There is no cure: Paratexts as remediations of agency in Red Dead Redemption 2

Towards the end of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), main character Arthur Morgan contracts tuberculosis. The videogame is set in United States 1899, a time when many died from respiratory infection. does not provide cure for disease, nor it show contagion happens. It presented as consequence an invisible action. Combining auto-ethnographic analysis with (para-)textual readings, this article, I articulate my engagement game and YouTube videos which players claim to have identified strategy save Arthur. argue that these paratextual practices address, without fully resolving, affective response originates unresolved reading ( Consalvo, 2016 ; Genette, 1987 ). on Arthur’s sickness remediate (in double sense restoring upon healing) players’ agency Bolter Grusin, 1999 imagination restoration player’s insists two levels: narrative level, interpreted navigable database events, environment, seen ‘gamespace’ resources non-player characters exploit or keep at distance Jennings, 2019 Stang, Anikina, 2020 Wark 2007 duration auto-ethnography overlaps spread COVID-19 pandemic. article concludes by exploring some recent mediations virus, observing how they restore view human runs parallel articulated much more marginal context. case studies, although diverse nature, gravity scale, shed light variety contexts negotiated, potential negotiations, pervasiveness white able-bodied normativity contemporary digital culture.