I wanted to comment on a few other comments, and I also have more impressions.
I agree that this is a stunning game visually, and in my humble opinion it is the best looking game I have ever seen. (and I'm no spring chicken! lol)
I also love how both modes look great and are immersive. I have tried both first person mode and third person view, and they both work equally well. Of course, to my taste first person is always the most immersive so I use that more of the time.
Next, the game does completely open up in Chapter 2. You don't have to follow the missions at all. I learned this from reading a guide. And after I got in chapter 2, I literally stopped doing missions (so far anyway) and just started roaming around. This is the perfect game for that. I have literally wandered around for hours. It is truly an old west simulator. I have had various adventures and run into cool side-quests scattered around the world. There are also really cool random encounters too, by the way.
For example, I interrupted a stagecoach robbery while just wandering around exploring randomly, and it was the dreaded rival "O'Driscoll" gang. When they saw me they exclaimed, "Isn't that one of those boys from our rival gang (I forgot what they exactly said, but this is the jist of it) - and then screamed - "Open up on him!" lol, it was hilarious. I was able to kill them both and rob them and also rob the stagecoach as well. I have had other funny mini-adventures as well, this is just an example.
Then I put one of the dead O'Driscolls on the back of my horse, and later was spotted by a "witness" who was alarmed and quickly galloped away to put my name as "wanted" by the law. I was trying to figure out the logic of this because the guy didn't see the stagecoach shootout, but then had a "Duh!" moment when I realized it made perfect sense because he saw the dead body on the back of my horse! lol Of course that would alarm a regular citizen.
Then I tried to ride into camp with the dead guy on the back of my horse and got this amusing message - "You are unable to bring dead humans into the camp" and a guy (fellow gang member) who was guarding the camp perimeter made an exclamation along with a sound of disgust when he saw how I was trying to bring in the dead body.
It was pretty funny.
Anyway, as a result I now have bounty hunters hunting me which is also hilarious and fun. I have just had another shootout and killed a couple of the bounty hunters at night time. I expect my bounty which is $15 right now will go up unless I go to the post office in town to pay it off.
Everything is western themed just like you would imagine it. (in terms of the encounters) I know what I need to to do to trigger the next part of the story but am just ignoring it by doing fun things like exploring the game world, marveling at the stunning graphics and immersiveness of the game.
Also, the story is nothing that innovative, but it is "classic" in terms of western tropes. I appreciate that. (I am still early in the game and am still very interested in where the story goes, but am a fan of the classic western themes and story lines) I especially like you can earn "honor points" by being a good guy and there are important decision points in the game to show whether you (your character) is evil or good.
Finally, regarding performance. I agree many are having issues. But you can do several things. My old laptop is being pushed to the limit by this game and so I have investigated various suggestions. The best one I have found and what greatly helped me is I did a fps cap on the game. You can do this through RTSS program and I put my cap at only 35 frames. Yes it is very low cap but my system is old and I like to turn up the graphics options because of how beautiful the game is, so I settled for a console-like fps and it works well. I can play the game with really nice eye candy but as a price I do have a "slow" 30 fps. To me It works.
Other gamers used to 60 fps at minimum will not be satisfied with this solution. But keep in mind you have to have a monster machine from what I can tell to get good frame rates on this game. The game is "future-proofed" and will bring even a monster system to its knees with certain graphic settings turned to the max.
Some people are even claiming the game requires a 6-core system at minimum in terms of what it was designed for, and that is why people like me with only 4 cores are having issues. Not sure I believe that, but just saying what I heard.
Here is a youtube video that explains how to cap your fps in-game and it works like a charm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEg3GiT57I&t=9s
I apologize for the lengthy post but as you can see I had a lot to say. I also agree that this game's amazing graphics would make for an awesome fantasy game and even had my friend make the same comment yesterday.
Bottom line - if you are a gamer and have any interest at all in westerns or just what the cutting edge level of gaming will be, in terms of graphics and world simulation -this is a must buy game.