“Red Dead Redemption 2” is not nearly as good as it should be.
The issue here isn’t that the console game is boring per se. Its single-player mode is breathtaking in its graphics, scale, and fun. Playing the character of a cowboy at the end of the 19th century, players experience a landscape that is rich with historical nuance and entertaining interaction.
But Rockstar Games, which created the game, hasn’t delivered on the online version of “Red Dead Redemption 2.” That means players have little reason to keep playing unless, like me, they are content spending hours hunting various animals. So, what should be done?
Well, put simply, Rockstar needs to give players more to do in “Red Dead Redemption 2” online, outside of the online mode’s group games. These group games basically involve teams of players shooting each other. But there’s little originality here, and as a team-based game, “Red Dead Redemption 2” is inferior to others on the market.
What Rockstar needs to do is replicate the success of Rockstar’s other major title from the past few years, “Grand Theft Auto 5.” That game is built on the diversity of activity in its online mode. Offering players the chance to either fight or cooperate with other players, but also do missions in the vein of the single-player mode, “Grand Theft Auto 5” online matches variable experience to sustaining entertainment.
[Read: Why won’t Rockstar Games give GTA 5 a police mode update?]
True, the modern “Grand Theft Auto” allows players to use jets and cars to travel quickly. That clearly can’t work in the setting of “Red Dead Redemption 2”: the age of horse and wagon.
Still, were Rockstar Games to give players more choice of purpose in the online mode, players could make the game their own. Were, for example, Rockstar to provide more online bounty hunting missions (hunting down nonhuman criminal characters) or more heist-style missions (such as robbing banks), the game would find its players far more inclined to keep playing.
The key here is that Rockstar needs to give players more choices in what they spend their game time doing. Simply offering more group modes won’t win fans favor.
Until they fix that, “Red Dead Redemption 2” will remain a shadow of its better possibility.
