Happy Monday, Happy Labor Day, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread!

Last week, I decided to replay the first Red Dead Redemption (which is to say, the first game titled Red Dead Redemption, not Red Dead Revolver or Red Dead Redemption 2), the first time in well over a decade. And in between struggling with those classic terrible Rockstar controls, marveling at the scale of New Austin alone, and internally juxtaposing the grand open world with the super-linear missions, I’m having fun. Not enough to consider mainlining the thing even if we weren’t a few days until Silksong, God no, but it’s nice to have as something where you do on and off. Hopefully I’ll get enough enthusiasm to beat it before the end of the year, especially since the point of this exercise was partially to get ready for that inevitable Red Dead 2 Switch 2 port.

Initially, my prompt was going to jump off this to be about westerns. Games set in and during the American West. Games about the frontier and westward expansion and genocide and industrialization and the development of the modern United States. And those are exciting topics (most of which Red Dead does explore, if fitfully or in largely well-written and acted clichés). The Old West was a fascinating and terrifying time, and the ways games have adapted or followed its incredibly long-lived genre is interesting. If you want to spend this Labor Day discussing that, I won’t hold it against you. I’d actually like to know about western games that aren’t just Red Dead or Call of Juarez or even shooters at all. But I’m also thinking about the way western imagery finds its way into other places. Like, Twilight Princess is absolutely a western, right? Link herds goats with crazy O-shaped horns, he uses his bow like a sniper, he protects a dusty village, he spends way more time on his horse than he did in Ocarina of Time, and in one of the game’s most famous segments, he clears out a backwater village of bandits while a super-cool background instrumental country theme plays. C’mon, play on Bridge of Eldin in Smash Bros. with the “Hidden Village” theme on and tell me that Hyrule isn’t a western.

…Okay, that was a lot, I’ll admit that. Anyway, talk about westerns, and while you’re here, what did you play this weekend? And, as always, make sure to check out Lily Bones’ latest Game News Roundup!