Kotaku's The Real History Behind RDR

Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption sells itself as a Western. But did you know it's not really a Western at all?

Yes, I know, the trailers have featured cowboys. Wrangling. Gunfights. Dirty Mexicans. Even old coots. All of them trademark images of the wild, wild west.

But the game is actually set in the year 1908. The twentieth century.

Traditionally, Western fiction is normally set in the latter half of the nineteenth century, specifically in the immediate post-Civil War era. This was a time of great Western expansion, of conflict with Indians, of a nation consolidated once more under Washington's rule. It was also a time of rifles, of war with Mexico and great gold rushes.