Dan Houser Explored Terminal Illness In Red Dead Redemption 2 For A Surprisingly Personal Reason

Dan Houser revealed the surprising origins of a somber plot point in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Terminal Illness In Video Games (Spoilers)

Red Dead Redemption 2 is certainly not the only modern game that tackles the theme of terminal illness. Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 take to the theme.

This is a consequence of video games developing for adults. And that has gone beyond having mature content that offends conservatives, to now being made for adult gamers.

All three games mentioned above have ambitions to tell stories that do more than squeeze out sympathy or guilt from the player, however. They were written and even designed to make us consider these ideas in real life.

Dan Houser shared his proverbial hand when he explained why he gave Arthur Morgan tuberculosis in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Why Is Terminal Illness In Red Dead Redemption 2?

Dan said this:

John dies in Red Dead 1. I wanted to top that with Red Dead 2, or do that in a different way. And so the idea that it’s… But John’s death is fairly sudden, and so if he’s got this long, drawn-out death, and then I’d always been obsessed by TB.

As diseases go, it’s a great literary device. You know, because it is this long, drawn-out, slow death, but in which you are also getting weaker. And my grandfather actually had TB before they invented antibiotics and was sent to a sanatorium just after he’d had his child, my father, and survived, but only three of them out of like 35 survived.

So I was always captivated by TB as an illness. It felt like it was an interesting thing to play around with as an idea, this guy getting weaker who felt like he was immortal and essentially was immortal.

He was the protagonist in a video game, he could not die, and suddenly he is becoming mortal. You know, but that helps him see stuff. I thought that was a different way of doing a lead character in a game.

It’s certainly not happy subject matter to tackle in a power fantasy. But this comes decades after the first Call of Duty games put us face to face with the horrors of war.

It’s also been quite some time since Spec Ops: The Line (now delisted) made the player think about the ideological implications of their actions in a video game. With the bluntness of a mallet, that game made those dilemmas personal.

The Grand Theft Auto games didn’t explore these ideas in these ways. While that could now change in Grand Theft Auto 6, Dan took the opportunity in Red Dead Redemption 2. And that helped make one of the most grandiose AAAs one of the most haunting as well.