Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 was a massive hit last year both critically and financially. It made waves with its impeccable story and followed the long-burning trail of Grand Theft Auto V. When Rockstar released Red Dead Online, however, some players were a bit disappointed.
Some felt it lacked in comparison to the richness of GTA Online but the open-world developer is looking to evolve the mode in big ways. Without just copying GTA’s formula, Red Dead Online will set itself apart from GTA Online this summer with a new roleplaying update. The update will add three “roles” you can choose from but there may be more in the future, as well.
Follow in the feet of Sadie Adler and become a lawful bounty hunter. This will allow you to still be a ruthless cowboy/girl but unleash it on those who are a little more deserving of it via bounties. Should another player make a lot of noise, they’ll rack up a high bounty and become a designated target. You can collect bounties throughout the West by capturing or killing targets which will send you down a unique progression path with special rewards.
If you make enough of a name for yourself, you can unlock a special lasso, flashy gun-spinning tricks, new tracking abilities, and much more.
Want to live a less violent and crime-free lifestyle? Become a trader and open a business from your camp. This will allow hunting to become a much deeper system in the game and allow you to potentially sell other goods. It’s not clear if you’ll be selling to AI like in GTA V or if you can deal with other players but more details will be coming soon.
As a trader, you can get a dog companion to help guard your camp, acquire a wagon for your goods, upgrade your satchel, and expand your camp significantly.
Lastly, there’s the collector, the role for the greedy players. While Rockstar doesn’t specifically highlight it as such, given the nature of greed among their games I imagine this would be one of the more dangerous roles.
As a collector, you’ll see yourself tracking items of high value like jewelry, rare arrowheads, and other treasures hidden within the world. As you become better and better at hunting for these treasures, you’ll unlock new tools such as a metal detector to assist you in your hunt.
All of these roles can be played simultaneously, so you don’t need to choose just one but you can if you wish. They progress and work independently of each other which allows you to focus more on your favorite one. It’s not exactly clear if Rockstar does plan to add more but they noted that it was the “first three Roles”. Could we see opportunities to be lawmen or Pinkerton agents in the future? It would be a really interesting way to spice Red Dead Online up!
Rockstar also promises new changes coming to the game via the next update through content and quality of life updates. Some players have criticized the game for sluggish controls but Rockstar notes they’ll be improving the way Red Dead Online handles amongst other things.
“Substantial, across the board changes are being made to combat and movement to allow for a more responsive control system that still feels natural. Additional damage reduction to Defensive players is also on the horizon, and the game will now remember your preferred playing style (Offensive or Defensive) when you exit and relaunch the game. There will also be many more lootable items to be found throughout the world, like containers on wagons or the occasional Gold Tooth on an unfortunate soul,” reads the press release.
Players who also think their Red Dead Online character is a little too ugly for their tastes will also get to reset their appearance if they so choose.
The new Red Dead Online update has no release date but is slated for some time prior to the end of summer. Rockstar also usually begins to trickle details out for these kinds of things around a month before they launch, so we might see it fairly soon.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is out now on Xbox One and PS4.
