Might Rockstar Games be waging a cyberwar on one of its own products? I ask that in light of the present state of Red Dead Online, the online version of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 game.
Red Dead Online has always had its issues, but the game is exceptionally beautiful. There’s nothing quite like it. It offers exploration of a vast open-world emulation of the late 19th century West. But recent events demand that we ask what’s going on at Rockstar’s development studios. At present, the game is badly broken, and Rockstar doesn’t seem to care.
Even prior to the recent 1.21 update, problems were brewing. A new “Naturalist” game mode, for example, was supposed to be centered around choosing a scientific or hunter path approach to investigating the game’s many animals. Except that the “legendary animals” central to the new mode were nearly impossible to find.
More broadly, certain free-roam missions, in which players receive tasks from nonplayer characters, didn’t work. I often found myself unable even to accept such a mission after receiving the relevant briefing. Other problems included very low animal spawn rates and an epidemic of cheating on the popular “Gun Rush” battle royale multiplayer mode. But symptomatic of its broader approach to the game, instead of addressing that cheating with bans, Rockstar has simply hidden the “Gun Rush” mode in a way that makes playing it very rare.
Unfortunately, the 1.21 update, which players had been expecting for a year, made things even worse.
Celebrated by Rockstar as the remedy to a vast array of issues big and small, the update basically broke the game. Horses went crazy, nonplayer characters disappeared, players were constantly disconnected, and player camps wouldn’t spawn. Indeed, the variable and absurd nature of the update’s game-killing problems were suggestive of the telltale Chekist humor which defines hostile Russian intelligence campaigns.
Okay, I don’t believe that this is the Russians or a deliberate Rockstar effort to hurt their own product. Nevertheless, we must wonder quite what is going on at Rockstar headquarters.
Although the update has now been rolled back, many problems remain. I cannot play for more than five minutes without being disconnected, but there’s little point anyway because the game remains effectively unplayable in those five minutes.
I appreciate that the coronavirus pandemic is likely making in-office development work a lot more complicated. Still, the fact that so many issues remain unaddressed, and that Rockstar’s support on Twitter keeps regurgitating the same “fill in a ticket” advice, makes me wonder whether Rockstar has lost interest in this game. There’s an arrogant disdain that comes through here, a sense of developers way too focused on artistry and not interested enough in providing enjoyable entertainment to people who have paid for it.
Also, what on Earth is going on with Mexico?
