Five Years Later, Where Is Red Dead Redemption 2?

Rockstar Studios may be best well known for their record breaking Grand Theft Auto series, but five years ago saw the publisher/developer bring us one of the best games of the last generation of games with Red Dead Redemption. Serving as a spiritual successor to Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption was almost like an entirely new franchise. The game won many awards and sold exceptionally well, which begs the question, where is Red Dead Redemption 2?

Red Dead Redemption released on May 18, 2010 to near universal praise for its characters, story, and so much more. The open world experience was about as good as it gets here as players took control of the very likable John Marston back in 1911. MAJOR STORY SPOILERS ARE AHEAD SO DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU HAVE NOT BEAT RED DEAD REDEMPTION.

The game’s story all seems to wrap up nicely with Marston returning home to his wife and son to live happily ever after. However, the peace is shortlived as enemies march upon his house and in the end we see Marston sacrifice himself to protect his wife and son. Most games would see the story end here and a sad credits song, but instead we got one of the best twists in a game in a long time with the story jumping ahead a few years and John’s son Jack Marston takes over as the game’s protagonist for what is essentially an epilogue. This sets up as a tale of revenge at this point, very common with the western genre, and helped cap one of the best stories in gaming of the entire last generation.

Red Dead Redemption was much more than just the main story, as it had so many side missions available and even the ability to just mess around like with Grand Theft Auto. Granted, the number of people you can kill is much less, but you can go hunting for animals or go into a town and start a shooting rampage until the last man is standing. I know I had hours upon hours of fun just doing the latter while switching off playing with a friend just trying to find the best hiding spots to pick off enemies.

The game even offered an up to 16 player online multiplayer setup as well, though personally I never had much interest in that mode. After seeing the potential of an online world by Rockstar in Grand Theft Auto Online however, I would love to see what could be done in a future entry with a Red Dead Redemption Online that could come packed in with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption did also have some DLC release, but the most prominent was that of the expansion titled Undead Nightmare. Coming later in the year from its original release, Undead Nightmare almost felt like an entirely different game and led to it getting a standalone release. One year later brought a Game of the Year Edition that had everything included, but after that the series has been completely stagnant.

We’ve heard talk of something like a Red Dead Redemption 2 from top people at Take-Two during conference calls, even once teasing that it was certainly going to become a series. However, we have still heard nothing that would even point to a sequel coming soon. Rockstar typically keeps everything close to the vest, but one would think something would have leaked by now about the project.

Rockstar San Diego is the specific studio that handled the developer of Red Dead Redemption and its predecessor Red Dead Revolver, but has seemingly been quiet over the last few years. Their RAGE Engine was used in Grand Theft Auto V and Max Payne 3 and some work was done with LA Noire, but otherwise they haven’t had any games released since the Undead Nightmare expansion. Unless they are working on a new Table Tennis or Midnight Club, one would assume there is a better chance than not that they are in development on the much awaited Red Dead Redemption 2.

It is said that work on Grand Theft Auto V began back in 2009, very soon after the release of GTA IV.  As a result, it would make perfect sense that Rockstar started work on a sequel to Red Dead Redemption soon after the original in similar fashion, setting up for a possible release in the next year or two for a Red Dead Redemption 2.

If they are in fact working on Red Dead Redemption 2, the question is when would it be announced? Rockstar doesn’t always use E3 to make their big announcements as they sometimes just hold their own event and make a big reveal, but they did choose to use E3 to announce the current-gen and PC port of GTA V last year, so it is possible.

While Grand Theft Auto 5 was announced two years prior to release, Red Dead Redemption was revealed only a little over a year ahead and the first trailer didn’t even come until five months prior to release. Hopefully this will be the case and Rockstar will announce Red Dead Redemption 2 before long for a release sometime in 2016. That is one of the few games I would go out and pre-order the day it is announced and I know there are many others that feel the same way. The western genre is so underutilized in gaming and we badly need to journey back to this time period with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Are you anxiously awaiting a followup to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption and if so, what would you like to see this time around? And with the game almost definitely being worked on behind the scenes, when do you think we will finally see it unveiled to the public? Make sure to let us know in the comments below and hopefully some sort of announcement is made sooner rather than later for Red Dead Redemption 2.