Academic research from the United Kingdom has shown how playing the game Red Dead Redemption 2 can be educational in terms of recognizing the animal world.
People who played Red Dead Redemption 2 are better at recognizing real animal species than people who didn’t play , one study found. The university of Exeter in collaboration with Truro College from the United Kingdom conducted a survey of 586 participants from 55 countries. The aim of the research was to see if playing the game Red Dead Redemption 2 has an educational benefit in the field of biology, ie the identification of specific animal species.
Respondents were asked to identify 15 animal species that could be encountered in Red Dead Redemption 2 based on actual photographs. Initially, subjects were offered photographs based on which they had to name a specific animal species they saw, and if they did not know its name, they were offered five possible answers.
Just so you’re not mistaken, the respondents did not have a choice between a bear and a pig – they had to offer a specific name for each animal – for example Merino sheep, Sonoran desert frog etc.
Out of a total of 586 participants, 444 played Red Dead Redemption 2. The results showed that those who played RDR2 on average accurately identified 10 of the 15 animal species, and generally scored better than those who did not play the game.
The researchers therefore concluded that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an educational game, but they still do not recommend it to those under 18 years of age.
Red Dead Redemption 2 as an extremely realistic game also contains realistic behaviors of animal species. For example, birds in the game hunt fish, snakes and other smaller animals, bears scratch from trees, horses are afraid of fire and so on.
If you didn’t play RDR2 yet, here’s an article on how and when you can play it on PS Now.
