Review: Red Dead Online is a messy yet promising start for something greater

Just over a month ago, Rockstar Games released their first brand new game in five years with Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s big, ambitious, beautiful, and so much more but we were only scratching the surface of it when it released in October. Now, here we are and Rockstar has released the beta for the game’s online mode: Red Dead Online.

The multiplayer mode is a successor to the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto Online and has been described by the open-world developer as an “evolution” of the first RDR’s multiplayer which is somewhat apparent when you play it. There was a question of how the formula of GTA Online would work in a setting with far less technology and weaponry, what things can you buy, how grounded will Rockstar keep this world, etc.

To some extent, that question is still up in the air as this is a developing title that will grow and expand over the months and likely years to come. What we have now is a foundation for something much larger to come in time. You have the basics: PVP matches, horse races, free-roaming activities with friends, customization, and co-op missions. It’s not as jam-packed with content as some may have hoped but it fulfills the bare minimum requirements.

A hallowed out yet still engaging version of Rockstar’s greatest world to date:

In its current state, there’s a lack of mini-games like poker, blackjack, dominos, or even five finger filet, all things featured in the main game. It’s possible that these will come in time but it feels like a noticeable exclusion when GTA Online launched with things like arm wrestling and darts. You’re not given much of a chance to do anything that doesn’t involve killing or stealing, even things like hunting still require you to put down an animal.

Red Dead Redemption has always felt like it offers a way to stop the hectic action and let you relax with other things to do but Red Dead Online lacks that and it sticks out like a sore thumb. As previously mentioned, hunting carries over from the base game so if you want to go take down a big grizzly in the mountains with friends, you can. If you’re seeking some extra money, you can go hunt deer or go fishing. So long as you take the right people with you, it can be really fun to stalk critters in the woods and try and get some perfect pelts. The only change I’d like to see is making it easier to get fatal shots on animals.

In single-player, it’s easier because you can use dead eye and highlight the key critical parts of an animal and shoot it. In multiplayer, since time doesn’t slow down in multiplayer, it’s wildly difficult to hit it in the heart so my friends and I typically destroyed the pelts.

Roaming the world with friends to hunt, do gang hideouts, or whatever else your heart desires is a lot of fun. Some people found that Rockstar’s traversal mechanics of horses made the main game tedious to travel across the large world they built but with friends, it’s actually really enjoyable.

You ride together in a pack, you point out things to each other, watch each other’s backs, and take on this lifestyle of being a group of outlaws. On top of that, there are all sorts of hilarious things to do on your own accord. My posse found a really large waterfall and started fist fighting on top of it, trying to knock each other off, tackling each other off the ledge and watching our bodies ragdoll to their watery demise.

There’s also no shortage of hijinks to be had with the lasso, something absent from the first game’s multiplayer. You can drag people around behind your horse, tie them up and throw them off cliffs, and place them on train tracks. It’s easy to break out of so it probably won’t be abused too much by griefers, thankfully.

Noticeable features and elements are missing from Red Dead Online:

While Rockstar has carried over as much as they possibly could from what is quite possibly gaming’s greatest open world ever, there are setbacks in Red Dead Online. Likely for technical reasons, there are fewer NPCs in the world so you’ll go into saloons which would normally be packed with patrons and drunkards but find it completely empty aside from a sole piano player scoring a bar with no one in it aside from the bartender.

This seems to fluctuate as I have gone into the saloon in Valentine and found it completely desolate but also seen it with several NPCs. You can still find homes and properties in your travels and raid them but I can’t think of an instance where any of these homes had people living in them, they were consistently empty and lacking life in them.

Even worse, I’d rarely find items in the lootable drawers, counters, and chests. Occasionally, there’d be some food or something but it felt like a lot of it had been stripped down for some reason which disappointed me greatly as I loved robbing NPCs and their homes in the main game.

Robbing in of itself has been removed from an activity you can do as you please, it’s mission-based now. Shopkeepers can’t be robbed as they need to be open at all times for other players and you can’t really interact with NPCs like in the main game because your character is silent like in GTA Online.

Plenty of well-made missions with a lack of meaningful compensation:

When you’re not running amuck in the open world, you’ll likely find yourself doing missions or PVP matches. There are two types of missions, free roam challenges which see you doing various tasks that can be interrupted by other players for their own personal gain or co-op story missions.

All of these missions feature characters you’ve seen in the main game and some new ones as well. The likes of Sean McGuire, Alden, and even a young Bonnie McFarland return to dish out missions to the players. The story missions are particularly fascinating, there’s a narrative arc in Red Dead Online where you assist a woman in tracking down people who wronged her.

Along the way, you’ll do interesting things such as track down an outlaw in a familiar canyon, hunt a man’s lost lover in an attempt to return her to him, and much more. It’s more interesting than the GTA Online mission structure which, aside from some exceptions like heists, is just “Go here, blow up this thing, kill some people, go home.”

On top of that, many of these missions have moral choices for the player to make. Do you return that woman to her husband or let her live a life with her new lover? Do you tie a group of men to the train tracks and let them get hit or do you save them? The four players then vote on the choice you make with the majority vote winning and ultimately deciding what happens next, which affects your honor in Online.

There are a few frustrating aspects to these missions, though. For starters, the pay isn’t great. That’s just a general issue across all of Red Dead Online. You’re getting less than $10 per mission/PVP match, it seemed like more often than not I was getting around $5. While I’m glad an effort is being made by Rockstar to balance the economy so people don’t quickly get a bunch of the best stuff in the game, it became increasingly frustrating.

Most of my money would have to go back into investing in food, tonics, and ammo, leaving me with very little to spend on other luxuries such as a new gun or clothes. People have been complaining things cost too much but frankly, that doesn’t seem to be the issue as a lot of things are locked behind ranks. The issue is there enough money being rewarded to players.

One free roam challenge required me to hunt down another player in five minutes or less. I saddled up and tracked him down, getting my horse killed in the process as I ran through a forest to get to him. His posse ambushed me and murdered my horse, leaving me with only a pistol as I hadn’t equipped my rifle and shotgun, and I had to push up with only my trusty sidearm.

I managed to pull it off and kill the target but was rewarded with no more than $2… not even enough to get my uninsured horse healed by the vet which is $4. It’s a severe problem that will hopefully be fixed sooner rather than later as it feels like players aren’t being compensated properly for their efforts.

The other issue I have with missions, specifically the story missions, is that it’s totally confusing on how to progress. You’d think if you do one, you unlock the next one, but that’s not how it works. I have yet to see the story through to the end because it seems random as to when these missions appear for you, perhaps it’s a rank based thing but that’s not really spelled out in the game.

PVP is clunky, sluggish, and somewhat unfocused but presents interesting concepts:

On the flip side, you have Red Dead Online’s PVP which is a really mixed bag. Outside of a mode where you capture and hold points on the map, all of the modes are somewhat untraditional. There’s no straight up TDM or free-for-all, these modes have special twists such as a free-for-all where depending on the weapon you use, you’ll get more points.

These modes are fun and interesting but the problems arise from controls, mechanics, and map design. Red Dead Redemption 2 has a slower feel in its gameplay, it has lots of weight and realistic factors to it. You have to physically have some place to store your weapons on your person, guns handle in a very specific way that you might not see in other games like this, and you move closer to a real person than a video game character.

Something I noticed is that in the first RDR, you could get on the roof of the saloon in Armadillo. In RDR 2, you can’t because your character can’t reach the ledge to climb up to it from the balcony. This is the most obvious way to identify how toned down they’ve made character movement, things are heavier and slower and that works in the single-player. Some people hated the way it felt but I loved it, it was more engaging and immersive to me.

In an online setting where you have fast-paced 32-player PVP deathmatches, it becomes noticeably clunky and sluggish as you fumble around the environment. Players are smarter than AI, they’re more relentless and precise. These slow and heavy controls don’t work here because the pacing is radically multiplied.

I found it too slow and frustrating to switch weapons, having to open the weapon wheel, unholster the weapon, usually pull back on the hammer of the weapon before firing, typically resulting in my death before I could even pull the trigger. It’s not fast or fluid and it doesn’t add to the immersion of multiplayer, it makes it less fun and more frustrating.

Rockstar’s rich and painstakingly detailed world that they’ve crafted also makes for really interesting online scenarios but some of the levels feel too large and unfocused. There are a handful of levels such as one in Saint Denis, Tall Trees, Tumbleweed, and more, while they have boundaries, they feel too open. Tall Trees is like a maze where everything looks the same, you spend most of your time wandering around aimlessly.

It takes away lots of time in action and begins to feel too mindless, becoming awkward, boring, and frustrating. Maps like Saint Denis are very fun thanks to their density but could also use some honing in to make the action feel more rapid and engaging, simply just making the maps smaller would help with the pace of matches.

The PVP matches also have pretty bad team balancing. I struggled to ever remain on the same team as the people in my posse as the game shuffles you around to other teams to balance them, sometimes putting you in a team of three and then one of your posse members in a team of four… splitting you from your friends and putting you against each other which can be fun but sometimes you just want to cooperate together.

Unstable but not unplayable:

Red Dead Online is also somewhat unstable right now. It’s better than GTA Online’s launch period by quite a bit but it still has some kinks to work out, hence why Rockstar has labeled it as a beta. You’ll get booted out of lobbies randomly, strangers will give you missions but the game doesn’t recognize it so the objective never appears and then it causes all of the other missions to disappear, forcing you to relaunch into a new lobby. My friend discovered a glitch that when I went to lasso him, he invited me to a posse, and before I even accepted it, it freed him from being hogtied.

It’s not a broken disaster, it’s nothing like Fallout 76’s dysfunctional status as Red Dead Online feels like it works more often than not, but there are definitely bugs and glitches that will need to be ironed out in the months to come.

The Verdict:

While none of this makes Red Dead Online particularly bad or not fun to play, it makes a rich game feel noticeably watered down and hallow. It has all the window dressing from the grand scale of the main game but holds back on some of the best elements of Red Dead Redemption 2, sometimes in ways that I’m not sure how Rockstar will justify.

There’s still lots to love about Rockstar’s Red Dead Online, enough that keeps me coming back to it daily, and there will surely be lots of content to come soon to mold it into something bigger and better. Right now, it’s a rocky foundation but one that will eventually service something that will no doubt be another major success for the acclaimed developer.