Alright, so I finally decided to dive into Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. I’d played it a bit on console before, but you know, keyboard and mouse is where it’s at for me. Figured I’d share my experience getting used to the controls, ’cause it ain’t exactly straightforward.
Getting Started
First thing I did was, obviously, boot up the game. Went straight into the settings, ’cause I knew I’d want to tweak things. The default layout? Not for me. Way too much going on.
The Basics
Movement is your usual WASD setup, with
Shift to sprint.
- W: Forward
- A: Left
- S: Backward
- D: Right
- Spacebar: Jump/Climb
- Left Ctrl: crouch.
So far, so good, right? Feels pretty standard.
Horse Riding
Things get a bit funky when you hop on your horse.
- W is still forward,
- A and D for steering.
- Shift makes the horse sprint,and you can tap it to the rhythm of the gallop to save Stamina.
- Ctrl slows the horse.
- Spacebar to jump.
Combat Tweaks
Shooting felt…off. The default sensitivity was way too high. I turned that down immediately.
- Right-click to aim,
- Left-click to fire.
- R to reload – that one’s pretty universal.
- Q is for cover.
- F key melee.
Dead Eye
Now, Dead Eye, that’s a whole different beast. By default, you activate it with the
Mouse Wheel button. Once you’re in, you tag enemies by moving your mouse over them and pressing
Q, then you press
Left-click to fire. That took some practice, I’ll tell ya. It’s a cool feature but it takes some getting used to.
Other Controls
- Interacting with the world is mostly done with the
E key. Picking up items, looting bodies, talking to people, all that jazz. - Press the TAB Key to open the weapon wheel.
My Final Thoughts
It’s a lot to take in, honestly. I’m still getting the hang of it, especially the horse controls and Dead Eye. But, it’s getting there. I remapped a few things to make it more comfortable for my playstyle, mostly just moving some of the less common actions to keys I could reach easier. I recommend spending some time in the early game just messing around with the controls to find what works for you.
