A major criticism of Red Dead Redemption 2 is the clunky and sluggish controls. A video compared the input lag of RDR 2 with other games and may have pinpointed the root of the problem.
Despite all the praise that RDR 2 has already received, a major criticism stands out: the controls. Even in the evaluation of the game by our MeinMMO community, the clunky controls were identified as a major disruptive factor.
In a new video, RDR 2 was compared with other games, and a potential root of all evil was identified.
What is wrong with the controls of RDR 2?
What is being criticized? Many players find the controls of the protagonist Arthur Morgan frustrating. Precise control of the character is hardly possible. In our community test, it was also pointed out that Arthur “feels like a tank”.
The controls have been described as “dated”, “sluggish”, or “lazy”.
Video gets to the bottom of controls: Not only readers of MeinMMO believe that there is something wrong with the controls of Red Dead Redemption 2.
Dan Lowe, a lead tech animator at Motive Studios, has now compared the Western adventure with other third-person games and identified input lag as one of the culprits.
Input lag is the delay it takes for a game to recognize and execute a button command. For the test, besides Red Dead Redemption 2, games like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Spider-Man, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Destiny 2 were also examined.
RDR 2 with the highest delay: Unsurprisingly, RDR 2 exhibited the highest input lag of all the games in the test conducted on the same television, with the same console and settings. RDR 2 takes 11 frames before the game responds to any commands. Following that are Uncharted: The Lost Legacy with 6 frames and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with 4 frames.
Spider-Man needed only 3 frames to execute commands, while Destiny 2 only required 1 frame.
According to a comment on VG247, each frame at RDR 2 is about 33 milliseconds long if the game is running at 30 frames. In the best case, that would mean that Red Dead Redemption 2 takes 330 milliseconds to respond to console commands.
However, it seems that input lag is not the sole culprit behind the sluggish controls. Many interactions in the game are tied to long animations, which make the game feel even slower.
Update: We corrected an error where we mistakenly wrote that the comparison was made in milliseconds instead of in frames. Thanks to Thorsten Roth for the tip!
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