- Welcome home.
Make yourself at home, it is your home.
- [Luke] The Red Dead Online experience
is one that stretches from moments
of patient character management
that are barely distinguishable from Red Dead Redemption 2's
single player component
to the complete chaos of PvP multiplayer
in indiscriminate close quarters slaughter.
As an online environment full of real people,
some of whom will invariably be pond scum.
(grunts) (gun fires)
Red Dead Online may not be as elegant an experience
as the carefully curated single player world
of Red Dead Redemption 2 proper
but the true appeal of Red Dead Online
tends to expose itself when facing
its unforgiving landscape beside friends.
(dramatic music)
Red Dead Online is a broad beast
stuffed with story driven co-op missions,
a seemingly endless array of odd jobs and side quests,
plus a growing set of PvP death matches and horse races.
It's all housed within Red Dead Redemption 2's
enormous living world.
I've partnered with pals to gun down waves
of egg sucking NPCs on behalf of an angry widow
and I've sat with other random players for hours
playing round after round of Texas Hold'em.
I've quaffed beers amongst a friendly fight club
in a Blackwater bar
where nary a single smoke wagon was skinned
and I've been shot in the back while unarmed
by lily livered cowpokes
to cowardly to seek out a fair fight elsewhere.
(gun fires)
I've ridden on my lonesome and as part of a posse.
Survived a handful of ambushes.
(gun fires)
Hunted anything with a heartbeat.
And fished and fished and fished.
(explosion booms) (triumphant music)
Set just prior to the main story
of Arthur and the Van der Linde gang Red Dead Online begins
by letting you create a character from scratch.
It's not entirely unlike GTA Online's character creator,
though only a single character can be created
and maintained at this stage.
On PS4 I've opted for a broad shouldered red headed woman
with a scarred face and a bad attitude,
presumably from a lifetime of growing up
with a pun for a name.
Sorry, Helen Highwater.
On Xbox One ravishing Rick O'Shea is my boy.
He's Irish, probably.
The intro doesn't last too long though
and before you know it you'll be loose in the open world,
free to tackle Red Dead Online in any way you see fit.
(gun fires)
Wanna play out through the story missions
and avenge the murder you were framed for?
Get crackin'.
Wanna mosey around the countryside
taking on jobs from quest giving NPCs?
Go right ahead.
Wanna spend all your time at the poker table?
Deal yourself in.
Prefer skulking about in the woods
shooting bears and badgers?
There's nothin' stopping you.
Well, nothing except angry bears, I guess.
(roaring)
Not quite everything has made the jump
from the single player sandbox
but there's certainly more than enough
to keep me occupied every time I log in.
(gun fires)
Story missions are where the real fun is at.
(gun fires)
The minor catch is that they must be tackled in co-op,
either with friends or via matchmaking.
That's not entirely arbitrary
since some missions make you split up
to tackle different objectives at once.
There are several memorable ones
including surviving an epic siege in the town of Valentine.
(gun fires)
Storming Fort Mercer in iron armor
inspired by the Kelly Gang.
(gun fires)
And robbing a Saint Denis bank
and escaping through the streets
in an 1898 version of GTA IV's famous
Heat inspired Three Leaf Clover heist.
(gun fires)
On top of the main story thread
there's also a seemingly bottomless supply of side missions
and those can be played alone if you wish.
(dramatic music)
Red Dead Online features microtransactions based on Gold,
a second currency within the game
that can be slowly accumulated by playing
or purchased rapidly for real cash.
It's probably slightly insidious
that some cosmetic items are restricted
to Gold only purchases.
- [Shopkeeper] That will require Gold to purchase.
- [Luke] But it depends on how much you value your wardrobe.
I've changed clothes about once in the past six months
and couldn't care less about emotes.
Gold can be used to buy past level locks on cosmetic stuff
but thankfully not weapons and horses.
At any rate, Rockstar's been giving out
so much Gold for free lately
it's just been sitting idle in my inventory
and for now at least I have more in game money
than things I need to buy.
I found general griefing down noticeably
since the most recent update,
thanks in part to the new defensive mode
which makes it impossible for other players
to lock onto you in auto aim
and makes them do less damage.
(gun fire)
There's also a new ability to press charges
which was pitched by Rockstar
as some sort of mechanic to dissuade bad sports
from summarily killing other players unprovoked,
although I'm not sure it's adequate enough
and I've noted it hasn't stopped people
proving they're willing to kill me multiple times
even while I'm in defensive mode.
- [Player] Goodbye.
- [Luke] At the very least
there's certainly should be no XP awarded
for killing players in defensive mode.
Anything that pushes 'em out of free roam and into PvP
would be fine by me.
Red Dead Online's wide selection of PvP modes
all function well enough
and I don't mind the territory based Overrun,
the battle royale, or the horse racing,
but I just don't gleam anywhere near the same enjoyment
out of PvP that I do from free roam or co-op missions.
The big hurdle for me is the lack of level balancing
between high and low level players
makes a lot of fights not so fun.
(gun fires)
What's the point in fighting people
with more potent special ammo
and fancy perks like bulletproof hats?
I just don't have the energy to match that commitment
to maxing out over powered perks,
constantly accumulating powerful ammo
and overdosing on special tonics
just to be in the same league.
I'd rather beat them at the poker table
or just disappear and go fishing.
But, that's the beauty of Red Dead Online,
I can opt out of entire portions of it
and still have stacks to do because it's so damn big.
(triumphant western music)
A much slower paced affair than the mad cat GTA Online,
Red Dead Online is already loaded with activities and modes
and provides a promising foundation
for a long lasting multiplayer experience.
The PvP modes have a tendency to frustrate
but the co-op shines
and Red Dead Online is expansive enough
that you can ignore entire swathes of it
and still have more than enough to keep you occupied.
If you haven't dipped in yet round up some friends
and saunter in, it's well worth a visit nowadays.
For more Red Dead Redemption 2
check out the review of the incredible main game itself
or our summary of the single player story.
For everything else, stay on IGN.
(dramatic western music)