Sometimes it doesn't matter how good a player's timing, skill, and experience with a game is. especially when random in-game factors come out of nowhere to mess up a task. One Red Dead Redemption 2 player learned the hard way that rescuing a hostage in Rockstar's Wild West-themed game can go very wrong.
Red Dead Redemption 2 players and their horses often have a special relationship, similar to the friendship real-life cowboys shared with their mounts and how far they'd go to rely on these intelligent animals. One RDR2 player protected their horse using extreme measures, for example, even though it's just a bunch of pixels and code, not a living animal. Still, it's easy for players to get attached to their inanimate in-game objects, even when those objects turn against them.
Reddit user Lumasarecute posted a video to the RDR2 sub with a caption insulting their horse, and when watching the short clip, it's easy to see where the animosity comes from. Arthur Morgan's horse turns against him at a most inopportune moment - when he is attempting to rescue a hostage. Initially, the woman he tried to rescue was very grateful and asked him to save her from her captors. Morgan expressed a desire to help the woman, and for a moment, it looked like the rescue would go well.
Fuck you too, horse. from RDR2
Apparently whatever bond between this RDR2 player and their horse didn't come into play, as the horse spooked at something off-camera and kicked out the leg closest to Arthur, shoving him forward and directly into the hostage's body. Both Arthur and the woman were knocked over, which the woman took as an attack, causing her to yell an insult at Arthur before running off past him. To make matters even worse (and more ironic), the woman stopped near Arthur's horse and mounted it, probably intending to ride off from the man who'd just "attacked" her.
This is obviously terrible luck, since the player didn't do anything to provoke the horse or attack the player, and it's unclear what was behind Arthur that made the horse spook. The Naturalist update possibly decreased RDR2 horses' intelligence, and while the update was supposedly rolled-back, it seems like it could be the case here. Or maybe, it was just a glitch or randomly generated event, which RDR2 has been known to contain. Randomness in RDR2 usually serves to make it seem more realistic and lived-in, like the world really is changing around the player, but in this instance, it just messed up this person's plans.
Hopefully, this player has better luck with their next horse, or can get this animal to have a better bond with Arthur in the game. Of course, RDR2 wouldn't be as fun and detailed as it is without these weird little details, even if they occasionally end up hurting the player more than their enemies.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.