New Red Dead Online battle royale mode Gun Rush ups the ante with 32 players and plenty of guns

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Make It Count not big enough for ya? Here's a true-blue battle royale

We all knew this was coming: Red Dead Online got another battle royale mode in today's update, and it's much bigger than the existing bow-and-arrow battle royale Make It Count. It's called Gun Rush, and it pits up to 32 players against each other in an ever-shrinking arena filled with scattered weapons. Gun Rush is now playable in free-for-all and team modes, so you can fight to be the last cowpoke or the last team standing. 

In a new blog post announcing Gun Rush, Rockstar also discussed other additions and changes coming to the ongoing Red Dead Online beta, chief among them new races and showdowns. Rockstar's to-do list also includes daily challenges which will encourage players to log in each day, as well as a broader overhaul of the law and bounty systems which will - in an ideal world - discourage griefing.

"Soon, players will get a bounty for committing crimes and will be incentivized to pay them off within an allotted time," Rockstar explained. "Wait too long and bounty hunters from each of the states will track the player forcing them either pay up or escape." 

The Parley system, which gives attacked players a 10-minute immunity window to get away from or talk down their attacker, is also going to trigger more easily in the future "so that you can avoid aggressive players more quickly," Rockstar said. In the same vein, starting Feuds, wherein both parties agree to kill the crap out of each other for three minutes, is also going to be easier - and that includes Posse Feuds and Leader Feuds. 

Finally, Rockstar is reducing the distance at which players appear on the map, making it tougher for would-be griefers to pursue you. "Down the line, we’re also looking to introduce the ability to identify players who grief and kill indiscriminately with a progressively darkening blip that becomes more visible and at a longer range," Rockstar said, "so everyone in a session can identify potentially dangerous opponents at a glance and from a safe distance."

It's ironic that today's update, which is explicitly about killing people - in a battle royale, no less - was paired with patch notes about minimizing senseless violence, but everything here sounds promising. Make It Count proved Red Dead Redemption 2 is as good a home for battle royale as any other game, and lord knows Red Dead Online can always use more behavioral incentives. 

Here are 26 Red Dead Online tips to help you survive the Wild West of an online mode. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.