While Red Dead Redemption 2's single-player story receives tons of praise, Rockstar Games has also built a vibrant, ever-evolving online world in Red Dead Online.
Red Dead Online provides a personalized storytelling approach to the game where players hop into the open-world, create a character and explore the vast frontier. Players can choose from any of five unique Specialist Roles and participate in organized activities or simply explore the environment alone. There are story missions, playable with up to four players, to advance the online game's narrative. However, the events in Red Dead Online do not affect those in the story of RDR2.
Forge your own path across any of five unique Specialist Roles. These include apprehending everyone from low-level criminals to notorious gangs as a Bounty Hunter, learning the secrets of the animal kingdom as a Naturalist or hunting wildlife as a means for source materials as a Trader, searching for exotic treasures as a Collector, to even running your own underground Moonshine distillery. Help the widow Jessica LeClerk and her right-hand man, Horley gain revenge upon the men who killed her husband in A Land of Opportunities, a series of story-based cooperative missions for two to four players. Compete in Showdown Modes, a series of competitive modes where players and teams compete in classic gunfights and objective-based competitions like capturing territory or supplies. And much more, including Free Roam Missions that can vary based on how noble or nefarious you are, public or private games of Poker, competitive Free Roam Events and Daily Challenges – all taking place in a world of astounding depth and detail.
Normally Red Dead Online was only included in paid versions of Red Dead Redemption 2. But not everyone is interested in single-player, narrative-driven games. By releasing as a standalone multiplayer game, it opens up to more players.
As an ever-evolving experience, Rockstar continuously releases updates to keep the world feeling fresh. And with no plans to add single-player DLC, it sounds as though Rockstar will continue to build upon Red Dead Online for years to come.
Red Dead Online is available for only $4.99 from the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, Rockstar Games Launcher, Epic Games Store and Steam. It will remain at this price (75% off the regular cost) until February 15, 2021. This is the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of Red Dead Online; however, it will be playable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S via the consoles backward compatibility hardware.