When you hop into Red Dead Online, do you feel like a cowboy? That, apparently, is the hope, at least according to new Gamesradar interview with some of Rockstar’s devs, who discussed their directions for updates and how the game’s community has been cultivated.
The interview may raise eyebrows with gamers who remember that 2020 ushered in a severe content drought for Yeehaw Skyrim, which dragged on so long players were literally protesting it by dressing up as clowns. That drought ended only when Rockstar rolled out the new Frontier Pursuit, Naturalist role, and new Outlaw pass in July, though players are still pretty peeved about the slow pace and small size of updates. To wit, here’s one of the salty memes at the top of the Reddit as of this morning:
That unrest isn’t mentioned in this interview; Rockstar argues that it’s trying to let players live a second life through addition of the Frontier Pursuits update roles, which offer players activities through bounty hunting, studying the natural world as a Naturalist, or playing the commercial game as a Trader or Moonshiner. The studio explains that it’s trying to keep RDO more realistic than GTA Online, in spite of its off-color moments, such as Halloween’s events or the Naturalist role’s Vitalism Studies, which let players turn into animals. Ultimately, the team considers what life would be like in frontier America during the 1800s when creating content.
As for the future? Fans of RDO can expect more of the same, with the devs saying they are focused on “building on top of and into” the game’s world. The devs are also keen on adding more characters and more kinds of stories in the future, with an eye to letting every type of player experience these stories as they see fit, whether alone or in a full posse.
