Nearly a week after Rockstar announced a release date for their highly anticipated western epic Red Dead Redemption 2, a development note leak has pointed to some key features in the sequel. It will be Rockstar’s first game released since the massive Grand Theft Auto 5.
That game has a very large focus on multiplayer now, with a very lucrative micro transaction system, it should be no surprise that Red Dead will adopt a similar approach.
Red Dead Online will have three primary modes; Battle Royale, Revive and Survive, Money Grab. It wouldn’t be a shock if Battle Royale operates similar to Fortnite or Player Unknown Battlegrounds, two games with player bases of over 30 million users (combined they still come in below GTAV though). ‘Revive and Survive’ pits two teams against each other, when a team mate is downed there is limited time to revive them before they become permanently eliminated. Money Grab is essentially capture the flag although with multiple flags of different values.
The leak goes onto detail the game world. In the online mode it will be a fully interactive open world, with store fronts that change over time and active NPCs. Players will be constantly rewarded for their actions through a range of challenges, one example given is traveling a certain distance. Replacing GTA’s apartments is the much less flashy ‘Tents’. These can be upgraded and customized. It is also revealed that there will be a number of activities friends can participate in together; poker, fishing, treasure hunting, mining and shoot outs.
The memo continues to reveal some details about the single player mode, if you want to go in totally blank then stop reading here, but I will avoid any story spoilers in this article.
There will be several towns with a variety of stores and opportunities to gamble. There’ll also be a market with fluctuating prices so that you may find items such as guns cheaper here than in the general stores. Vehicles included multiple varieties of horse drawn carriages, which can be armored, minecarts and handcarts. Railway trains will also provide travel similar to GTA’s taxis it seems. The train stations will be fully explorable areas with unique characters. There will be horse riding and fishing challenges that will improve your proficiency in those skills.
There is a crafting and gathering system as well. The biggest news is the first person mode. The PS4 and Xbox One ports of GTAV included this, so it seems likely that Red Dead would have the option. Dead Eye will return along with random events. Allegedly the story with evolve through character decisions and dialogue choices, GTA V had multiple endings but the majority of the story was still linear. Unsurprisingly the wanted level returns and features as it has in all past Rockstar games.
