Rockstar has no plans for Red Dead Redemption 2 single-player DLC

As Undead Nightmare turns 10, Red Dead Redemption 2 fans hold out hope for a meaty single-player DLC. The two-year old game has one of the most acclaimed stories in gaming and left players wanting more. Sadly, as some may have expected, Rockstar won’t be expanding that story.

In a new interview with GamesRadar (via @VideoTech_ on Twitter), Tarek Hamad, director of design production at Rockstar North, said the focus is on Red Dead Online right now.

“Right now the team is focused on building on top of and into the world of Red Dead Online,” says Hamad. “This world, that era, provides so much scope for storytelling and introducing a wide spectrum of different characters, all of which can be experienced on your own or with a full posse. It’s really important for us that we make sure every type of player can experience the stories we have to tell, and can control the way they experience all of this in Red Dead Online.”

This commitment to the multiplayer for Red Dead Redemption 2 shouldn’t come as a surprise to Rockstar fans. Shortly after the launch of GTA V in 2013, Rockstar announced plans for a single-player expansion to the game. It was set to come out in 2014 but was never mentioned ever again. Rockstar had their hands tied with the next-gen versions of the game, Red Dead Redemption 2, and expanding GTA Online.

“We would love to do more single-player add-ons for games in the future. As a company we love single-player more than anything, and believe in it absolutely – for storytelling and a sense of immersion in a world, multiplayer games don’t rival single-player games. With GTA V, the single-player game was absolutely massive and very, very complete. It was three games in one,” said Imran Sarwar, director of design at Rockstar, in an interview with Game Informer in 2017.

“The next-gen versions took a year of everyone’s time to get right, then the online component had a lot of potential, but to come close to realizing that potential also sucked up a lot of resources. And then there are other games – in particular Red Dead Redemption 2. The combination of these three factors means for this game, we did not feel single-player expansions were either possible or necessary, but we may well do them for future projects.”

At least we can look forward to hopefully getting a meaty campaign in Grand Theft Auto VI. In somewhat related news, Red Dead Online will be splitting off into a standalone game in December on all platforms.