Choose My Adventure: Roaming the wild frontier is the quintessence of Red Dead Online

When my best friend Britarnya started to get deep into her Red Dead Online cups, she was mostly just riding around the game’s prairie looking for trouble or running into it. There was likely an overarching goal of progressing in rank or earning money, but most of her enjoyment stemmed from simply living in this version of the Old West.

Consider my delight, then, that the voting for Choose My Adventure fell right into that bucket last week, particularly since I always wanted to join in on her wandering ways but never really bothered to ask because I didn’t want to interrupt her limited leisure time. But now thanks to you fine folks, I had a work excuse to join in, and it was as good as I had hoped.

Our time together was pretty brief, lasting only a few hours, but it was definitely an action-filled few hours. The plan was pretty basic: head to a stranger or two in a semi-distant town, perhaps do a bounty mission, and all along the way immediately divert to whatever events popped up, whether they were outposts to raid, doggos to follow, or missions from random NPCs on the side of the road.

All of these missions were the epitome of short and sweet yet all combined to make a layer cake of fun and progress. We started off with a mission to hunt down five different kill targets (dishonorably of course), which was much more challenging than it appeared since the targets weren’t all in the same place and the area they were in was a bunch of twisting canyons. We ultimately missed one target, but the payoff was still good and my friend got the daily mission clear she was chasing.

After that we decided to ride to Valentine for a bounty or two. Along the way, we stopped for a dog that wanted our attention and who ultimately led me to some free booze just hiding in a lockbox. The bounty missions themselves were all nice and varied, allowing us to flex some tactical muscle, working together to fix a devolving situation, or accidentally killing the bounty and just going murder-happy on everything and everyone as a result.

Incidentally, the ability to play tactically at all is absolutely one of RDO’s surprises: The two of us cleared a mission by splitting up and timing enemy takedowns before they had a chance to retaliate, while a pop-up outpost assault had my friend play point while I hung back at range to snipe enemies as they popped up.

The stranger missions we took up were similarly unique, quick-hitting, and fun. These appear to fall into a few categories involving bringing a cart to a location or bringing something from point A to point B, but things can still get wild enough that they don’t always play quite the same. And there always seem to be the potential for moments to emerge as well, like one cart mission where I managed to take down a chasing foe through a purely lucky shot through trees or a package delivery mission where a whole farmstead decided I should die.

It also wouldn’t be an RDO game without some horse-based mishaps. My character brained himself on a tree branch and a road sign during our time together. I was almost afraid horse-based idiocy was missing from this portion of the game, but I’m glad to report that is not the case.

As we rode, roamed, and cleared tasks along the way, we both realized that it was time to stop after what only felt like minutes but ended up being hours. It was not only a fun way to burn some time but also very rewarding. I’m making money hand over fist and am slowly climbing my way to a final total of gold bars that I need to officially begin doing my moonshiner role.

All of those things stirred together to create what felt like the quintessential RDO experience. Sure, there’s probably a “right” or efficient way to grind up currencies and rank, but this really felt like the best way to go about it. At least it was the best way for the two of us, anyway. We both come from playing another game the same way; this is just how we roll.

As nice and slow and steady as progression has been, however, I do have to wonder just whether I should try to press on the gas just a little bit. I’m loath to give Rockstar any money and reward it for basically letting players buy their way into progress, but I also have to consider that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to make it to Moonshiner before this month is over with unless I grind this game and therefore make it less fun, and I would like to share my experiences with you all in this column.

So that means this week’s first poll puts the question to you on whether I focus on play or fling a little dosh in the interest of expediency:

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As for the second poll, that’s basically like the past two but with a tiny little twist. I’ve been enjoying playing the game with my family but also am curious if I would feel the same way if I played solo. So, let’s settle that, shall we?

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Polling wraps up at the usual 1:00 p.m. EST time on Friday, November 15th. Even so, I’m probably going to join in with my family at least a couple more times before the results take shape. We don’t have much game time together as a unit (aka Porg Squadron) and every open opportunity counts in that regard.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.