Waiting for the other boot to drop in Red Dead Redemption 2! What’s next Rockstar?

***Warning Spoilers Ahead***

Video game history was made on October 26th 2018 when the long-anticipated sequel to Rockstars Western-themed smash Hit Red Dead Redemption series hit the shelves, and just like on the western plains of the Wild West, it spread like wildfire. Red Dead Redemption 2 broke records all over the globe and just narrowly missed winning the game of the year. The single player game was massive, beautifully crafted, and often an extremely violent and dangerous world whose missions seemingly had no end. If only that were true. The main story that followed Arthur Morgan was engaging and well written. I cried when my horse died and again when Arthur met his end. When John built his home and won back his family, there was a sense of actual pride and accomplishment. The side missions took hours and had me hanging off of cliffs and staring into the sky for hours searching for aliens! None of it seemed like work because all of it was fun, however, as the most casual of players are now reaching the end of their Red Dead journeys, there isn’t much to do after the fact and we are dying to know: What’s next Rockstar?

Rockstar has been slow with the news when it comes to updates on both the single player and the online versions of the game and it’s got the fans growing very impatient. Even YouTubers who have built their audience on the backs of Red Dead videos are vocalizing their lack of interest in producing content until Rockstar begins to make good with new content. One YouTuber said, “It’s pointless to waste my time on videos when Rockstar hasn’t been forthcoming with what the future holds.” Reddit is swarming with posts about the lack of content and players reaching high levels online with nothing to do and growing board.

One side mission had players meet a man who was from the future! This fast-talking dapper Dan sent us scouring the massive map for intricate wall carvings of bizarre scenes that showed visions from the past mixed with technology from the future. These were not easy to find and if it weren’t for the massive and extremely helpful online community, I would have never have gotten it done. Once I did all that work and finally returned to where the time traveller had told me to meet him I was meet instead his mother holding a baby version of the man. Only raising even more questions that have still been left to be answered.

Another NPC, non-player character, sent us looking for legendary fish and animals to have him complete his latest book, something that we were told we would receive profits on. Then there is the strange cult and cult leader and their connection to actual UFO’s that are triggered in-game. All these amazing stories and events and it’s been 4 months since we’ve had an update. What the hell? Spiderman came out in September and they had a new DLC every month for the following three months! We’ve yet to even be given a timeline as what to expect for the future, which has made many fans uneasy and rightfully impatient.  Thankfully we’ve been granted access to Red Dead Online Beta but even that has begun to grow stale. Players were expecting to do the same things we were able to do in single player, just online…we were highly disappointed when we couldn’t do that. We can’t even kill a wounded animal and put it out of its misery as we could in single player. Instead, we just have to sit there and wait for it to die from anguish if we don’t want to ruin the quality of the pelt! Thank goodness the animal doesn’t scream and thrash about in pain or anything….oh wait. Red Dead Online Beta has been fun, but I really think it’s time for Rockstar to start pushing out the things that are going to keep players engaged. Rockstar has set the bar with the success of Grand Theft Auto V. Just like with the single player experience in RDR2, Red Dead Online’s initial rush of possibility and uniqueness immersed players right back into their Wild West fantasies, but just like the single player game, it’s starting to get repetitive and needs some real content soon!

Things players want to see online:

• What is going on with the Widow and the people who killed her husband story missions. 
• We want to own land! Give us land that we get in debt to the bank and have to work off, just like in the single player mission. Give us a selection of houses to choose from and interior decorations we can spend hours earning and crafting. 
• Jobs. Allow us to get into job skill sets like saddlery, huntsmen, farming, ranching, blacksmithing, etc. This will allow players to craft items with special skill bonuses that can be sold to other players. 
• Horse and Carriage Fences.
• Give us poker and poker tournaments! Let us get into long hours of trash talk with our fellow gamblers online, earning nuggets of gold!
• Doggos! We want dogs! Hunting dogs and companions that will warn us of danger and help us hunt by retrieving or even hunting small game with us!
• Wagons! We need wagons for long hunts and bringing in big game in order to make good money! We want to do the work, we just need to tools to do it!
• Legendary hunts! Big group hunts for higher level animals that will kill a group of players if they don’t coordinate and plan a good attack. Make the reward worth the effort. 
• Crafting clothing and satchels.
• Heists! We want to rob trains and banks for big payoffs.
• Player bounty hunters! Let players earn money gold and rewards for hunting down players who kill other players for no reason.
• Flying machines! Yes, they are already in the game in two places. On your journey in the single player and online you can find locations where early flying machines had come to a sudden end. It would be a lot of fun if players can travel across the massive maps by peddling these flying machines from one end of the map to the other!
• Hideouts! Posse based hideouts aside from personal homes. Maybe on steamboats and caves? These would be areas where players can donate items to the posse to help unlock recipes, missions, and items only available to a posse. 

Things players want to see in single player:

• The continuation of the Stranger missions: The Time Traveler, The Bright bouncing Boy
• Where are Charles and Sadie? 
• Red Dead Nightmare!

I want to stress this very important fact and acknowledge that Red Dead Online is still in the Beta phase of development. Beta testing is a crucial part of the online gaming process. It’s meant as a final testing period for the game code and the physical requirements in regards to support and server space. However, Red Dead Redemption 2 came out over 3 months ago. Many players were disappointed that Rockstar had let another anniversary date come and go with no news of the future DLC or news of online plans. Understandable, perhaps some fine tuning may still be in order for a full release of Red Dead Online, but with no news at all of future content or release dates for the single player game, plus cutbacks to Rockstar staff, and previous delays to the title have a lot of fans nervous of another long wait for something new in Red Dead Redemption 2. With new games being released all the time and the fickle attention span of fans, Rockstar should be nervous. It’s time for them to drop the other boot and get this show on the road or they might have players returning to GTAV and abandoning the Old West for more content!