A new Red Dead Redemption 2 mod makes the incredible open-world game more immersive than ever before. It’s a welcome RDR2 update for a game that Rockstar has largely left behind, giving Red Dead Redemption 2 players more ways to interact with its environments and roleplay the cowboy lifestyle as we await more news on the GTA 6 release date.
RDR2 Zen is a mod all about enhancing the one thing Red Dead Redemption 2 is perhaps best at – putting you in a world that feels real and alive, letting you live out your Old West fantasies as Arthur Morgan. While Rockstar’s epic achieves many things, it’s most successful at its sense of place. Taking time to sit by a fire and carve notches into your bullets before a big gunfight, or cook food for a trek up into the snowy mountains, really helps to immerse you in the moment.
This overhaul is actually a massive expansion of the creator’s previous mod, Immersive Scenarios, and it includes a wealth of fixed and dynamic scenarios that can be used in a range of different situations. It allows your Arthur Morgan to take part in those small but pleasing actions like leaning on fences and railings for a smoke, sitting down on a stair set to play the guitar, or washing yourself with buckets of water.
The actions will also have their appropriate effects – cleaning yourself up will remove dirt and blood from your skin and clothing, or you can tend to your guns and touch up any degradation that might have occurred. It might not be ‘exciting’ in the traditional sense, but in the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 it really is – I’m here because I wanna be a cowboy, baby, and RDR2 Zen lets me do that in a more complete way than ever before.
There are also some additional optional features you can toggle, if you like the sound of them. These include ‘cleaner horses,’ which concentrates the dirt that builds up on your faithful steeds on their legs and lower abdomen, and ‘no combat music,’ which does exactly what it sounds like.
If you want to live in Rockstar’s Old West like never before, you can head here to grab the Red Dead Redemption 2 Zen mod for yourself.
Alternatively, take a look through the best Western games if you just can’t get enough of the setting, or try more of the best story games on PC if you love a memorable tale.