Do we like Arthur Morgan?
A character from Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Our score: 8 out of 10. A thief and debt collector with a conscience. He is loyal to a fault, and he is kind when it counts. We'd back him, though we'd keep him away from the debt collecting.
It's 1899, and the Wild West is dying. Arthur is the senior enforcer of the Van der Linde gang, a band of outlaws on the run after a robbery in Blackwater goes wrong. Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews took him in as an orphaned boy, and the gang is the only family he has ever known. He does whatever it takes to protect and provide for them.
He is a gruff, dry-witted man who writes in a journal and sketches the landscape. He collects debts with his fists, but he also gives people second chances, and he knows he isn't a good man. That mix of violence and decency is a big part of why players warm to him. The game's writing lets you push him towards honour or towards ruthlessness.
Why the score is high: he spends the game asking whether the outlaw ideals he was raised on still hold up. The gang is falling apart, Dutch is growing more reckless, and Arthur has to decide where his loyalty lies. He loses a few points for the harm he does along the way.
As Dutch spirals and a serious illness forces Arthur to face his own mortality, he turns on the gang's direction. He spends his remaining time trying to get John Marston and John's family to safety, and he does it knowing it will cost him. That final stretch is what turns a rough outlaw into one of gaming's best-loved anti-heroes.