Is Red Dead Online Doomed?

 Probably yes.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was the smash hit single player swan song industry-influencing game that everyone pretty much hoped it would be, and given that the half of the dream team who lead the project, the brother who wrote that game, has now retired- it might just be Rockstar's last smash-hit release ever. (Not saying that's a definite, but I just think it's prudent we all brace ourselves for that reality.) With Grand Theft Auto Online not just proving to Rockstar how the billions are really made, but slowly diverting more and more resources directly to it's maintenance, it may not be too long before the critical darling single player games simply don't have the standing behind them to be mounted by the studio anymore. But here's me threating about the questionable future of Rockstar as a single player developer, when right now they've already let the ball seriously drop when it comes to maintenance of the titles already on hand. Notably, that of Red Dead Online.

Launched as a companion piece to Red Dead Redemption 2, RDO promised to take everything that made GTA Online a success and port it to their fertile old west world, meaning constant updates, new big content drops, attention, and a reason to switch on the console every week or so. Grand Theft Auto Online took a while to get it's footing in that regard, but now it has so many drops every month or so that there's genuinely work needed to be done to refit certain UI menus in order to hold it all. We're talking mod-menu levels of new cars, clothing, properties, missions and just reasons to endless grind. Even when having to deal with the endless hackers, bad network connections, and abandoned old content that could really use some updating in order to remain as rewards as new stuff. Now imagine all of those negatives I just mentioned, only without the influx of content to tide people over through the frustrations. I've just spelled out your typical day playing Red Dead Online, you can see why the game is slowly dying then, can't you?

Players of Red Dead 2 just aren't ready to lay down and except that, however. Even when their community drops off, their game loses relevance, and Rockstar celebrates the new year with a double XP event instead of anything worthwhile whatsoever. Thus began the 'Save Red Dead Online' hashtag petition that demands some sort of action on the storied developer's end, and which will result in absolutely no substantial change in the long run. (But at least the community can rest assured that they died screaming. Isn't that all anyone can ask for?) News reports have been written, folk who long abandoned the game have dipped their toes back in for a little, and Rockstar proper gave a little stir from their seats before going back to counting the piles of GTA Online money. Because I'm sorry to be the cold water on this hopeful parade; but Red Dead Online is never going to be GTA Online, Rockstar can't be bothered to even try to make it so.

Over the years Rockstar have revealed that they really don't care about the conceit of the game in question when it comes to supporting their online endeavours, so even when we're talking about a crime simulator, you'll have grand expansions that make you a secret agent with flying bikes and orbital lasers. Themes are unimportant, selling shark cards are. It's a lazy creative ideas process that scores high return, the perfect sort of business model. Red Dead doesn't have that flexibility. You can't add time travelling rocket trains, or slap a new purchasable minigun in the weapon store; the team has to make specifically western style content for their online world, and you can see how that's stumped them to no end.

Red Dead Online's biggest, and only, content has come in the form of 'roles'. Sold as roleplay jobs that players can take on to add some progression to the fictional life they want to live, but playing out just like the latest GTA expansion, roles are what bought Trading, (hunting with extra steps) Collecting (literally just finding collectibles) Naturalism (hunting with less killing) and Bounty Hunting (self explanatory) into the game cycle. Oh, and they weren't in the base game. The only long-term progression the game holds, and it came after launch. (Troubling.) Later the team would add Moonshining (the trader role with a mission chain attached to it) and... bounty hunting again? Bare in mind that accessing each of these roles requires a heft chunk of premium currency (thus a lot of grinding) and you can start to see why people don't take kindly to the fact that Rockstar ran of ideas so quickly they're now charging for updates to existing roles. (Did you even really try?)

The lack of effort permeates everything in Red Dead Online, from the main story of the online mode which was introduced with the main game and hasn't been followed since, (nothing major has resolved in that little quest thread so far) the terribly unbalanced ingame economy which rewards any non-role mission with a pittance so poor it's more profitable to loot corpses than complete world missions, a buggy camping system which makes some of the roles genuinely frustrating to even attempt (having the trader progress reset at least once a day is a bit of a mood killer) and then the sheer lack of things to try and buy once you have stuck out everything. There's no gameplan for this live service, and without that it's no wonder that the team have all but given up on the project to go back to the golden goose. They can bring Dr Dre in on that! What celebrity cameo can they possibly cook up for Red Dead? Resurrected Robert E.Lee? Nah, he was already dead 20 years before RDR 2- there's just nowhere near as much potential.

Or at least that's how the Red Dead team must be thinking, but the community disagrees and they actually have some cool ideas to cook up. If only Rockstar wasn't so obsessed with their image as untouchable models of the AAA industry to actually listen to their fans, maybe they'd see countless of paths worth dedicating just a tiny bit of resources to in order to make Red Dead a revenue stream to rival GTA Online! Okay, maybe the potential isn't that promising, but they could be making extra millions with RDO and I can't think of any reason that wouldn't be appealing to Rockstar heads. (They can do with an extra summer home for when the other 3 are being fumigated, can't they?) It'll just take a little dedicated, some work to put actual progression in the game, and just a smidge of commitment. Does Rockstar still know how to do that? Commit to something that isn't spitting out annual billion dollar cheques to them just yet? I doubt.

So the hanging noose over the community asks a question, "Is Red Dead Online doomed"? It seems insane to say for a such a ripe setting that hasn't even begun to have it's depths plumped, but the answer is a pretty clear 'yes'. Rockstar aren't interested in supporting this game the way it needs to in order to sustain a viable audience and all the browbeating will achieve is keeping the fire for this game burning a little brighter so that it's agonising death will last just that bit longer. Somehow the big R aren't interested in putting in the work, and when what's there isn't nearly enough, nothing but solid and concerted work is going to put Red Dead Online where it needs to be. I don't like being a fatalist, but there are other hills to die on and if Rockstar aren't bothered to fight for this game then the fight is pretty much lost before it's started. But kick up a ruckus all you want, light a signal fire, call for help at the top of your lungs; maybe you'll set an example for the next live service which rolls around trying to follow the Rockstar example: you have to be willing to improve the game in order to keep the service afloat. That's... well it's kind of the whole point of the 'live service' thing. (Seriously, what where Rockstar even thinking?)