Red Dead Redemption 2 features children in the open world

Red Dead Redemption 2 is easily the most anticipated game of 2018 due to Rockstar Games’ ability to deliver worthwhile open-world epics. Their games are usually incredibly mature due to their excessive violence, adult themes, and gritty stories but for the first time in an M-rated Rockstar game, Red Dead Redemption 2 will feature child NPCs.

In the newest gameplay video, you catch a few glimpses of children. One is selling newspapers on a street corner, the other is standing with his family, and you can even spot a little Jack Marston sitting around a campfire with John, Abigail, and the gang. Obviously, Jack Marston was seen in the first Redemption as a teenager, L.A. Noire featured a young teenage girl, and Bully was a T-rated game focused on children but you could only fist fight them, not kill them.

This is the first time in one of Rockstar’s M-rated titles that they’ll have child NPCs roaming the world the player reigns over. Since these games usually allow players to go on wild killing sprees and cause unlimited chaos, it’ll be interesting to see how the children react to it. Can you go up and talk to them, intimidate them if they witness you causing a crime like you can with other NPCs? Who knows?!

Bethesda has featured children in their games with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series but instead of giving you the ability to blast their limbs off, they’re pretty much invincible. We imagine something similar will be done here but even with restrictions, players still find ways to mess with NPCs. In L.A. Noire, all civilians would dive out of the way of your car if you drove on the sidewalk but if you were quick enough you could still hit them. They’d shake it off but one can only imagine you could do the same with a horse or wagon in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption 2 releases on October 26th, 2018 for Xbox One and PS4.