capitalism, all these massive issues, which the sport usually gestures towards, however they don’t go all the way in which. After all not! That’s not the purpose of the sport. However they gesture towards it. So I choose up the place they’re gesturing towards and make {that a} a lot greater actuality for the scholars.
However it’s been nice. The category has been highly regarded. College students join it in a lot bigger numbers than they do in different historical past courses. Seeing the eagerness and enthusiasm of the scholars within the classroom is what actually prompted me to write this e-book, to flip the category into an extended e-book kind so the broader world might share this journey I took the scholars on. So the scholars have been a giant a part of the inspiration behind this. Seeing how a lot this resonated with them, utilizing their favourite characters and plot moments from these beloved video games, and utilizing them to discover precise massive historic questions.
Have your college students responded to that? Do you get the sense they’re taking it on extra on this class than a standard historical past class?
Oh yeah. The flexibility of the scholars to digest and take in actually sophisticated and complicated materials is considerably increased on this class than in different courses, simply because they’re emotionally current. They’re checked in, they’re dialed in in a approach that’s not all the time the case in my massive survey courses right here on the college. Some college students take historical past as a requirement, it’s one thing they’re sort of compelled to do. However with this class we now have quite a lot of college students present up who should not required in any respect. They’re taking this as an elective. Many should not historical past majors, however persons are coming from pc science and enterprise and communications, and what brings them there’s the love for the video games, to be certain, but it surely’s additionally the curiosity and fervour and thirst for actual historic information the video games created in them. Video video games are so highly effective at instilling that curiosity and fervour in folks. The video games themselves normally can’t present the complete story, however they’ll at the very least get folks fascinated and desirous about studying extra about it. Video video games are such a robust instrument for instructing in that regard.
Within the e-book you discuss Red Dead Redemption’s historic accuracy. You discuss in regards to the characters and whether or not they existed in actual life and a few of the portrayals of sure teams such because the Pinkertons. When it comes to historic accuracy, how do you’re feeling the sport holds up? Has Rockstar executed a great job of nailing it? What’s your verdict?
What makes the entire thing sophisticated is that the majority the names of individuals and locations within the recreation are fictionalized. There’s no state of Missouri, or Nevada, or Louisiana. There are apparent moments when there are clear connections between Saint Denis within the recreation and New Orleans in America, or the Wapiti native group and the Lakota Sioux, that are undoubtedly the inspiration behind them. However then there are quite a lot of issues which are simply made up.
Finally, the sport is excellent at capturing the look and the texture of Eighteen Nineties America. When it comes to the visuals they actually nail it. The structure, the typefaces, the fonts, the style in lots of regards. So visually, I’ve very excessive marks to give to Red Dead 2 particularly. Red Dead Redemption 2 is admittedly in a league of its personal in contrast to the primary recreation. The primary recreation is fascinating and clearly acquired the dialog began, however the second recreation surpasses it in so some ways, particularly traditionally.
Nevertheless, there’s additionally the query of the contours of on a regular basis life, the sort of questions actual People cared about within the Eighteen Nineties, the sort of issues that dominated their pondering, the restrictions and prospects of their lives, the social material of America. On that query the video games should not nearly as good. They’re not unhealthy. They gesture towards quite a lot of massive dilemmas. They don’t totally discover them. They don’t present the context. And naturally I don’t count on them to achieve this as a result of they’re finally an leisure product. The aim just isn’t to educate, however they achieve this by instilling curiosity.
For instance, the Ku Klux Klan is featured, however there’s probably not a dominant Ku Klux Klan within the Eighteen Nineties. They’re dormant at that interval. However they do form the American South within the 1860s and 70s after which once more within the 19teens and 20s. So for me, the truth that, yeah, there’s probably not a Klan within the Eighteen Nineties just isn’t that massive of a deal. I’m extra desirous about shedding gentle on the establishments of white supremacy that existed and functioned in these moments.
I didn’t need the e-book to be a form of, let me damage Red Dead Redemption 2 for you, exhibiting how mistaken Rockstar is. As a result of that’s probably not the purpose. I actually get pleasure from taking part in this recreation, and I do know hundreds of thousands of individuals really feel the identical approach. I need the e-book to function a companion to the sport, that’s going to enrich the play expertise, and provides it new which means it might not have had earlier than, to present the form of background mechanisms and context the sport simply doesn’t have time to present. When the sport is performed hand-in-hand with Red Dead’s History, it may be a robust instrument for getting a deeper understanding not simply of this second in American historical past, the 1880 to 1920 interval, however the massive dilemmas that make America what it’s as we speak, notably dilemmas of capitalism and dilemmas of race. As a result of the sport actually touches on them far more than I used to be anticipating, far more than every other comparable video video games I’ve performed.
What’s your view of the way in which characters communicate in Red Dead Redemption 2? Is it the way in which folks would have spoken at the moment?
Actually they nailed the component of this extra well mannered, conversational fashion. You name folks Mr and Mrs. Even inside this gang, this group of outlaws, that they use this far more well mannered approach of describing one another is, I feel, becoming. I’ll say although that this is likely one of the topics historians have a tendency to be weak on, as a result of we work with written sources from this era. We don’t have conversational proof. I do know in reality little or no in regards to the day-to-day interactions outdoors of the written paperwork I work with. So you will have to use completely different sorts of sources to get at this, and it’s not one thing I’m well-equipped to decide on.
I do know Rockstar depends on quite a lot of films in how they flesh out the previous. Motion pictures like O Brother, The place Artwork Thou?, which clearly influenced the southern components of that recreation, and naturally the smarter, extra fascinating westerns. And I do know a few of these films did analysis on the kinds of patterns of speech of the interval. Folks used the identical curse phrases we use as we speak, to be certain. You see loads of f-bombs dropped within the Eighteen Nineties, however not in the identical context. It could have been in all probability uncommon. Usually, working class people have been much less ruled by the foundations of politeness, which is why it’s fascinating you see the gang fairly formal with one another, given they’re not rich folks, they’re not immersed in Victorian tradition. However it’s nonetheless there in an fascinating approach.
You may have a chapter devoted to the Pinkertons.
They’re uncommon as a result of it’s just like the one factor that’s not fictional.
Did Rockstar do a great job with the Pinkertons? Given they’re an actual group we will make that direct comparability.
When it comes to critiques of historic accuracy, in all probability the largest one I’ve of the sport is that Red Dead Redemption 2 is a very nice recreation in regards to the early 1870s. Nevertheless, it’s not set within the early 1870s. It’s set virtually 30 years later, in 1899. So with the Pinkertons, the sport actually nails that they’re these weapons for rent for company capital. However within the Eighteen Nineties, the Pinkertons are actually concerned in labor disputes greater than something. They’re concerned in breaking apart strikes and infiltrating labor unions. They’re actually extra of an city phenomenon. They’re in rural areas, too, but it surely’s actually organized labor and labor unions which are drawing them in, and employers are hiring them as mercenaries to strive to disrupt staff from getting a good shake of their operations.
So, the Pinkertons do hunt western outlaws, and so they’re very well-known for looking western outlaws within the early 1870s particularly. That’s after they chase down the James–Youthful Gang, Jesse James and crew. That occurs in 1875. They’re not doing a lot of that within the Eighteen Nineties — with one exception. They do chase the so-called Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy’s gang, which was a western story. And certainly, if there’s a single historic set of actors who encourage this recreation, it’s Butch Cassidy and his gang. They should be the closest inspiration behind the Van der Linde gang. The timing is sort of proper, it’s late Eighteen Nineties, the Pinkertons are there, the railroad is there, the railroad boss, the Leviticus Cornwall of real-life, might be E. H. Harriman, who was the proprietor of this railroad that will get robbed, and he sics the Pinkertons on the gang. So, fairly good!
Arthur Morgan calls Agent Milton of the Pinkertons a ‘wealthy man’s toy’, and that’s completely spot on. By the Eighteen Nineties, the Pinkertons’ repute and the truth of what they have been doing was as a employed military for large capitalists. And Leviticus Cornwall, too, is an excellent stand-in for a few of these massive figures, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, these titans of that point interval.
Rockstar additionally has its Grand Theft Auto sequence, which is clearly set in trendy instances. However a few of the video games are set within the 80s, which is now 40 years in the past. These video games are famously parodies of American life. Do you see a cut-off date when what you’re doing with Red Dead Redemption may very well be executed with the GTA video games to inform college students about American life?
I feel that point has come proper now. You’re really describing what’s in all probability going to be my third e-book. I’m primarily a twentieth Century American historian. The Red Dead Redemption books are a bit sooner than my interval of experience. I’m actually a 1900s American historian. I’m planning a brand new class and hopefully a brand new e-book that appears at twentieth Century America by way of not only one recreation, however a number of video games. And the actual conclusion of this class might be within the Grand Theft Auto video games set in Miami within the Nineteen Eighties and in Southern California within the Nineties.
It’s humorous, the previous couple of weeks I’ve been taking part in GTA Vice Metropolis and GTA San Andreas as a historian making an attempt to do the identical form of therapy to them. When it comes to the historic richness and complexity of the interval, there’s a lot to discuss, proper? Nineteen Eighties immigration, relationships with Cuba, organized cartels. After which the 90s, San Andreas particularly is sort of fascinating as a result of it talks in regards to the African American expertise in California, in regards to the crack epidemic, which is a big political second. There’s quite a lot of historic meat to chew on there, to be certain.
The issue is, as a result of these video games have been made almost 20 years in the past, they’re not fairly as subtle as Red Dead Redemption 2. They depend on quite a lot of stereotypes. The misogyny of these video games can also be fairly pronounced. If Rockstar launched these video games as is as the brand new GTA, they might have quite a lot of issues on their fingers. Some components of them haven’t aged that effectively.
Nonetheless, they occupy a vital nostalgic place for lots of players. So due to that, I’d love to work with them. Such as you stated, they’re parodies. They work with quite a lot of stereotypes to make enjoyable of America, however additionally they are creating America and views of America world wide. So that they’re very highly effective cultural artifacts. Very imperfect in some ways. However I’d love to do one other class on twentieth Century America that ends in that, but additionally integrates Name of Obligation, and Name of Obligation’s view of World Struggle 2 and the Chilly Struggle. The Mafia video games and their view of organized crime and Italian American and African American gangsters within the first half of the twentieth Century. One other Rockstar recreation, LA Noire, is one other fascinating second to make clear mid-century American tradition.
So I don’t assume I’m executed writing about video video games. This was such an excellent place to begin as a result of Red Dead Redemption 2 particularly is so massive, so huge, and so standard — Rockstar not too long ago claimed it’s the seventh best-selling online game of all time — so it’s an excellent second as a result of you will have a wealthy recreation and it’s standard, you will have so much quite a lot of scholar and reader curiosity. However it’s inevitable that the GTA video games are up subsequent. I don’t assume we now have to wait 30 years to do that. I feel we will do that pretty quickly! However the brand new ones which are set within the twenty first Century, like GTA 5 and sure GTA 6, we would want a bit extra time, at the very least as a historian. However I’m keen to see different lecturers wrestle with the content material of those video games.
The GTA 6 trailer reveals Miami within the modern-day. That trailer is exceptional as a result of it takes viral moments from Florida. When the sport ultimately comes out, would possibly it serve the aim of presenting a snapshot of what Florida was really like? Despite the fact that the trailer presents ridiculous moments, you may level to real-life moments which are virtually precisely the identical. You might maybe level to the Florida Joker character and say this was impressed by an actual particular person.
It appears like the sport’s imaginative and prescient of Florida is ridiculous, however let’s be trustworthy, quite a lot of Florida as we speak is ridiculous! I’m not a historian of Rockstar. I don’t research how they make their video games. However I’m desirous about their video games. The trajectory to me appears to be telling extra nuanced and delicate and complex tales. I’ve studied most the transition from Red Dead Redemption to Red Dead Redemption 2, and it’s actually a world of distinction when it comes to the storytelling. The primary recreation, the one actual sophisticated, nuanced character is a white man. There’s not quite a lot of nuance and subtlety to the opposite characters. There are quite a lot of stereotypes they depend on. However within the second recreation that’s not true. Sure, the protagonist is a white man, however the individuals who encompass him are fascinating, nuanced characters who present the troublesome realities of being an individual of shade in Eighteen Nineties America.
Their video games are all the time going to be violent. They’re all the time going to be risqué indirectly. That’s their trademark. However I feel they’re shifting forward in telling extra nuanced tales about folks apart from white males. The actual fact there’s a feminine protagonist in GTA 6, it appears to be shifting in that course. The arc is in a constructive course.
The audiobook version of Red Dead’s History might be printed by Macmillan Audio on August 6, 2024 and might be out there at Audible, Apple Books, or wherever audiobooks are bought.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.