I had the same reaction but imo you’re overthinking it: it’s not that GTAV was incredible, it’s that the last red dead was easily the best GTA game, and this is the next red dead. I think we imagine it as downbeat by comparison to GTA but it was actually a fairly huge success, and it’s more memorable to its audience than anything else they’ve done except maybe vice city. I think the average person likes rockstar more than they liked GTA 4 or 5 specifically.
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