The bones for RDR2's story were already set in place from when Rockstar gave a shyt about keeping with the lore and universe of the games they created, they just had to flesh it out and be reverent with the source material. Also, I still maintain the fact that since Rdr1 was written more seriously than Red Dead Revolver, they sorta had no leeway to steer into absurd shyt with the main character and his motives. Also, I still maintain that this was Rockstar wanting to prove that it could deliver a damned good Western that was written properly and played just as good as the story since up to this point the only competition they had was the ambitious but ultimately shallow Call of Juarez Brothers in Blood title.
GTA 5's story is Rockstar falling victim to the same tropes and satires they, themselves ridiculed in games before by having two outlandishly stupid characters (Trevor is what you get when the lazy writes watch too much Breaking Bad and Michael is what you get when the writers watch too many 'Insert Sitcom/Movie where a washed up white man pines for his Glory days amidst fame and riches while being disrespected at every turn' movies) that come together to sandwich the straight man (Franklin) who's caught reluctantly between the two forces until the shyt comes to a head.
Ever since I played the woefully somber Max Payne 3 and realized that Rockstar could NOT for the life of itself be bothered to find the funny like it did in games past I had little to no hope of GTA 5 being funny, much less entertaining, and this trivium system really didn't help since as others have pointed, all the characters were shallow and unless you were an edgy Cac, you found nothing remotely interesting about Trevor who was pushed front line and centre once he came on the scene (In the most disrespect-fullest way I'd like to add) and just bogarted the entire movement.
The side characters made this shyt tolerable (That Yee Yee ass haircut line was Golden) until it plodded on to the finish line. Coupled that with having to create this universe with nothing to draw on from their golden age of writing (San Andreas - GTA 4 - RDR1) and you get...that bullshyt. That's why I'm not too keen on GTA 5 getting DLC off the strength of that weak ass story, but Rockstar really got ruined with GTA Online and I fear that's gonna make damn near anything else they bring out on the same level of banality as 5 was.
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Rest easy, King.