7 Things Rockstar Should Do With Red Dead Online Now That It's Ending

Image: Rockstar Games via HGG

Human Made

My name is Gibson Vasela. I am a freelance writer who has been playing video games for almost 20 years now. I play all kinds of games, but I especially love immersive sims and RPGs.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Red Dead Online is seemingly over. The game has not received any significant content updates since July of 2021, and even that update was a big disappointment. While Rockstar has not outright stated they are shutting the game down, they have said they are allocating more resources to GTA VI, which means no big updates for Red Dead Online anytime soon. We’ve yet to see if Rockstar is truly done with RDO or if they’re going to return to the game after the release of GTA VI. But if we’re assuming the worst, we might as well as for some last updates to send the game off on a high note. Here are seven things Rockstar should do with Red Dead Online now that it’s ending.

7 Things Rockstar Should do With RDO

Let’s jump right into our list of the seven things Rockstar should do with Red Dead Online now that it’s ending.

1. Give us Unreleased Content

There are currently several bits of unreleased content that can be found within the game files for Red Dead Redemption 2. There are signs that suggest new contact missions, new cosmetics, and even purchasable houses are (or were) coming to the game.

We probably won’t get any of the major stuff. However, Rockstar might as well release the minor content. This includes liveries for the trading wagon and some contact missions that could be re-worked into telegram missions.

2. Revert The Daily Challenge Nerf

Veteran players will know that getting gold used to be very easy thanks to Daily Challenges. You could complete one a day to earn gold and build up a streak to increase the amount you earned per challenge. Once you reached the cap, you’d continue earning large amounts of gold as long as you kept coming back daily. Rockstar, however, saw how easy it was and nerfed daily challenges significantly.

It would be great if Rockstar brought back the old system. You should be earning double the gold you make now (which is what it was before). And they should allow you to keep up your streak indefinitely. This would bring back some players and make the game less grindy.

3. Permanent Discounts on Roles

There are several roles in Red Dead Online, and they all require gold to unlock. Getting gold can be a tedious process. To make it easier, why not give us permanent discounts on these roles? Making them grindy to unlock makes sense for a live service game. But since we aren’t getting new updates any time soon, we might as well make it easier for new players to experience what little content RDO has.

4. Anti-Cheat Software

Red Dead Online has a cheater problem, especially on PC. While Rockstar is still banning cheaters that are reported, it just isn’t enough. They need to introduce some kind of anti-cheat software into the game to automate the process of catching cheaters so they don’t need to be reported to begin with.
Additionally, Rockstar should give us the option to disable it if we want to play on a modded server.

5. Bring Back Old Outlaw Passes

There are several Outlaw Passes (commonly called Season Passes or Battle Passes in other games) that have been released over Red Dead Online’s life span. Many players have never gotten the chance to purchase and rank up these Outlaw Passes. Halo: Infinite allows players to purchase and rank up any Battle Pass released in its life cycle. This is a great idea that Red Dead Online should use as well.

It would give new players the chance to unlock cosmetic items that they missed out on. Not to mention, there isn’t all that much to purchase in the game right now, especially if you own everything. So bringing back old Outlaw Passes would give us something else that we could buy. And something we could work towards ranking up.

6. Permanent Double Money

When Call of Duty: WWII was shelved for the next entry in the series, the developers turned on permanent double XP for players. This is a common thing that many COD games and other online games will employ. They might as well, since no one else is playing anymore, and it’s harder to rank up when there aren’t as many people to play with.

Rockstar should turn on double money for everything — contact missions, trader sales, bounty hunter missions, etc. — to make the game less grindy and more appealing for new players. As of right now, there is no reason to spend all day grinding when you know there won’t be any new content. So you might as well make the game more about having fun than making money.

7. Hand It Off to Another Studio

This last one is a bit of a pipe dream, but we can all hope for it anyway. Fallout 76 recently made headlines for the announcement that they are getting another development studio to help work on the game. This makes perfect sense, as the game is pretty content-dry and hasn’t received any significant updates besides Steel Reign (new season passes and events don’t count).

Rockstar should do the same with Red Dead Online. If they aren’t willing to update the game, they could at least hire another studio to do it for them while they focus all of their effort on their biggest money maker, GTA. Currently, our only hope for Red Dead Online content is to either pray they return to it after GTA VI or to make content ourselves on modded servers. But I feel this option is preferable.

Join the High Ground

So concludes our article covering the seven things Rockstar should do with Red Dead Online now that it’s ending! What are your thoughts on Red Dead Online’s content drought? Let us know, and be sure to subscribe to our weekly update for more content! We offer regular features on the best open-world games.

Happy gaming!

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