Pour one out for Red Dead Online, because players of Rockstar’s forgotten multiplayer title are banding together to host an in-game funeral in an act of protest and mourning. The game has not received any major content updates in an entire year while Grand Theft Auto Online has continued to get bigger and better content every few months, leading most Red Dead Online to ride off into the sunset and abandon the game for good. The few players that remain aren’t happy.
The Twitter account Red Dead News is inviting all remaining Red Dead Online players to gather together for a funeral on Wednesday, July 13 to mourn what could have been and hopefully cause Rockstar Games to pay just a little more attention to its forgotten western title. July 13 marks the one-year anniversary of Red Dead Online’s last major content update, Blood Money, which introduced a mostly useless currency called Capitale earned by completing multi-stage crimes and opportunities. These were a promising start, but in typical Red Dead Online fashion, the feature was never expanded upon and the community was left with nothing for an entire year.
Who's up for it then? A funeral to celebrate one year of Red Dead Online being abandoned?
Dress up in your best funeral attire, get your friends to join, tag us in pics & use the hashtags below!
Save the date: Wednesday July 13th. Are you in?#RedDeadFuneral #SaveRedDeadOnline
— Red Dead News (@RedDeadRDC) July 5, 2022
The neglect of Red Dead Online has become a serious issue for Rockstar fans, with the #SaveRedDeadOnline movement growing in popularity throughout the year. Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most acclaimed video games of all time with an immensely detailed world that is seemingly begging to be explored with friends, but Rockstar has yet to add highly-requested features like purchasable properties and more, things that have existed in Grand Theft Auto Online for years.
Grand Theft Auto Online is the primary culprit behind Red Dead Online’s abandonment, with Grand Theft Auto V serving as Rockstar and Take-Two’s cash cow since it was released nearly a decade ago. The game was re-released earlier this year on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S alongside a standalone version of GTA Online (which recently got a huge update featuring Dr. Dre and returning story mode characters) while Red Dead Redemption 2 has yet to receive any updates for next-gen consoles at all.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed that he was aware of the #SaveRedDeadOnline movement and fans’ displeasure with the state of the game ahead of the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call, stating that Rockstar is committed to supporting the game long-term. He then clarified that he only meant that the game’s servers would remain active, and that worried most of the game’s playerbase. Things aren’t looking bright for Red Dead Online, especially after a year-long content drought, and that’s just a shame considering Red Dead Redemption 2 was confirmed to have reached 44 million units sold in that same earnings call.
There’s only so much we can do as fans, especially as Rockstar has shifted all of its development to the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI, so be sure to don your fanciest attire and log into Red Dead Online on July 13 to mourn with the rest of us.
Red Dead Online is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
