Red Dead Online won’t receive major developer support anymore, according to an announcement from Rockstar. But this online cowboy world deserves a fond farewell after many happy trails on Windows PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Red Dead Online has reached the end of its lifespan. It is both a fantastic experience that I’ve explored for hundreds of hours, and a game that will never meet its full potential, forever in the shadow of its bigger (and vastly more profitable) sibling, Grand Theft Auto Online. Now that Rockstar has said it will no longer be focusing significant attention on the Western, it’s worth revisiting the frontier to judge the game on what it achieved since its 2018 launch.
Red Dead Online begins with your character betrayed, framed for crimes they did not commit and due to be hanged as an outlaw. You escape, thanks to the efforts of high-class lady Jessica LeClerk, who has her own revenge mission in mind since she was newly widowed by scavengers trying to get her husband’s fortune. The player becomes LeClerk’s instrument of justice, and once unleashed on the frontier, it’s time to get right to work fulfilling bounties, killing robbers, and obtaining a stable of beautiful horses to brush.
If you follow the LeClerk missions, you are put through a short campaign wherein you have to make the occasional moral choice. Do you bring a wayward daughter back to her father, or let her run off with her lover? Do you tie some ne’er-do-wells to the tracks and let the train enact justice, or are you more merciful?
The game tracks your actions with an honor system, and at first, you might think you’re in for some real deep role-playing. This notion falls off, though, after LeClerk’s missions and never really returns; the honor system remains, but tends to automatically fill up over time when you do things like brush and feed your horse. It’s usually pretty clear what leads to an honor drop or recovery. When you clear a gang’s hideout, you can spare the leader or execute him, and self-defense is fine, but executing witnesses is a no-no.
Beyond a few cosmetic rewards, it just never really matters.
