Fans might be surprised to hear this, but Red Dead Redemption 2 has a number of things in common with True Detective season 1. They're both gritty crime dramas focused on self-admitted "bad men," both focus on the troubled relationships between dangerous men, and both end on a bittersweet note--at least, if players go for the high honor ending of Red Dead Redemption 2. One fan noticed these similarities and decided to create a fanmade opening sequence for the game based on the intro of True Detective season 1, with striking results.
Created by Norwegian visual effects artist and content creator Robin Mikalsen, the video puts combinations of footage and still images from Red Dead Redemption 2 to the mournful tune of The Handsome Family's "Far From Any Road." The song's grim lyrics and unsettling imagery fit right in with Red Dead Redemption 2's bitter farewell to the old west and the outlaw life, much like the song used in another fan's viral montage of powerful moments in modern gaming.
Much like the intro to a TV show, the video credits voice actors, art and tech direction, and just about everyone else whose name is attached to Red Dead Redemption 2. It begins with a silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat riding toward the viewer overlayed with blurred footage of a train passing by a farmhouse. Next, the screen switches to an image of Mary-Beth Gaskill, her face set up against what appears to be a zoomed-in dollar bill, before quickly transitioning to a map. It then flashes through the faces of several major characters, including John Marston, all with special effects edits reminiscent of the ones used in True Detective. Red Dead Redemption 2 referenced the distracted boyfriend meme in canon and made it work, so it's not exactly a surprise that these edits look gorgeous.
The video also features recurring imagery of smoke, old parchment, and faces being obscured or replaced with pictures of buildings, plants, or other environments. Additionally, some shots have thematically important sentences like "revenge is a fool's game" scrawled over the background, adding to the overall feel of grim judgment. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a notoriously grim game about a protagonist struggling over how to spend his final days, and those themes of choice and time running out surface throughout the game, even in the way Red Dead Redemption 2 treats Arthur and John's horses.
Like True Detective season 1, the video closes on two equally disquieting notes: the first, played before the title appears, shows an animation of a door slowly closing on burning grassland. The second, played after the title appears, shows two men facing each other beneath a cloud-covered sky. At least one of them has his hand on his gun. Fans of Red Dead Redemption could spend a long time pouring over this video and finding countless layers of symbolism, many of which differ from the original True Detective intro. Robin Mikalsen put at least as much effort into this creation as another fan did when turning Arthur Morgan into Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.