Have you ever wondered what the hardest part of doing motion capture for a triple-A game is? Well, according to Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clarke, the hardest part of Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn’t the fighting, or shooting, or horse riding; it was the crouch running.
In an interview with Gamology, Clarke says, “People often ask me what was the hardest thing about Red Dead 2 and I’ll tell them it was crouch running.” This might not be the most obvious answer, but have you ever tried running while maintaining a low squat? It’s a real workout.
“We crouch ran for, I think a couple of days,” Clarke remembers. “Cause you gotta crouch run, walk, stealth, drawn with one gun, drawn with two guns, then you gotta crouch run with a rifle. Three days later my thighs were absolutely killing me.”
It sounds like he appreciated the experience and Rockstar’s committment, though. “Rockstar Games, you know, they really pay a lot of attention to details,” he explains. “Not a lot of studios do it that way, but I was very, very grateful that Rockstar Games gave me so much ownership over Arthur. Arthur walks like me, you know? He rubs his nose like me.”
Aside from the physically taxing crouch walking, the “biggest challenge was portraying Arthur’s sickness and his weariness,” Clarke reveals. “But to do it in a way that didn’t slow down the gameplay. That was tricky.”
All the hard work paid off, because Roger Clarke won the 2018 Game Award for Best Performance for his depiction of Arthur Morgan. He portrayed the gruff cowboy with depth, sincerity, and tenderness.
Recommended
In other news, Black Myth Wukong‘s final trailer has been released, and fans can barely contain their excitment.