After finally reaching the highest echelons of the multiplayer experience (or so I thought) for Red Dead Redemption, I saw the option of passing into Legend. Can I just mention that it has taken me the best part of eleven months of multiplayer sessions, farming the gang hideouts over and over again (I checked on my multiplayer progress and I’ve completed about 270 hideouts) before I got to level 50. If you compare the levelling up progress in Borderlands for example, I think it took me about 2-3 months to reach level 50. Borderlands also had challenges which were relative to your level, i.e. harder challenges merited more XP. In Red Dead Redemption however, this is not the case. The Journal challenges give a paltry 250XP upon completion, which will make next to no difference on any level higher than 10.

It takes 337,110XP points to reach level 50 in Red Dead Redemption.

So to level up to Legend level 5 and level 50, you need to accrue:

337,110 * 5 = 1,685,550 XP

Considering you get 10XP for killing another player in RDR, and 1 XP for killing an NPC, that’s just way too long. Plus chaining NPCs for more XP is an urban myth, there really is no benefit to that unless you’re killing lawmen.

So going back to my point, I was given the option for passing into Legendary mode. Upon inspection it asks you twice (reminiscent of formatting a drive in MS-DOS) if you want to do this. Why is this so stringent? Well because of the following:

• You lose all your unlocked weapons
• You lose all your unlocked mounts
• You do get to keep your unlocked characters and titles however….

250 levels to level up all the way. Total ripoff!

Although I never got involved with it, but the Call of Duty series also has this “prestige” system in it whereby the only perk if you will, is just bragging rights. While I did opt for going for the legend shift, I can quite safely say that there really is not benefit in doing so. Yes you are eligible for unlocking new mounts when you reach level 50 at each of the legend tiers but that’s a lot of hard work for very little reward. Yes I agree that it gives a bit more lastability to the multiplayer experience but surely as a reward for all the hard grinding you can have some kind of reward other than potentially riding a bison?! What about slightly more health, or a gun which you couldn’t otherwise get? It pisses in the face of the dedicated gamers if you ask me. But if it was so long and arduous getting to that high level, why don’t they make it easier to level up, or give more XP to those stupid ambient challenges?

"I played solidly for 11 months and all I got was this stupid bull..."

Don’t get me wrong I have seen Level 50 players, on Legend Level 5, meaning that have had the patience to level up 250 times, but for me, even as an RPG fanatic, that’s just too much. Even Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom was pushing the boat out by capping the levels at 120. But 250? It’s way too far. But when you come across these players do you (at least in your head) congratulate them for reaching those high echelons? No. You automatically assume that they have no life leading to either conclusion that a) they are a prepubescent virgin with no friends, or b) an unemployed virgin in their mid-30s, with no friends. Does that sound like bragging rights to you? Me neither.

In summary, I do not see the overall benefit from “prestiging” in multiplayer modes as it merely sucks you into investing exponential amounts of time into a game yet giving you very very little in return.