Red Dead Redemption 2 launched six months ago today. In those past six months, developer Rockstar faced criticisms over crunch, the main game released to great reviews, Red Dead Online launched and grew, and a country-trap hybrid hit song used the game in a music video. Here’s what’s happened in the last six months.
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In the weeks before Red Dead Redemption 2’s release, Rockstar’s culture of crunch is criticised. An interview with the co-founder of Rockstar Games, Dan Houser, causes outrage after a comment implies that he and his staff are working over 100 hours a week. He later says that this was just a small group of writers and that Rockstar didn’t force anyone else to work that many hours.
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Kotaku’s Jason Schreier releases a report days before the game’s release that reveals the crunch problems at Rockstar weren’t relegated to only a small group of writers, as Dan Houser claimed. Creating RDR2 involved many individuals and studios spread across the world, with each studio and team having their own experiences with crunch.
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On October 26, 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 is released for PS4 and Xbox One. Reviews are mostly positive, with many critics praising the game’s visuals and storytelling, including Kotaku. The game grosses $US725 ($1,032) million in its first weekend of sales, making it the biggest opening weekend in entertainment history.
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As players explore the world, they discover that the most dangerous animals in the game are possibly the deer and elk. Players share videos of these creatures attacking them for no reason. Other players avoid the deer and instead focus on growing their beards as large as possible. They are glorious looking.
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Players exploring the massive world of Red Dead Redemption 2 also begin to find creepy, odd and interesting easter eggs and secrets. Some of their discoveries include ghosts in the swamp, UFOs, vampires, time travel and a ghost train. These secrets lead to the formation of a subcommunity of Red Dead players who hunt for clues to find even more hidden secrets and mysteries.
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On November 27, Rockstar launches the beta for Red Dead Online. The release is staggered, with base game ultimate edition owners getting access first. Eventually, on November 30, all players who own the game are given access to Red Dead Online. The initial response is that the game feels empty but is a solid foundation.
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Almost immediately after the release of Red Dead Online, players begin to complain about the game’s economy. Many find the mission and activity payouts too low and the in-game prices on items too high. Players say it feels like the game is asking them to grind for hours to get simple things like weapon upgrades or boots.
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The first few weeks and months of Red Dead Online are mostly filled with small updates and tweaks to the game’s economy and world. Some of these tweaks help make the game less grind-y, but players still find the world too empty.
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Red Dead Online begins to suffer from griefing and trolling. Players are angry that the game seems to do very little to stop players from griefing. Others point towards strange design choices, like showing all players on the map at all times, that make trolling easy.
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Over Christmas, Red Dead Online’s bars feature piano players playing holiday music.
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Rockstar starts 2019 off with a roadmap, outlining how they will improve Red Dead Online’s biggest problems and shortcomings. They promise new missions and events while also teasing new features that will help make trolling and griefing harder.
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In the middle of January, Rockstar is sued by the Pinkertons. This old private security and investigation company featured in Red Dead’s single player campaign is still around, and they aren’t happy about Rockstar using their company name and agents in the main game.
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After weeks of teasing, Rockstar releases the biggest update to Red Dead Online yet, adding a new bounty system, new clothes and changing how player blips work. These changes are fine, but further tweaks to the game’s economy leave players upset. They feel Rockstar is making it harder and harder to earn cash in the game.
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Some players begin to protest Rockstar’s update by cloning cougars using a duplication bug. They then sell these duped cougars and earn money quickly. This is patched by Rockstar soon after it is discovered.
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This big update also rubs some players the wrong way after they notice what they believe to be graphical downgrades in the game. Players point towards shadows missing and other small details becoming less noticeable or losing some quality. These supposed downgrades are not confirmed by Rockstar.
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While it was nominated in multiple categories at the DICE Awards in February, Red Dead Redemption 2 would only win one award that night for “Outstanding Technical Achievement.” Red Dead Redemption 2 also received multiple nominations but won none at the 2019 BAFTA awards, losing out against the popular God Of War in many categories. Red Dead does win “Best Narrative” and a few other awards at the Game Awards 2018.
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Crafty players find different ways to break out of bounds and explore parts of the map they shouldn’t have access to. Some players even use a canoe and some tricks to swim through boundaries and explore Cuba.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 becomes wrapped up in a massive viral moment. The game is used in the video for the incredibly popular country-trap hybrid hit, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. According to Kotaku’s Gita Jackson, this song is a banger. I agree.
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The Pinkerton Detective Agency drops their lawsuit against Rockstar in April.
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Over the course of March and April, Rockstar adds new PvP modes to Red Dead Online. These new modes are a mix of good, bad and boring. While some players are happy to have new content, many wish Red Dead Online would lean more into its Western setting and feature more story and co-op missions. Others hope that Rockstar has single player DLC planned for Red Dead Redemption 2.
And that’s where things are at. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a wonderful single-player game that fans are replaying and enjoying to this day, but Red Dead Online is still in a sorry state for most fans. Some players are leaving the game, and how many will come back remains to be seen.
Grand Theft Auto Online had a rough first year or so too, but eventually got better. Perhaps Red Dead Online will seem similar improvements.
Comments
13 responses to “Red Dead Redemption 2, Six Months Later”
And just as i predicted, no sign of a PC release. 🙁
even though i tried my hardest, i just couldn’t get into the game, having the first bit of the game make you slowly trudge through deep snow imho probably wasn’t the best design choice but knowing it was Rockstar and RDR they could get away with a lot.
They’ll repeat the same process as GTA5.
Remastered version for new consoles and then a PC release. People buy it twice or even three times and Rockstar laughs their way to the bank. Highly recommend you push through the slow start and give it a proper chance. Truly a once in a generation masterpiece.
Maybe, but i’m not optimistic about it, my guess is that next gen is still 1-2 years away and probably a little too late for a remaster that will most likely only have marginal improvements.
Rockstar got lucky with GTA V, that it originally released at the very tail end of last gen and was released after the PS4 and Xbone had already been announced.
So PC in 2022 when next gen consoles come out. Yeah … screw that. Not bothering.
That’s what made me put down GTA 4. 10 hours in I was still being pushed from one tutorial to another. Despite all the 10/10 hype it was my first and last rockstar game.
Edit: meant to reply to @luke
I think it was a good design choice given that most of the game is a slow moody trudge haha. I love it but I can understand why some people don’t.
It’s the same design choice as the start of Fallout 3, a way to shrink your playable world down as much as possible, confining for the purpose of revealing a much larger world when you finally step out and focusing on character building without distraction.
Nowhere near as effective though, even on payout.
I did spend the whole time wondering how long we were gonna be stuck there and just trying to plow through, snow pun intended
For me, I like the idea of the game, more than I actually like playing it. I find the balance between realism and exceptions for gameplay reasons, to be out of wack.
The main issues for me are the terrible inventory, the fact that some of the same controls can be used for both positive and negative things, so if you get your placement wrong, you can get the exact opposite of what you want to do. Also… the combat. Eeekkk.
But the thing that ultimately always drives me away after a few dozens hours, is the save system. For a game this big, let me save exactly where i am and exactly when I want to… just like Witcher 3. Here you cant save before a big fight, if you want to try a few ways of doing things, saves will change where you are, what you have on you, and you cant save in a missions. Truly stupid.
So much fine work is on show but so much other stuff always gets in the way of it. For me.
The trolling aspects always interested me because if you spent enough time in GTAO you began to notice that things like trolling and forced player to player interaction are gameplay elements that are balanced as carefully as any other in the games.
The kinds of motivation a troll can provide simply by having a better vehicle or weapon are undeniable and often the offending tools are only nerfed when they either become too common or ways are found to gain them too easily.
Tanks were the first great trolling weapon and their only major use was creating chaos in freeroam.
Even though they were massively over powered, no attempt was made to curb their use because there was no better promotion for getting a tank, it killed everything and shrugged off insane amounts of damage, only to be easily reacquired when it was finally destroyed.
Every means of griefing the tank griefers was fixed almost instantly such as driving expensive cars in to tanks to give them bad sport marks and the ability to snipe tank drivers with the heavy rifle were quickly labeled bugs and fixed well before any attempt to fix the tanks themselves.
It wasn’t until jets took over that tanks got an overhaul, jets only nerfed themselves when players turned their theft from the airbase in to a simple matter and used other game play mechanics to extend their flight time.
If you requested a one on one death match after getting killed by a jet you spawned in one so players would team up for jet killing sprees, ignore requests from other players but kill their own friends when they were finally downed, creating a griefing loop.
As for forced player to player interactions, all gameplay content has skewed away from solo play and separate mission instances from the early days and RDRO is a continuation of all the above.
Yeah it seems like they are just trying to make GTAO again but with a different skin and no attempt to tap into what people like about RDR2.
Oh without a doubt.
GTAO had time to become the way it is, balanced over time with a steady flow of content until it was barely justifiable.
RDRO just got the existing template transferred over with little to no thought to the difference between flying bikes with gatling guns and hats, belts and horses.
It’s just X amount of time mitigated by Y amount of money sinks to finally buy Z.
The complete lack of content just highlights the unfair and heavily manipulated economy pulling all the strings beneath the surface.
I genuinely thought we would see things like horse drawn carts with mounted guns or upgradeable camp sites as the top end carrots, at least until more substantial options appeared, a slow burn increase like we saw in GTAO instead of the time spent saving for a high end appartment being the same as buying a simple gun or piece of clothing.
The game went from one i was most excited to play, to the cold light of reality where the gameplay looks horrible with too big an eye on ‘realism’, a poor save system, a poor fast travel system.
It simply doesnt look fun at all.
I’m playing this at the moment. It’s ok but not brilliant. The world is amazing, but the stuff you do in it… Not so amazing.
10/10 world containing a 5/10 game.