The wait for information on the sequel to Rockstar Games’ epic western opus, Red Dead Redemption has been about as agonizing as getting bucked off of your horse, and landing in a cactus patch.

I’m talking painful.

However, nearly one full year after we got our first little morsel of info confirming that the game actually existed – we have a brand new trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2!

Personally, I’m beyond excited. 2010’s Red Dead Redemption was my pick for the best game of the last generation. That’s right – my pick for the best game that came out during the lifespan of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Take a quick second to feast your eyes on the gorgeous trailer below:

Done? Good. Now let’s delve a bit deeper into what possible implications have been put forth in the latest Red Dead Redemption 2 footage.

First thing that is apparent is that you are playing as a completely different character in Red Dead 2.

Arthur Morgan is the man (apparently) taking the center stage this time around – replacing the Red Dead’s protagonist – John Marston.

The trailer depicts Arthur as a very, very different person than John. He has a much more edgy and in-your-face bent to him. At one point he taunts a young lad that his mother should stop grieving, as images of a sobbing woman at the grave of her beloved flash on screen. He then goes on to candidly imply that he would take..uh.. good care of her if she didn’t stop.

The trailer then goes on to give us plenty of flashes of ultra violence – the type of good stuff you;d expect from a game set in the wild west, however, the dialogue and context in which Rockstar Games chooses to show the violence, makes the tone of the trailer feel much darker than the tone set in the last game.

That leads us to the next point: Red Dead Redemption 2 is most definitely a prequel to RDR.

At one point, Morgan speaks directly to Dutch Van der Linn – the notorious outlaw whom John Marston was eventually forced to hunt down, after he decided to abandon his renegade lifestyle, settle down, and raise a family.

So it seems that this game will (at least in part) show what life was like during the height of power of Dutch’s gang. If this is truly the case, then that explains the much darker tone that Red Dead Redemption 2 might be taking. After all, if you are showing what life was like for a member of a blood-thirsty gang of outlaws, then you’re probably going to have to be a black-hearted, ruthless son-of-a-gun yourself. It’s that need to place you in the role of a truly bad person that provides us with the reasoning as to why you’re not playing as a young John Marston in this game.

The role of John Marston in Red Dead Redemption was expertly played by Rob Wiethoff – a complete unknown in the gaming and acting community. (If you’ve never read the story of how Rob landed the role of John Marston, you owe it to yourself to read Patrick Stafford’s excellent 2013 article from Polygon)

Rob’s performance was one of those once-in-a-lifetime strokes of amazing luck. While RDR provided players with an opportunity to play the game as a renegade, Rob succeeded in lending the character of John Marston a charming affability that fade it almost impossible to play as anything but a hero. This was perfect for the story of a man seeking redemption from the sins of his past that RDR was trying to tell.

With Red Dead Redemption 2 telling at least a part of its narrative (at least the stuff that Rockstar Games is willing to show us) in the past, it stands to reason that the developers would want to try and nudge you into role-playing as someone who isn’t interested in anything other than his own survival and enrichment.

An outlaw.

The question is: Will we see John Marston in any way during the course of Red Dead Redemption 2?

My money is on yes!

One of the first teaser images that Rockstar Games tantalized us with last year was a silhouette of 7 ominous figures against RDR’s signature red background.

While there was speculation that John was the man in the center, I always maintained that he was the one on the far left.

My theory on that being Marston rests on the fact that he is the only person in that image who is not looking straight ahead.

To me this is symbolic of John’s eventual desire to break away from Dutch’s gang. While the rest of the group has their eyes and attention focused on the same goal of the moment – John is looking out and something else: perhaps contemplating his future. That distinct gaze in a differing direction is representative of his desire to find something more than the renegade lifestyle.

One interesting hypothesis on the Red Dead Redemption 2 timeline came courtesy of a Twitter post from a Jake Dekker, who believes that the game is partially told in the past, and partially told after some events that take place in Red Dead Redemption – which I will not spoil for you here.

Click on Jake’s name to take a look at his post, and I’m pretty sure you’ll understand what I’m talking about. (If not, that means that you never played through the game, and if that’s the case, shame on you! Seriously, go get a copy and play it NOW!)

The sad part about all this speculation is that it will all have to remain just that – speculation, for the time being.

Rockstar is unlikely to let much in the way of story line details slip out prior to the game’s launch, leaving those of us obsessed with saddling back up for another ride into the west, agonizing over any nugget of info they might drop along the way.

In any event, it’s going to be a long and dusty trail leading up to Red Dead Redemption 2’s Spring 2018 release.

What are your thoughts? Will we see much of Marston in Red Dead Redemption 2? Will it be a darker game than its predecessor? Let me know in the comments section below.