It’s not that it’s impossible to do some good deeds in Rockstar games like GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s just that more often than not, you’re on the other side of the law. Doing crimes. Getting chased. Fighting the cops. Being an upstanding citizen isn’t really the aim of any of Rockstar’s playable characters. (And, to be fair, most of Rockstar’s law-enforcing “good guys” are just as terrible as the crooks.)
But in worlds built on crime and criminals, it can be fun to play from the other side of the handcuffs from time to time. Red Dead Redemption First Response (RDRFR) is a mod that lets you play as the law. Be the sheriff in a small town. Serve as marshall and hunt down outlaws. You can even be a copper in the booming city of St. Denis. It’s similar to the mod for GTA 4 and 5 that let you fight crime as the police.
This mod column was originally published in PC Gamer magazine issue #335 (UK, April 2021). We’re republishing it as we revisit the archives for material that was exclusive to print. The First Response mod is still available, and was even being updated for about a year and a half after this feature was written.
And conveniently, once installed, you can choose to activate the mod whenever you want in your singleplayer game. Just walk into the sheriff’s office in any town (you’ll see the star on your map showing you where) to begin your shift. Also inside the sheriff’s office you’ll see a wardrobe you can use (if you want) to change your clothes into the sheriff’s uniform you like most, from the classic St. Denis cop uniform to a marshall’s outfit to just normal cowboy clothes that have a shiny star pinned to the vest.
You can even change your character model, if you want to get into the roleplaying a bit more, and cycle through randomized lawmen until you get one you want. When you go off duty, your character will switch back to good old Arthur Morgan.
I decide to begin my law enforcement career in the tiny, dusty town of Tumbleweed, imagining I’m a brand new deputy with no experience. And if I do some good, I’ll eventually promote myself to a nicer and bigger town. I walk into the jail, activate the mod using the ledger on the sheriff’s desk, then visit the wardrobe to choose my lawman, finding a scruffy old coot with a handlebar moustache. Perfect! I look like the least-drunk of the town drunks, the guy a sheriff would swear in as a deputy simply because he was the best choice out of a bunch of terrible choices.
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As I stroll around town, a citizen runs up to me to report a crime. That was quick! A horse has been stolen, and my first job is to recover it. Thus begins my career in law enforcement, which results in an entire day chasing one damn horse all over the map.
I’m not sure if it’s the mod or if it’s me, but the act of calming the horse, a common activity in RDR2, just isn’t working. When I get anywhere near the horse, it bolts. I try riding my own horse after it, I try sneaking, I try walking slowly and calmly, I call to it, but the horse is so damn skittish I simply can’t catch it. This isn’t the sort of crime I’d pictured myself facing when I signed up. Chasing horse thieves down, sure. Simply following a runaway horse? No.
I eventually give up, go back to the jail, and go off duty. The horse, marked with a dot on my minimap, vanishes. Not a great first day on the job.
The next day is more promising. Another citizen runs up just as I go on duty, telling me there’s a wanted killer in town. The map shows a search area, which covers almost the entire town, as well as a few small pips on my minimap indicating citizens who might have some information. I stroll around, ordering people to stop what they’re doing and talk to me through a new interface added by the mod. Sometimes they’ll give me information about what the fugitive looks like. Other times they’ll give me a location. Sometimes they’ll simply refuse to help (can’t blame them, really) even if I threaten them.
But once I have two pieces of information about the fugitive, they’re revealed on my map and I can chase them down.
I locate the first fugitive thanks to a woman standing in the town graveyard. Seems rude to interrogate a mourner, but the law doesn’t sleep. She tips me off to a guy near the saloon. But as I creep around the back of the building, he comes down the steps and pops me right in the dome. I’m dead! My career as a lawman so far consists of failing to catch a horse and getting shot in the face.
After respawing, I take another shift, and use another feature of the mod: the ability to recruit a partner. I walk over to a fellow sheriff and tell him to follow me as we begin searching for another fugitive in town. This time I narrow down the culprit’s location to the graveyard, and wouldn’t you know it? It’s the same woman who gave me the tip about yesterday’s fugitive. She opens fire when we get close, so I sprint around the corner and get out my lasso, determined to make my first arrest.
I nab her with my rope but my partner didn’t get the memo. He keeps shooting, killing her before I can tie her up.
Cloaked in failure, and feeling Tumbleweed is a bit too small to fight crime when there’s only a handful of people who can turn out to secretly be villains, I head to Blackwater, more of a proper town. Maybe here I’ll get a little more action and a chance to actually arrest someone properly.
The fates aren’t with me, however. A woman runs into the sheriff’s office to report a fugitive, and I start interrogating the locals for clues. One fella won’t cooperate, but two more give me the perp’s appearance and location. Which turns out to be right across the street from where I’m standing, and he immediately opens fire.
I ready my lasso to arrest him, but some enterprising citizen takes out a gun and shoots the suspect in the head.
Sheesh! With citizens as trigger-happy as that, does the town even need an extra sheriff?
Mod Jobs
Other professions I’d like to see in Red Dead Redemption 2 mods
Farmer
Just let me pitchfork poop and carry hay bales all the live-long day, and I’ll be happy as a clam.
Stagecoach Driver
A ticking clock, a nervous passenger, and lots of ground to cover. Crazy Taxi, the Old West way.
Postman
Can’t think of a better way to explore the world than with a big sack of mail and a list of addresses to visit.
Photographer
I’m obsessively taking pictures in RDR2 anyway. It’d be nice to be able to frame ’em and sell ’em to folk, too.
The next crime is a group of armed outlaws, who strangely spawn in the water and slowly swim to shore while I patiently wait for them with my rifle. It’s a decent gunfight, and I manage to lasso the final outlaw and ride him back into town on my horse. I throw him in a jail cell, but having failed to frisk him, he pulls out a knife and stabs me.
I want to be very clear that my intent was to punch him. And I do punch him! Unfortunately, I am also holding a knife, so my punch kills him. Whoops. I lock the cell door and slink away, yet another arrest tarnished.
Okay, enough small town blues. It’s time for the big city. St. Denis. I have in no way earned my promotion, but I’m taking it anyway. And here, things finally begin going my way. Another fugitive investigation leads me to find the suspect calming eating dinner in the saloon, and me and my partner get to approach his table with our guns drawn, tell him to put his hands up, frisk him for weapons, then tie him up and call for backup (by blowing my police whistle) to take him away on their horse.
It’s like an episode of Law and Order, except the cops on that show use handcuffs instead of lassos and usually don’t take suspects away on horseback. But most importantly, I’ve finally arrested someone and there wasn’t any bloodshed!
Not all suspects go so quietly, and there are still a few shootouts that day. But one crook leads me on a non-violent chase through the city—he’s not shooting but he’s not surrendering, either—letting me sprint down the sidewalks knocking people out of my way until I finally put a single round in his leg, and then tie him up. Fun!
The shootouts in St Denis are usually exciting, too. With so many (relatively) tall buildings, narrow alleyways, and gated areas, the crooks can appear on rooftops, behind fences, and inside buildings. It’s fun racing through the city while my partner follows, taking cover, and trading hot lead with the outlaws because you never know exactly where they’ll appear. I’m killed once, my partner is killed once, and a few times we wind up with wounds but still come out ahead.
So if you try RDRFR yourself, I’d definitely suggest the St. Denis beat. It just works much better there than in the smaller, scruffier towns. Just stop by the sheriff’s office and go on duty for a few hours.
And when you’re done, you can go right back to being the outlaw in the equation.
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