After Red Dead Redemption 2, fans can't help but now look forward to Rockstar Games' next cowboy adventure – and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 star Luke Dale is no exception.

Dale, who plays Hans Capon in Kingdom Come and its sequel, confirms as much in a new online post, pinging the official Rockstar account on Twitter. "Once again pleading with Rockstar Games to make me a cowboy," he writes – and honestly, I feel like he's probably serious here, too.

I mean, he does say "once again," which sort of implies he's given thought to joining the Red Dead cast at some point in the past… or perhaps even requested a role.

Red Dead Redemption 3 remains a bit of a mystery, though, as Rockstar hasn't even confirmed it's happening. The studio is admittedly likely busy with GTA 6 and what have you, but a third Red Dead feels inevitable.

After all, Red Dead Redemption 2 and its online counterpart still boast an active player base – myself included (hey, there's a serious shortage of good horse games out there, OK?). It's also, you know, the third best-selling game ever.

Commenters on Dale's post seem to think a third game is in the works, too, and are keen for the Kingdom Come star to join the cast, with one asking Rockstar, "Have you cast for RDR3 already?" Another amusingly questions Dale himself, wondering, "How good is your American accent?" The Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 actor replies with a GIF: "Oh, you have NO idea."

Now I sort of want to see him as a cowboy someday, too.

Here's hoping Rockstar hears his cries and gives him a chance – and, um, that Red Dead Redemption 3 is actually happening at all (or planned to, at least).

Need something to tide you over until then? Have a quick browse through our roundup of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has had stamina fit for a horse, but Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn't think the cowboy epic's long shelf life has much to do with the hype for GTA 6.

Rockstar Games' open-world sequel recently became the third best-selling game of all time, barging Wii Sports out of the way with a whopping 85 million copies sold as of March 2026. Even more impressive is the game's legs – Red Dead Redemption 2 also had its best year sales-wise since it originally launched.

The only games above Red Dead Redemption 2 on the all-time charts are, as you might be able to guess, GTA 5 in second place and Minecraft on top (Tetris would also rank if you're counting all of its different editions, but I digress).

With such a momentous milestone in the rear view, some have speculated that the long gap between Grand Theft Auto games and the generation-spanning wait for GTA 6 may have contributed to the commercial success of Red Dead 2. If you can't get ahold of a new GTA, it's easy to imagine some fans would simply reach for something that vaguely resembles it.

But that's not a sentiment Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive officer of Rockstar Games' parent company, agrees with. To him, Red Dead Redemption 2 got there without the help of its older, more popular sibling.

"No," he says plainly when asked if Red Dead Redemption 2's sales were driven by GTA 6 hype in an interview with The Game Post. "I do think Rockstar Games almost uniquely has a brand position in entertainment, because consumers tend to be interested in all of their offerings. But no, I think that stands alone."

Zelnick instead attributes the game's success to the "very loyal and engaged audience" that the Red Dead series enjoys. "And they love the title. And by the way, I love the title."

Despite Red Dead Online's relatively slim offerings compared to GTA Online's still hefty updates, the executive also recently said he didn't view the multiplayer mode as a missed opportunity. Historic sales numbers and a bunch of accolades are probably enough, it seems.

Grand Theft Auto overtook its competition by ignoring annual releases, Take-Two CEO says: "Look at what happened to the properties that were higher up in the food chain."

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has pushed back against the suggestion that Red Dead Online was a missed opportunity due to its lack of support in comparison to GTA Online.

Red Dead Online came out around a month after Red Dead Redemption 2 arrived on shelves, and while it didn't quite light the world on fire in the same way GTA Online did, it was popular enough with players. However, while GTA Online has had a ton of content updates in its nearly 13 years of life, Rockstar pulled back on Red Dead after releasing the Dead Money expansion in 2021 – with a very brief return for 2025's "Strange Tales of the West." This left fans pondering what could have been with the online game, had Rockstar Games not dropped it.

When asked by IGN if he views Red Dead Online as a missed opportunity, given the lack of content compared to GTA Online, likely not drawing in players, Zelnick says, "There is literally nothing about Red Dead selling 85 million units that could signal a missed opportunity. And Red Dead Online has been immensely successful and long-lasting."

Zelnick adds, "If we didn't have Grand Theft Auto here at our company, then people would just talk about the fact that we have this massive franchise in Red Dead, which we do and of which we're very proud."

For context, Red Dead Redemption 2 is behind only Minecraft and GTA 5 on the best-selling games of all time list (and multiple versions of Tetris, though due to its multiple releases, many omit it as the top seller), so, as he puts it, the game itself is hardly a missed opportunity. Granted, he didn't really acknowledge the lack of content compared to GTA, and sure, Red Dead Online still has a big fanbase, but it does feel like it could've been even bigger.

GTA 6 pre-orders look set for summer, as Take-Two CEO teases that's when "Rockstar expects to start marketing" it

Right ahead of the world becoming fully obsessed with GTA 6, Red Dead Redemption 2 has crossed another momentous milestone. The Western open-world playground is now the third best-selling game ever, according to Rockstar Games owner Take-Two.

This incredible achievement is noted in Take-Two's latest earnings report. A slide on the Red Dead series points out just how well the historic sandboxes have done for Rockstar, with a bullet-point on Red Dead Redemption 2's sales. Apparently, the game has shifted over 85 million copies to date.

That's a hefty number. As you may already know, Grand Theft Auto 5 ranks above it, but only in second, having sold around 230 million copies to date. The top position is split between Minecraft and Tetris - whether the latter's lifetime sales should count is a matter of contention, but either way, those are two monoliths of the industry.

It might be a while before Red Dead Redemption 2 gets close to those numbers, and the ranking will likely be disrupted before then by Grand Theft Auto 6, but for now, this is a huge moment. Roger Clark, who voices Arthur Morgan in the game, thanked fans on Twitter for making this such a career-defining work for him.

"Thank you, what an honor, it's the fans that keep it going," he says, in response to a post congratulating him on the game's continued success. It truly is the community that's kept Red Dead Redemption 2 alive, whether through mods, ongoing discussions, or deep-dives into the richly detailed world.

Heck, there are still unsolved mysteries players are trying to figure out to this day. It's a game that just gives and gives, and it'll continue to do so right up until we get Red Dead Redemption 3, I'm sure.

GTA 6 pre-orders look set for summer, as Take-Two CEO teases that's when "Rockstar expects to start marketing" it

It only took 16 years, but the man behind John Marston finally completed a play-through of Red Dead Redemption. Rob Wiethoff finished the main story in Rockstar's Western sandbox just this week, and the conclusion left him speechless.

He posted the concluding part of his series, playing through Red Dead Redemption, on March 2, in which he laughs through the climactic gunfight between Jack and Ross, leading to the stylish closing title card. "Oh my goodness," Wiethoff exclaims, now ogling at the credits. "Look at this, all these people."

It takes a lot of people to make a game the size of Red Dead Redemption, and you see him become visibly awe-struck and pensive at just how much work went into the blockbuster release. Hundreds, across dozens of departments, many of whom put years of their life to get this piece of work over the line.

Gradually, it becomes overwhelming, assisted by the American melancholia of 'Deadman's Gun', and Wiethoff gets emotional seeing everyone listed. It's worth understanding just how much John Marston means to him: not only is this his biggest role, it's what defined his career as a performer.

After a number of years trying to break into Hollywood, Wiethoff was chosen as the voice for John in Red Dead Redemption. One hit game led to DLC, the incredible Undead Nightmare, then an expanded part in the prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2. The outlaw is as defining as a character can be for him as an actor, and understanding the scale of how John was brought to life was clearly a heavy moment.

"I don't know how long this takes, to go through this," he says, as the credits continue, "I definitely want this to be part of a stream that I'm doing. Everyone's name is going to be shown."

Just short of 20 minutes later, the names are finished, and he starts laughing at being plunged back into the new frontier for that 100% trophy. Sadly, that's not happening, but we might get Red Dead Redemption 2 one day, once he's emotionally recovered.

Red Dead Redemption 2 fan hits the emergency button after accidentally deleting his fiancée's save file, pays Arthur Morgan's actor to apologize on his behalf: "Let us all send this poor girl positive vibes."

Roger Clark, the actor best known for his role as Red Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan, reveals one of his favorite Cameo requests. The short video was for a man who deleted his fiancée's Red Dead Redemption 2 save file "by accident" after she was apparently two-thirds of the way towards completion.

Posting on Twitter and as spotted by The Gamer, Clark shares what he says is the type of Cameo request he lives for. Alongside the screenshot of the request, which asks for a video apologizing for the deletion of a save file, undoubtedly containing dozens of hours of gameplay, Clark writes, "let us all send this poor girl positive vibes. At least her man knows what he did."

The "occasion" for the Cameo is "apology for deleting Red Dead saved game," which I'm sure isn't the usual celebration Clark receives requests for. The instructions further explain that his fiancée was "having so much fun" and that she "made every ethical decision" past the midway point of the open-world Western epic.

He asks Clark to "say some words of support for this devastating loss" and to "let her know I am sorry." The request might seem heartwarming to some, but I don't know that my stone-cold heart would find this sin forgivable even if my partner paid an award-winning actor $159 to say sorry on their behalf.

If you want to hire Clark to apologize to a loved one for something despicable you've done, be sure to hit up his Cameo to buy a two-minute video.

Red Dead Redemption 2's enigmatic spider web puzzle is the first thing that's gotten me genuinely excited for GTA 6

Head to a telegraph pole along the railway track between Citadel Rock and Heartland Oil Fields between 3am and 4am in Red Dead Redemption 2, and you'll find a spider and its web. Place the spider on your map, and you'll find one such location for each of its legs. Right at the centre of the arachnid outline's body, a larger web sits nestled in a tree. It directs you north.

Following that direction will lead to more clues. Guitars and bird carvings, question marks left in an unclimbable mountain near the Calume Ravine. The trail continues from there, continuously pulling you onward in the most indirect fashion. It's compelling and maddening, in equal measure. None of us treasure hunters are even sure we're going in the right direction. We somehow skipped over a glowing pentagram, and a heart left on some scaffolding seems to be part of the pattern? It's all in the air, still.. Sounds remarkably Twin Peaks, doesn't it?

Eight years since Red Dead Redemption 2's launch, players have stumbled on its most esoteric mystery. An enigma so obscure, it hid in plain sight for nearly a decade, blinking on and off at particular intervals during the day/night cycle. Now, those players are banding together to see where this particular path leads. I've become enamored with the puzzle, re-installing Rockstar's epic recreation of the Old West and taking Arthur Morgan around to see it all laid out for myself. The biggest surprise of all, though? It finally made me excited for Grand Theft Auto 6.

This web we weave

It's miraculous how nobody put this together publicly before now. I've no doubt players noticed some pieces of this jigsaw while roaming around; it's hard to miss the question mark blasted into a distant summit's otherwise empty canvas, but without context, it's easily written off as another in-joke or eccentricity of Rockstar. After all, these are the same devs who put a church with a black-winged angel in San Andreas with no other context and created a serial killer for the sake of the lore in Grand Theft Auto 5.

The timing of these digital cowboys putting two-and-two together couldn't be better, because we're staring down the latest and biggest of Rockstar's playgrounds to date – the mammoth GTA 6, due this November. But despite clocking hundreds of hours across past GTA games, I haven't been all that pushed by 6. It'll be impressive, sure, and there'll be tons to do across Leonida, but even the best open world games leave me slightly cold these days.

Open world maps often feel like an elaborate cross-stitch of collect-a-thons and flavor text, all without much compulsion to go anywhere. My tastes now lean towards Soulslikes and roguelikes, preferring exploration within a more limited but finely curated space. Based on GTA 5, and how the mainline entries one-up each other, the scale and scope of GTA 6 already seems exhausting without even seeing the world map yet.

But watching this sliver of mystery emerge from the fading vestiges of the American frontier has invigorated my curiosity. It's reminded me of the hidden magic in Rockstar's games. Six-shooters and machine guns and fast cars might be the default and expected way to enjoy these games, but don't let them distract you from all the intrigue and charming side quests you can uncover.

GTA 5 and Red Dead 2 have all sorts of little easter eggs that you can spend your time roaming around for, from Dreamcatchers and Peyote Plants to packages lost at sea. Roleplaying is a central facet of their longevity as well, whether as an added challenge in single-player, or through Red Dead Online and GTA Online RP servers.

Piggybacking

I hesitate to say they're out-and-out RPGs, but they're certainly RPG-adjacent, letting you mold a significant amount of the experience to your preferences and ideals as a player. Yes, one can play into the prescribed narratives of drug dealing and bank heists and whatever else GTA 6 brings to the table, or you could be a small-time private investigator, looking into bizarre clues in the area for something that seems increasingly mythical.

That's what gets me giddy. I've spent my time spawning tanks using cheat codes and seeing how long I could last at six-stars of wanted level, the in-game radio at full blast through my CRT TV. Now I'm drawn to becoming the franchise equivalent of Twin Peaks' Dale Cooper, FBI Special Agent, taking on strange, scary cases and seeing what I'll find. Or combining the conspiratorial open-mindedness of The X-Files' Fox Mulder and the cynicism of Dana Scully into one conflict, but no-less driven detective.

Either way, I'm coming for the feathers, spider webs and forest signs of Grand Theft Auto 6. This has given me a whole other perspective on Red Dead Redemption 2. Suddenly, the Wild West seems like a byzantine storybook waiting to be excavated. Any equivalent in the new Grand Theft Auto will prove more challenging, no doubt. But I've got time. If anything will keep me playing for seven years, it's the potential of finding clues paved into the ground beneath our feet, and seeing where they go. What could be more enticing?

We've ranked the best GTA games of all time right here to help you plan your replay schedule in 2026

Seven years have passed since Rockstar Games blessed us with Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018, but creative fans aren't done adding to the action-adventure gem via mods – including one that adds a bit of Pokemon flair to the mix.

If you've not seen it yet, content creator and ex-software engineer Blurbs has outdone himself with yet another ridiculous (in the best way possible) mod. This isn't his first time conjuring up something brilliantly wild – after all, he has previously created a real-life version of Oblivion Remastered's persuasion minigame – but it's certainly one of his most impressive creations yet… It's a Pokemon-style mod that overhauls Red Dead Redemption 2.

Blurbs describes it in great detail (alongside a sneak-peek at the mod in action) in his most recent YouTube video, joking that it transforms Red Dead Redemption 2 "into a legitimate Pokemon – legally distinct – animal catching RPG, complete with custom move sets, types, and even Gym Leaders." Who are those Gym Leaders, you might be wondering? Why, the Van der Linde gang, of course. As for the animals… there are plenty to catch and fight.

Turtles, skunks, horses, dogs, and even fish (no, not Magikarp). There are even "legendary" beasts to capture and tame, like the elk Blurbs goes for while showcasing the mod. All in all, it looks as fun as it does hilarious – a mashup of Nintendo and Rockstar's greatest games that I never thought I'd see playing out in real time. I might just be able to play it myself someday as well, should the stars align.

Excitingly, Blurbs is planning to release this mod to the public – but he "will need some time to clean the code up." It's also important to note that the mod "specifically works in tandem with streaming software." You can play it without streaming the game, as the creator clarifies, but you need to have OBS (a streaming software) installed for it to run. There's no launch date set in stone yet, though, but Blurbs will announce one when he's able to.

Need something to tide you over until then? Have a quick browse through our roundup of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond.

If you're a fan of Red Dead Redemption 2, you may be aware of the ongoing spider web mystery that somehow went unnoticed since launch. Well, there's been another important discovery in the ongoing investigation: people started the puzzle a couple of steps late.

This all started when players realized spider webs appear on certain telegraph poles at particular times of night. Those poles have the outline of an arachnid on them, leading you to other clues on a bizarre and elusive quest that remains ongoing.

As part of this elaborate jigsaw, it's been uncovered that those poles aren't actually the first pieces. Instead, as YouTuber Strange Man explains below, you're meant to start towards the eastern side of the map, at Butcher's Creek. There, a pentagram shows up between the hours of 4am and 6am, sending you to five outhouses, where you gradually get signposted to the webbed poles.

It's all very convoluted and strange. As it stands, this leads toward mountainside question marks, and the shape of a reverse question mark on the world map, and a pair of telegraph machines. But that's where the trail goes cold, yet again.

We still don't know where this is all leading. Wherever it's going has lay, waiting for someone to find, for seven whole years. Literally since Red Dead Redemption 2 first released. Even former Rockstar employees weren’t sure if anyone would manage to figure this all out.

The goal remains to get to the end here before GTA 6 arrives. That certainly seems plausible, but who knows how nebulous this truly is. At this rate, moving in the right direction is an accomplishment in itself.

Red Dead Redemption 2 fan tests Rockstar's historical accuracy by conducting a literal census in the open-world game, concludes it's "a pretty amazing representation" of the era.

Red Dead Redemption 2 devotees have been knee-deep in an in-game mystery that's only just been discovered a whole seven years after the blockbuster's original launch. But the sweeping puzzle – which sounds more like a cultish conspiracy – seems to have been somewhat of an open secret in the Rockstar Games' offices, according to one former developer.

Red Dead Redemption 2 QA tester and current Remedy Entertainment dev Adam Butterworth recently threw a bone to the cowboys strapped into this wild easter egg hunt.

"Absolutely wild people have found this," he tweeted recently, before recalling that Red Dead developers were once discussing this very same mystery while at the company. "I remember hearing about this and thinking it would never be discovered."

So, yes, this is our first confirmation that the newly-unearthed mystery isn't just a wild goose chase and isn't simply the community making theories based on patterns. There's actually something going on.

For anyone out of the loop, our Anthony McGlynn broke down both the mystery's origins and recent developments quite nicely. The gist is that several telegraph poles across the open world contain odd spider-like symbols, and overlaying that symbol onto the world map makes them all connect. By following more clues involving guitars, feathers, bird carvings, and so on, YouTuber Strange Man recently found a massive question mark symbol etched into a mountainside that's somehow gone unnoticed for all these years, perhaps hinting that we're reaching the end of, ermm, whatever this all means.

Red Dead Redemption 2 modders unveil "ambitious recreation of the Mexican territory from RDR1" that "stays true to the canon" of Rockstar's sequel – and it's basically "a full-fledged DLC."

Update: Shortly after this article was originally published, Red Dead Redemption 2 sleuth Strange Man shared another update with what they believe is the next and potentially the final step towards solving the great spider web mystery.

In a new video, Strange Man shows that after following the newly discovered bird carvings toward the Giant's cave, there's something on the horizon: a question mark, carved into the mountains. Once you see it, it's blatantly obvious, and it's honestly pretty amazing it's taken this long for anyone to spot it.

This seems like a strong indicator people are moving in the right direction and the possibilities for what comes next are whittling down. There's just one problem, the peak itself is out of bounds of the map. You can actually hike up there yourself.

That's tricky, but it seems like the solution will be in the area, and probably in line of sight of that stone carving, creating some useful parameters. It sure seems like some sort of ending is imminent, but what it'll reveal is anyone’s guess. Watch this space.

Original story:

The plot thickens on an elusive and recently discovered mystery in Red Dead Redemption 2. After following obtuse directions from spider webs, feathers and guitars, the latest wrinkle involves bird carvings, but the next step remains unclear.

To catch you up a little bit, players managed to find some mysterious spider webs that appeared at particular intervals on telegraph poles in Rockstar's open-world Western. Through some powers of deduction, these lead to the discovery of a pair of guitars in Fort Wallace, just laying dormant, waiting to be found.

For a minute, these acoustic instruments stumped the community, but I'm sure you know Red Dead 2 fans well enough by now to understand this roadblock wouldn't exist for long. Sure enough, someone managed to figure out the next step in this increasingly Twin Peaks-esque venture, by climbing onto the roof of where the guitars are kept, to find a pair of bird carvings.

Datamining reveals these aren't an accident, but they're the most indirect clue yet. Red Dead YouTuber Strange Man has been summarizing this escapade, and so far the only lead is that these carvings point in the direction of the Giant's cave. A flock of birds do live nearby, but the trail goes cold at this point.

A compelling suggestion is two crows who can be found in the New Austin area. One commenter claims to have found another potential clue near them involving a hatchet, but that's not been verified just yet.

Wherever this leads, I can tell you one thing: Rockstar better be prepared for just how granular people are going to go with GTA 6. It looks like this'll get sorted first, and just in time, too.

Red Dead Redemption 2 fan tests Rockstar's historical accuracy by conducting a literal census in the open-world game, concludes it's "a pretty amazing representation" of the era.

After the bones of a decade, players have uncovered a mystery in Red Dead Redemption 2 that's been hiding in plain sight. It's a sprawling puzzle in Rockstar's open-world Western that involves spider webs and telegraph poles, and members of the community are still clamoring to figure out what it all means.

Near the Heartland Oil Fields, you can find a pole where a strange, spider-like symbol appears between 3am and 4am. If you look up when this little marker shows, you'll see a web with a feather attached. It's a static object, though you can shoot off the feather if you so desire.

Treating that pole as one leg of the spider, placing the bizarre outline on the world map leads to – you guessed it – seven other telegraph poles. Each of them has a symbol and a web, and in the middle of the symbol's imprint on the map is another, ninth, larger web, hidden in a tree.

This one provides direction north, which brings you to a pole where shooting chunks off reveals instruction to go west, for another pole leading you northwest, to a guitar shop. This is, thus far, where the findings end, according to videos compiling everything from Strange Man on YouTube like the one above.

People are currently stuck at this juncture. There's a similar escapade in Grand Theft Auto 5, again involving spider webs, to uncover an easter egg on Mount Chiliad. But until now, the dreamcatchers in Red Dead Redemption 2 were considered the equivalent.

We were all wrong! Wherever this leads, it's another reminder of just how deep and rewarding this game can be. The hope is to solve this before GTA 6, and if you can help, I'd advise getting stuck in ASAP.

Ex-Rockstar dev doesn't believe GTA 6 will be delayed again: "The hype around the game will die down."

The depiction of the Old West in Red Dead Redemption 2 is nothing short of remarkable. Rockstar's attention to detail is among the finest in the whole industry. One fan decided to test just how deep the developer went for the new frontier by surveying a town in RDR 2, and his findings are fascinating.

"We'll be conducting a census of the NPCs in the town of Valentine," YouTuber Any Austin states in the video. "The census will include employment status, employment industry, income level, age, and overall health, and the goal of the video will be to gather enough data about the people living here to do a demographic comparison between Valentine (fictional town from 1907) to real census and demographic data from 1907 frontier America."

This involves following and examining Valentine's NPCs thoroughly, examining their routines, responses to your presence, and their in-game models. In some cases, this is quite simple: the sheriffs, shopkeepers and service providers are all pretty easy to find at any given time, and come with flavor dialogue to answer the bulk of the questions needed.

But many of the other passers-by are harder, since Rockstar employs RNG to populate the map. In order to circumvent the randomization, Austin broke down the map into blocks and time slots, to ensure he got a strong sample of the NPCs that could appear there. It looks as tiring as it sounds, but it worked in providing a healthy amount of data.

The data he gathers demonstrates that Red Dead Redemption 2 is fairly close to legit. The unemployment rate is 4.5%, for instance, higher than the available stat of 1.8% nationally for the US in 1907, but much closer than you'd think. The same can be said for wealth and the spread of jobs within the town, though specific data points are hard to glean for this far back.

One inaccuracy that sticks outs is in oral hygiene. Rockstar's given people too many teeth, when folk missing a few - or more - would've been exceedingly normal. But that’s a rare gap in the general accuracy of the recreation.

"Even down to the hyper-specific details that you would dig up in something like a census, Red Dead Redemption 2 is really a pretty amazing representation of a slice of American history," Any Austin states at the end of the video. I can't wait to see what he discovers when going through GTA 6 with such a fine toothcomb.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is "slightly more novelistic" than GTA 5 because Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser "binged on Victorian novels" for inspiration

Is Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and former lead writer on Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, an equal to literary legends like Charles Dickens? Well, I dunno, ask me again in a couple of centuries when gaming's canon is settled, but Houser himself will tell you that there are some similarities between Victorian literature and Rockstar's world-building, and that influence became very explicit for Red Dead Redemption 2.

In an interview with The Guardian, Houser compares the GTA games to Charles Dickens novels, saying that while Rockstar's series isn't "as good" as those classic books, "they are similar in that he's world-building. If you look at Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy or any of those authors, there's that feeling of all the world is here – that's what you're trying to get in open world games." In fact, it turns out that during Red Dead Redemption 2's development, Houser found himself looking to that era of literature for more direct inspiration.

"I binged on Victorian novels for that," he explains. "I listened to the audiobook of Middlemarch walking to and from the office every day. I loved it."

Houser, who served as both a writer and executive producer on the 2018 action-adventure, wanted Red Dead Redemption 2 to "feel from the writing perspective, slightly more novelistic." He explains: "I thought that was a way of doing something new on the story side – and the game was going to look so pretty, the art was so strong, I thought the story had better really set it up. We were trying to fill out the three-dimensional lives of the characters, and also to capture that 19th-century feeling of life and death, which was very different from ours."

Whether or not the plot stands up to comparisons against the titans of classic literature, I think it's tough to argue that Red Dead Redemption 2's story is anything short of Rockstar's best work, so clearly taking that inspiration paid off. Houser left Rockstar back in 2020, but who knows – maybe the best way to get ready for GTA 6 is to finally read through Crime and Punishment or Great Expectations. Trevor actor Steven Ogg would certainly support the endeavor.

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser left the studio because of how long GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 took to make: "I don't know if I had another one of those games in me."

Rockstar Games launched a free current-gen update for digital owners of the original Red Dead Redemption, but Xbox players noticed they were unable to make the leap from the Xbox 360 version to the Xbox Series X|S. The company has now released a statement acknowledging the issue, and says it's "working with Microsoft to resolve it."

Owners of both Red Dead Redemption and the Undead Nightmares DLC on both PlayStation and Xbox are – or at least will be able to – play the game on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S thanks to a new compatibility upgrade. Xbox fans immediately noticed that they were unable to play their 360 game on the Series X|S for free, and were wondering how to complete the upgrade.

When visiting the store page to download the game on their current systems, players were prompted to buy the game again, and were unsure how to, or if, they could play their old game. Rockstar has now acknowledged that it's not you, it's Xbox, and the game should be available to upgrade for free shortly.

Rockstar Support writes on Twitter, "We are aware of an issue where Xbox players are unable to upgrade their digital Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption to the Xbox Series X|S version and are working with Microsoft to resolve it. Thank you for your patience."

Some Xbox players claim (via PureXbox) that their store page has already been updated to offer the free upgrade, while others say the page only offers access to the free update for the next two weeks. This limited-time message is likely another issue with the store page that will be fixed when the issue is addressed for everyone.

If you're trying to update your Xbox game, the general message is to remain patient; you'll be able to ride through the desert on a fancy big TV soon enough.

Red Dead Redemption 2 modders unveil "ambitious recreation of the Mexican territory from RDR1" that "stays true to the canon" of Rockstar's sequel – and it's basically "a full-fledged DLC."

Red Dead Redemption 2 modder "Rixus" has released a trailer for their upcoming mod Nuevo Paraíso, and it's "coming soon." The mod is a recreation of the fictional area of Mexico with the same name that was featured in the original Red Dead Redemption.

Data and some of the map for Nuevo Paraíso is included in Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's clear that the developers didn't expect you to go there. While you can easily see it from the shoreline, setting foot in the region is a different story. Mexico can be reached through glitches, exploits, and sheer determination, but the endeavor is pretty pointless. Not only is it difficult to land on the sandy coast, but there's nothing to do once you get there.

After the game dropped in 2018, players were hoping that Nuevo Paraíso would see a full official release as either an update or DLC. However, as it's now been seven years since the launch, all of our dreams are dead when it comes to any updates from Rockstar. However, this new mod might soon step in to save us.

The mod description calls it an "ambitious recreation of the Mexican territory from RDR1, completely expanded and enhanced." Working on this project has clearly been a passion for Rixus, as they claim that "every town, settlement, and camp has been meticulously created to capture the essence of Mexico, with new vegetation for each region."

While it's already cool that we'll be able to return to Nuevo Paraíso, the upcoming mod is more than just a new sandbox. NPCs have been programmed with their own daily routines, just like in the base game, and Rixus has even added in some "small side missions." They also call the mod a "full-fledged DLC."

Nuevo Paraíso will be released on Nexus Mods when it's ready.

New Red Dead Redemption port on the way to a bunch of new platforms, including Switch 2 and Netflix, promising "free upgrades" and "a number of enhancements"

As foretold by a random ESRB rating, Red Dead Redemption is set to receive another re-release – this time, to a number of next-gen consoles and Netflix for subscribers, for some reason. In addition to the movie streamer and part-time gaming site, the 2010 cowboy drama and its Undead Nightmare expansion will stampede onto PS5, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch 2, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices, on December 2.

That ESRB rating revealed ahead of the re-release news doesn't tell us much about what the upcoming edition of Red Dead and Undead Nightmare will do differently than their past iterations ("One sequence depicts a man injecting himself with a syringe full of cocaine"; yeah, we know), though an announcement on the Rockstar website suggests there will be changes.

"Free upgrades, the ability to carry over game progress, and a number of enhancements," the GTA 6 developer promises. Both the main game and its expansion will also include Game of the Year Edition bonus content.

"Players on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S can look forward to a smooth 60 frames per second experience," Rockstar writes, "enhanced image quality, HDR support, and resolutions up to 4K." Red Dead's Nintendo Switch 2 port will likewise offer 60fps "at high resolution," and even support for the console's idiosyncratic mouse controls.

Even better, "Anyone who owns the PS4 version can utilize previous PS4 save data to pick up where they left off, and Switch 2 players can continue with their previous save data from the previous Nintendo Switch console," Rockstar adds. It's not so bad in the Wild West.

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The first Red Dead Redemption might soon enjoy another re-release, this time on current-generation consoles, if a fresh rating board listing is to be believed.

Red Dead Redemption has already been re-released once before on PS4 and Nintendo Switch back in 2023 (the cowboy epic was already available on modern Xbox consoles thanks to backwards compatibility), but the organization that assigns age ratings to video games, the ESRB, has other consoles attached to a new listing.

On the ESRB website, a new Red Dead Redemption page lists Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S as platforms, alongside an M for Mature age rating, raising hopes that another re-release, remaster, or perhaps next-gen update is on the horizon for the 2010 Rockstar Games classic.

Of course, all of the above consoles already have access to the game via backwards compatibility, so if something RDR1-shaped is actually happening, it's safer to simply expect a dedicated Switch 2/PS5/Xbox Series version with even more technical improvements. Probably wait for Rockstar to officially confirm it before huffing on too much hopium, though.

The timing for this ESRB rating is also curious since fans have been loudly campaigning for Rockstar Games to give Red Dead Redemption 2 a next-gen upgrade, possibly with 60fps, ever since this console generation began. And the closer we get to GTA 6's November 2026 release date, the unlikelier that is to happen anytime soon.

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Red Dead Redemption 2's opening act was already pretty tough - sludging through knee-high snow for hours is always brutal - but the game's introduction was originally going to put players, and more so protagonist Arthur Morgan, through even worse.

Rockstar Games co-founder and frequent Grand Theft Auto lead writer Dan Houser recently revealed an alternative beginning for the open-world cowboy sequel where Arthur Morgan acts "very, very nasty," but it was scrapped so as to not make the game's leading man immediately hateable.

"There was a bit at the start of RDR where [Arthur] had a baby who just died," Houser told the Lex Fridman podcast, "and we ended up cutting it, which was the right decision" because "it was too tough in some ways."

"And he was not very sympathetic to his occasional girlfriend who’d had the baby. So, it made him very, very nasty at the start, which I thought would be interesting to play around with because then it would make his redemptive arc even more interesting," Houser added, while explaining that the final version of Arthur was "still sort of tough and nasty, but he’s slightly more likable early on. That was the right decision commercially. It’s better that way."

What Houser enjoyed about the original idea was Arthur's "inability to access his emotions," which is a very big contrast to his emotional collapse nearer to the Western epic's finale. Even so, Houser thinks "the games ended up the way they were supposed to be."

Red Dead Redemption 2 overtakes Mario Kart 8 as the 4th best-selling video game of all time, boasting 79 million sales

It's official – Red Dead Redemption 2 now stands as the fourth best-selling video game of all time, overtaking Nintendo's own iconic Mario Kart 8 with nearly 80 million sales to date.

The beloved Rockstar Games banger took the fourth spot following Take-Two Interactive's recent financial report, which highlights a whopping 79 million sales in total for Red Dead Redemption 2. That's not all, though – its impressive sales put the series as a whole at over 106 million units sold worldwide. The 2018 sequel itself is also apparently the best-selling title of the past seven years in the United States.

That's no small feat – after all, prior to Red Dead Redemption 2 taking the crown in fourth place, Mario Kart 8 held the very same position with around 78 million sales. The full list of best-selling video games can be found on Wikipedia (don't worry, the sources for all sales numbers are linked there for validity), where Minecraft unsurprisingly sits in first place. In second, however, is another Rockstar Games gem: GTA 5.

GTA 5 boasts a mind-boggling 220 million sales in total – 130 million less than Minecraft. In the third spot, a non-Mario-related yet just as legendary Nintendo title can be seen… the one and only Wii Sports, of course, with a little under 83 million copies sold. Could Red Dead Redemption 2 overtake the nostalgia-inducing Wii game one day? Only time will tell, but I personally believe that yet another Rockstar title will make the list soon enough.

Although GTA 6 was just delayed again and won't release until November 19, 2026, GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 serve as a pretty solid sign that the new game will do very well – and you know, the fact that fans have been waiting for over a decade certainly helps, too. A previous Rockstar job listing dubbed GTA 6 "the largest game launch in history" after all, but there's no telling until the following year finally rolls around.

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Rockstar Games co-founder and writer behind many of the studio's best games, including Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA 3, 4, 5, Vice City, San Andreas, and more – Dan Houser – has been talking about who he believes to be the best character he's ever made, and it turns out it's not an easy choice for him.

Speaking to Lex Fridman on his podcast, Houser discusses some spoiler-heavy points around Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan (if you know, you know), noting that the way his story and its ultimate ending was handled was "a fun thing to play with." Asked if he thinks Arthur is the best character he's ever made, Houser says: "I think he's the best lead character.

"The lead characters are different from the side characters, and I think he's the most rounded and works the best," he explains, before adding that there's another protagonist also competing for the crown in his head – GTA 4's Niko Bellic.

"Him and Niko are the two I like. They were the two most ambitious. So for me, it's always sort of a toss up, you know?"

As for Arthur specifically, Houser adds that "the art team did such an amazing job" since it was their idea to add the cowboy's journal to the game. "The way that all the features worked into Arthur's character, I thought that was really... He was really rounded, he worked in lots of different ways really well. I loved his flawed relationship with his old girlfriend, things like that. [...] The bits that turned up around him."

In the same interview, Houser also explained that he actually wanted to kill Niko at the end of GTA 4, but couldn't for one big technical reason – players need their protagonist alive to keep playing the game after the credits roll. So, Niko was saved.

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser says rumored GTA 5 Trevor DLC was about "half-done" when it was canceled, but if it released, the devs "probably wouldn't have gotten to make Red Dead 2."

There's something in the air again – see here: winter – and if you're like me, you're probably retreating to your comfort games. Red Dead Redemption 2 is on everybody's lips once again, whether because you're in the middle of a replay or you're reading up on what Rockstar's co-founder has said about it this time.

After reading Dan Houser's comments on how sad he'd be if a Red Dead 3 were to be made, I was surprised to read so many comments in staunch disagreement. Yes, Arthur Morgan's gripping journey is one of the best open world games of all time, with one of the most memorable storylines and casts of characters in the biz. But that's exactly it: Red Dead is, as Houser describes it, "a cohesive two-game arc", and a third game purely for profit and popularity's sake risks diminishing how special it is.

Easy, there

There's probably another, more technically precise name for it, but I call it the Buffy Effect. It's a common enough phenomenon in television; a popular show is so popular that showrunners don't know how to quit while they're ahead.

Look at Supernatural (a show intended for a five-season run that carried on for 10 more) or Glee (peaked in season three only to pick up just in time for the final, seventh season) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (d'uh), and they all have one thing in common. They were huge shows with massive followings that slowly fell apart over time – or in the case of Grey's Anatomy's 22 seasons and counting, are continuing in doing so.

The desperate desire to milk a cash cow – despite having no idea where to take it next – isn't exclusive to television producers. We've seen it happen time after time in video games, too. Saints Row never did regain the traction it developed in its first few instalments, even after a series reboot in 2022. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise is still a critical and commercial success, but you only need to look at how much its DNA has changed over the years to see what an identity crisis the stealth-action series has been through. It's a far cry (pardon the pun) from what it used to be, and while I'm happy to keep rolling with the changes, Houser's worries about a narrative-heavy game being drawn out past its prime ring in my ears.

The immense pressure to serialize a popular video game is something I don't envy developers. A lot of the time, it's a brilliant idea – but all too often, the attempt can leave a series in a weird state of flux that could have been avoided if the temptation had been avoided in the first place. Look at the state of Mass Effect 5, for example, sitting in a limbo of unknown quantities while fans like our very own Heather Wald dream of it taking notes from Dragon Age: Origins' player-made characters. The same can be said of Fallout 5, which still has a huge question mark over it and hasn't even been formally announced yet.

Less is more

The consequences of pushing for a sequel (or threequel, or whatever number-quel) without a clear vision for it are severe. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is the latest proof of that.

The game was forced into existence despite seemingly every manner of divine intervention standing in its way, a fanged hot potato that eventually fell into the palms of The Chinese Room who had to simply make do with the scraps of Hardsuit Labs' original concept and fashion it into something new-ish. I hated having to give it such a low score in my Bloodlines 2 review, but I stand by my words: "this isn't a case of great ideas with poor implementation. Rather, it's a fundamentally flawed experience from conception to execution that has me wondering why it was made in the first place."

Except I don't need to think too hard when I wonder why it was made, actually. It all boils down to the elephantine memory of the zeitgeist, the cult classic charm of the original, and a desire to make a buck off all of the above. If there's one thing I don't want for Red Dead, it's to follow in those same doomed footsteps.

Yes, I'd play a Red Dead Redemption 3 if one came about – I'm not a monster – but I'm much happier being left to my daydreams than I would be with the prospect of seeing it crash and burn beyond recognition. Arthur's legacy deserves more than that. I think we all know it.

These games like Red Dead Redemption 2 will scratch that wild west itch

As GTA 6 beckons, there'll be some inevitable buzz around potentially getting Red Dead Redemption 3 at some point (even though technically RDR 2 is Red Dead 3, but I digress). Rockstar co-founder and former writer Dan Houser thinks RDR 3 is likely, even though he's not sure he wants to see it.

Having started Rockstar Games with his brother Sam and three other devs, Houser worked on many of the company's biggest releases, including all the Grand Theft Auto games and both Red Dead Redemption games. Serving as lead writer on the Western sandboxes, he became quite attached to Arthur Morgan and John Marston, and believes the duology he helped craft is perhaps better left alone.

"Each of the [Grand Theft Auto] games was kind of a standalone story. It's not quite the same," he says on the Lex Fridman Podcast. "I think it probably would be, in some ways, sadder if someone continued on Red Dead, because it was a cohesive two-game arc. That might be more sad to hear someone working on that."

He concedes, though, it "probably will happen," because Red Dead is a huge franchise and ultimately he has no control any more. "I don't own the IP. That was sort of part of the deal - it's a privilege to work on stuff, but you don't necessarily own it," he adds.

Houser is correct in that the two Red Dead Redemption games form a cohesive whole, the second being a prequel to the events of the first. But there's plenty of ground to cover with other characters, taking a page or two from the varying perspectives of the GTA series, where each installment is another protagonist and setting.

Regardless of what happens, expect it to take a while, as developing these releases is only getting more time-consuming. Arthur and John will likely remain the focal point of Rockstar's Old West for some time yet.

Creating Red Dead Redemption 2 was "not that fun," Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says, as it wasn't "coming together" and was "over budget so much I didn’t want to think about it"

One of the creepier mysteries in the Red Dead Redemption games surrounds the 'Strange Man', an unnamed gentleman in a top hat who makes recurring appearances. He has an ethereal presence in Red Dead Redemption 2 and its predecessor, haunting John Marston and sparking rumors among NPCs.

Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games, doesn't have too many answers on what's going on with the character, but he does provide more context as to their creation. "We felt we needed more story so we, quite late in development, started putting in almost like this RPG-type content where you'd go and meet someone, and they'd be like short stories," he remembers on the Lex Fridman Podcast.

"We tried to make them these short stories with a sting in the tail, and he came out as just this weird character," Houser continues. "And then we built a bit into the story where he would unlock as you were making your way through, and be a commentary on what you were doing."

The Strange Man, as Houser sees it, was meant to be a "manifestation of your shadow, your karma, the devil," and something "any artist is scared of: a creative who's kind of sold his soul to the devil." Both of those things are frightening in their own way, giving the black-suited man an even more ghostly aura.

These vignettes came about after Rockstar realized without the cars, machine guns, cities, and most of the people wandering about, Red Dead Redemption was just about "a dude riding a horse in the desert," which was "quite boring." The world needed more stimulation, and what better than an elusive phantom? Players figured there was something not quite right about the figure after the end of the first RDR, where John Marston shoots at him but the bullets appear to do nothing.

"He knows what you're up to, but what's never made clear is, does he know this about everybody?" Houser adds. "Is he following you, or is he able, because of the pact he's made with evil forces, able to do this for everybody? I don't think we ever clarify that."

It's still unclarified now, but it's fascinating to hear Houser's take as one of the main developers. We'll have to see how the man reappears in Red Dead Redemption 3, whenever that arrives.

Red Dead Redemption 2 "was the best thing" that Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser worked on, not GTA 5: "The best single realization of open-world storytelling thematic consistency"

It's no secret that Rockstar Games traveled a shaky road on its way to Red Dead Redemption 2's release date, twice delayed. At the time, a Kotaku report claimed that many developers on the open-world hit were subject to crunch and, now, Dan Houser's finally spoke out about the tough production - without mentioning the crunched devs, of course.

In the latest episode of the Lex Fridman podcast, Rockstar Games co-founder, former GTA frontman, and Red Dead Redemption 2 lead writer Dan Houser spoke about the pressures of making games on such a large scale. Red Dead Redemption 2 sticks out as a particularly difficult project, though.

Beware, spoilers for a seven-year-old game below.

"I think with Red Dead 2, we were behind schedule," he recalled. "We were over budget so much I didn't want to think about it. And you're making a game about a cowboy dying of [tuberculosis], and the game's not coming together."

Houser doesn't call out any names, but the game's tough dev cycle and tougher subject matter apparently raised a few eyebrows during that phase. "Turns out, a lot of people doubt you at that moment, you know, it's not that fun," he said. "So, I think, that was a lot of pressure."

Despite a difficult eight-year journey to get there, Red Dead Redemption 2 eventually became a wild, wild success - both at launch and in the years since - selling upward of 77 million copies and courting pristine reviews pretty much everywhere.

Surprisingly, it even has a pretty healthy modding community that helped turn the cowboy sim into a Mortal Kombat-like - another just made the whole affair infinitely sadder by forcing you to watch every dying NPCs life memories. How jolly.

Dan Houser says Rockstar Games only attempted GTA London once in 26 years because the series is “so much about America” that “it wouldn’t really have worked in the same way elsewhere."

If you've ever wanted to curb stomp a crocodile, wrestle a grizzly bear, and push someone in front of a train all in one glorious day, you can do that in one of the greatest open-world games ever, Red Dead Redemption 2. But if you want to do it in the format of a 2D fighting game, this utterly unhinged Red Dead Redemption 2 Mortal Kombat mod is almost certainly your best bet.

Created by Blurbs, the same modder/streamer who cursed us with a Red Dead Redemption 2 mod that forces you to witness the memories of NPCs you've killed, this new mod was also conceived of and created live on stream with inspiration from participating viewers, one of which came up with the idea itself. You can watch a montage of Blurbs' process below:

Anyway, the mod does what it says on the tin, more or less, although it is noticeably janky. Engage in a fight with a person or animal, and the camera pans out to the side as Arthur squares off with his enemy. The mod overlays a rudimentary Mortal Kombat-esque UI and adds gratuitous blood effects to attacks, mimicking the gruesome battles in Mortal Kombat.

While the mod doesn't appear to be publicly available, it is nonetheless a great treat watching Arthur Morgan kick the shit out of a random cowboy, curb stomp a crocodile, and get mauled by a grizzly bear in Mortal Kombat-style battles. My favorite part is Arthur getting his well-deserved revenge against Micah by pushing him in front of a moving train. Fatality.

My least favorite part is Arthur's plague cough fatality, which causes Micah to spurt fountains of blood from seemingly every pore in his body. That's just disgusting.

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The world has lost an R&B and soul great, as D'Angelo passed away this week. A hugely successful, chart-topping singer, he gained recognition among video game fans in recent years due to his musical contributions to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar's Western open-world epic features a number of bespoke songs, including those by modern singers and musicians, with D'Angelo chief among them. He provided vocals to the soulful tune 'Unshaken', a gentle infusion of country-western, gospel, and blues showcasing his talents.

The recording came five years after D'Angelo's last album, demonstrating how special it was to get him involved. The developer has paid tribute to the contemporary icon, in a social media post.

"Rest In Peace D'Angelo, a true titan of soul. We are eternally grateful for his track 'Unshaken' which will forever be an enduring part of the legacy of Red Dead Redemption 2," Rockstar’s Twitter account states.

The replies are overflowing with love and adoration for D'Angelo's part in the beloved historical sandbox. "I can't think about Red Dead Redemption 2 without thinking about this song. One of the best moments of any game is when you're riding and it starts playing," one reply states, summing up the feelings of many others.

Hopping on your horse to ride through the mountains as 'Unshaken' sways through the air is a particularly special vibe. In a game that thrives on setting the scene, D'Angelo really made sure you felt something in those moments.

He released three records over the course of his career: Brown Sugar, Voodoo, and Black Messiah. A fourth was in progress at the time of his passing, though its current status is uncertain. His legacy will live on in the universe of Arthur Morgan, where he'll continue inspiring goosebumps for years to come.

I was recently talking to my brother-in-law about Red Dead Redemption 2, and how I believe it is truly the best story-driven RPG ever made. He admitted that (on my recommendation months prior) he'd given it a shot, but after just two hours gave up because it was too "slow". Admittedly I was a little shocked: how could you give up on a game with some of the best characters in gaming history?

Now, if you've played Rockstar's magnum opus, you'd realise that he only just got past the prologue, tutorial, and into Valentine at this point. His feet were barely out of the snowy mountains of the West Grizzlies before he hung up his Stetson, kicked off his stirrups, and said "You know what? I'm done here, partner."

When you look up 'Red Dead Redemption 2 Prologue' on the Steam forums and Reddit, it's flooded with other people asking just how long this intro actually is and struggling to get past it. "Seriously the first chapter is way too long", reads one post on Reddit. "There is a difference between a slow game and just dragging content too fucking long. I don't have a problem with slow games." says another while asking just how long the intro actually is.

It's a shame so many people, my brother in law included, struggled to get past this (in my opinion) masterfully made tutorial, because when you get into the nitty gritty of Arthur Morgan's story, you'll become so attached to the characters Rockstar created that you'll physically ache. In fact, I'd go as far to say this isn't just Arthur's story, it goes as deep as the other characters you share a camp with. It's Sadie's story, Tilly's story. Kieran's, Trelawney's, Molly's, Charles', the list goes on. All of them have beautifully told stories that, even seven years later, I'm emotionally attached to.

If you can't get past calling out for John on a snowy mountain, then hear me out: the West Grizzlies are worth persevering through, and I promise it won't take two hours to get my point across.

Gather 'round

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one game I will happily play time and time again, but not because of the mechanics, setting or endless side quests. I always return because of the characters. From the best boy himself, Arthur, all the way to Sister Calderón and even the freaky little Saint Denis Vampire, Red Dead Redemption 2 has some of the best characters ever written in video game history.

Every single character was crafted with such love and care, and it really shines through in the way you see them interact with one another. From walking around Strawberry and hearing the Reverend preaching, to sitting at your camp listening to Uncle singing songs and telling tales, it's all so immersive that you often don't feel like you're playing a game.

I remember on my first playthrough I'd sit at the camp, put down my controller and just take it all in. I can't remember any other game that allowed me to experience something so immersive. With other games I wanted to keep moving, driven to move from point to point and experience more. But Red Dead Redemption 2 made me want to stop, slow down, and bond with the other members of the Van der Linde gang.

I even found myself becoming more and more invested in the internal camp politics as the game went on. I found it incredible to see how these NPCs who I'd grown to love and care for were developing because of my actions, my choices, and the way Arthur and Dutch's story was being told. One key NPC for me, who every time I play I make sure to give that bit extra of attention to, is Molly. Her own personality and story always make me feel so bad, and she is one of the members of the Van der Linde gang you can clearly see impacted by the politics of your family of outlaws.

I know Molly is divisive in the fandom. I know a lot of people dislike her; even calling her clingy or annoying in regards to Dutch. And (warning for spoilers ahead) when she was killed, I genuinely felt an ache in my chest.

At the start of the game you see Molly as a confident young woman, madly in love with Dutch and able to ignore his flaws. She even says "Dutch is all the company I need.” at the start of the game. As the game progresses she ends up as a shell of a woman, paranoid, feeling neglected and unloved by the man she has committed her entire life to. You can even find a poem that Molly wrote which has the line "I've nothing left. I gave you all."

Molly breaks my heart every single time, because she's not just a thrown away side character, she is a clear example of in-game actions affecting NPCs. She is written so well that it is believable.

Molly's story isn't the only one that affects me. So does the blossoming romance between Mary-Beth and Kieran being cut short. The way Hosea desperately tries to keep the family together. And last but not least, Arthur's.

When I think of perfectly written characters, I think of Arthur. My mind constantly goes back to sitting at the train station, with Sister Calderón by his side. The words "I guess…I'm afraid" are forever ingrained into my brain.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is, in my opinion, one of the most detailed stories ever told in gaming. If only people could sit and wait for the blizzard to melt, then they'd see how beautiful Rockstar's open world is.

We've picked out more games like Red Dead Redemption 2 to sate your cravings for the West

Red Dead Redemption 2 has you kill a lot of people to finish its main missions, but most of them are folks messing with your sometimes loveable outlaw gang or settlers bullying a native tribe, so the game doesn't make you feel too awful about it all. But what if you found out that the NPC you fed to an alligator was Luffy from One Piece or that bear you hunted had a human baby? Bet you'd feel like a monster then.

That's the concept behind streamer/modder Blurbs' latest work, which forces us to watch an NPC's memories right after their death. And, yes, that includes a bear.

Blurbs uploaded a video called 'I Was Forced to Give NPCs Horrible Memories' earlier this week, documenting how he created the mod that would flashback through a dead NPC's past, whether you killed them or not. And to make matters more chaotic, he even let his Twitch chat create scripts that would randomly play over pre-made scenes.

"We've got all of the scripts from chat recorded and then the mod will pull randomly, depending on the scene, to play memories from the NPC's noggin," Blurbs explains, before declaring that he "might just delete this mod" upon finally witnessing what chat brought to life, headless weddings included.

"I modded RDR2 so that NPCs have *actual* memories you are forced to watch when they die," he explained in a recent tweet. "Maximum guilt trip. I may have made a mistake letting Twitch Chat write the scripts however..."

For now, the RDR2 guilt trip mod isn't publicly available on NexusMods, but maybe that's for the best - Blurbs admitted one of his other experiments, letting viewers write NSFW Skyrim dialogue, was also a mistake.

Red Dead Redemption 2 modder discovers the strongest weapon in the Wild West: 4-year-old Jack Marston, who packs a surprising punch as a thrown weapon.

If you think GTA 5 is Rockstar Games' greatest game to date, you might be surprised to learn that studio co-founder Dan Houser has a different favorite himself: Red Dead Redemption 2.

Houser, who left Rockstar in 2020 to co-found new studio Absurd Ventures after working on everything from the Grand Theft Auto series to L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3, apparently likes the Red Dead Redemption sequel above all. Speaking during a Q&A panel at LA Comic Con this past weekend, the Rockstar veteran reveals as much when asked what title has stood out as his "favorite" over the years.

"Red Dead 2," admits Houser, "I think, was the best thing that I worked on, the best single realization of open-world storytelling thematic consistency, and understanding how the games are assembled to take you on an emotional journey." The former Rockstar lead isn't the only one who regards Red Dead Redemption 2 so highly, either. With a "Very Positive" rating on Steam and thousands of active players, it's safe to say fans still love it.

It's not the only Rockstar gem that stands out to Houser, though. "I also think GTA 4, because we did try to evolve how we did the storytelling and did it in a fundamental way," he says. He also brings GTA 5 up. "I think the middle section of GTA 5 is amazing. When we got the three characters working, I think it was not flawless, but it was so smooth. That middle section, that was really amazing." And, an honorable mention: "the end of Red Dead 1."

Hearing his personal favorite and other highlights is eye-opening, especially as GTA 6 looms over us as Rockstar's next big release – although it'll be the first new launch since Houser's own departure from the company five years ago. Here's hoping it manages to impress as much as its predecessors evidently have, and that we potentially see a Red Dead Redemption 3 come later down the line… although I might just be coping with that last bit.

Searching for something else to play while you wait for GTA 6? Browse through our quick rundown of the most exciting new games coming this year and beyond for more.

A streamer has modded Jack Marston into Red Dead Redemption 2 as a throwing weapon, and he's surprisingly great at dispatching foes.

If you were asked what the strongest weapon in Red Dead Redemption 2 is, I imagine you would likely go with one of the guns or some mad weapon added to Red Dead Online that no one knows about (I'm assuming there is some because of the weird stuff in GTA Online now, I don't play RDR Online). But a streamer has figured out through the power of modding that the most fearsome weapon in the wild wild west is throwing a four-year-old Jack Marston at your enemies.

Streamer Blurbstv posted a clip from his stream on Twitter, saying In RDR2, "Jack Marston is both invincible & lightweight. Canonically, this makes him the best throwable weapon in the game."

In the clip, he shows off his arsenal of Jacks and throws one at a tree, with a shocking amount of force for someone throwing a child. He then takes a suggestion from the chat to add ragdoll physics as he collides, which is a touch brutal, but adds to the hilarity.

However, the real revelation is just how strong Jack Marston is as a weapon. He throws Jack at enemies and knocks them out cold right away, which is impressive, but I feel like if you threw a four-year-old (which, to be clear, I do NOT condone) at someone's head, it could feasibly knock them out. However, a Jack Marston projectile also managed to take out a grizzly bear in one hit, truly showing the potential of him as a weapon.

I love Red Dead Redemption 2 more than any other Rockstar game, and after 7 years it still has an important lesson to teach GTA 6.

I have a problem with the GTA games, and I can pin it entirely on one emblematic aspect of GTA 5: Trevor Phillips. It's nothing to do with the performance of Trevor, well-performed by Steven Ogg, it's more that Rockstar took what players do in GTA-games and made it central to his character. He's a one-man wrecking crew focused on destruction and violence at all costs, unable to approach things in any other way. Unhinged, sexually violent, and just a drag to be around. I hate playing as Trevor, because it just feels dull – too much of anything becomes tedious, even GTA's wanton violence.

At the other end of this two-dimensional see-saw is Jimmy. Jimmy, Michael's son, is a little shit. He's a stupid, loud-mouthed moronic Gamer of the worst stripe. We've all known a Jimmy. The problem with Jimmy isn't these negative qualities. It's that he is used as a representation of people who play games. Rockstar holds up a funhouse mirror in front of us, as a collective, and says "see, this is who you people are!". But I'm not, am I, Rockstar? I'm just sitting here waiting for you to continue telling the story.

Redeemed

These characters are so one-note and flat that it was with a certain sense of doubt that I went into Red Dead Redemption 2. I needn't have worried, it turns out. Red Dead Redemption 2 is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the very best stories in video games, and one of the best westerns ever made. It wouldn't be any of these without Arthur Morgan, the ying to Trevor Phillips' yang.

Where Trevor is an idiotic boob, a kind of gestalt entity of the worst aspects of GTA, Arthur represents the best aspects of not only Rockstar games', but all games writing. The fact that there are two Arthur Morgans in play depending on your choices, one far more good-hearted than the other but both fantastically written and performed, is a real testament to the game. When I think of Arthur, I don't and can't liken him to simple caricatures of the western genre. He isn't a bigot like John Wayne, nor is he a copy of The Man With No Name. He is simply Arthur Morgan, a concatenation of his own life experiences, which we gradually learn about through Red Dead 2's story.

Comparing Red Dead Redemption 2's world to other videogame westerns is almost laughable. Think about what we had prior to this: Gun and Call of Juarez, mostly. The first Red Dead Redemption is a great game in its own right, but one that still has a bit of that corny Rockstar writing where characters are one-dimensional oddballs with no redeeming features – notably in the shape of Seth Briars, a dirty graverobbing weirdo.

The supporting characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 are almost as vital to my feelings on the game itself as Arthur. If Arthur were transplanted into a GTA game, he just wouldn't work as a character. It'd be like dropping him into Idiocracy. Instead, the supporting cast are all as deeply nuanced as he is. Consider how Dutch hides his narcissistic nature behind his anarchist philosophy, Hosea's genuine warmth that plays into his skills as a conman, how Sadie is forced to become a monster purely due to the stacked plate of misery the world hands her.

Compare this to the main trio of GTA 5, whose characters and motivations can be summed up in cliches. Michael is back for one last job, Franklin wants to get out of the hood, Trevor is a meth-addled businessman ripped straight from a Breaking Bad bit.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is as much a character piece about Arthur as it is a prequel to the original game, and it is all the richer for it, while still being fun, often genuinely funny, and a superb example of this medium that we love so dearly.

With the news that GTA 6 is set to be both enormous and enormously expensive, I can but hope that Rockstar is able to give us a story that is more than gangster cliches wrapped around satire. I straight up do not want to spend 100 hours or more ambling around a Florida that feels like a Universal Studios ride. I want characters who have more dimensions, more resonance, and that feel original. It's a lot to ask, but Rockstar has proven that it is capable. I just hope that Red Dead Redemption 2 was more than a flash in the pan.

I finally finished Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time in 2025, and I'm in such a state, I've decided to become an NPC who lives a simple farming life

Rockstar Games' support website has had not one but two potential flubs, yielding possible indirect evidence that the rumored re-releases of Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 4 could be on the way.

Rumors of 2008's GTA 4 returning to modern platforms have been awash for months now, alongside rumours of a PS5 and Xbox Series X|S edition of Red Dead Redemption 2. And in a rare move from Rockstar Games' usually airtight messaging, the developer's website may have inadvertently leaked that both projects could be on the way in the future.

Yesterday, a user on Reddit (via GamingBible) noticed an interesting option on the Rockstar support page for Red Dead Online. In a drop down list of potential issues, Rockstar included an option for "Online migration," which seems to imply there would be a new version to migrate your data to, especially when said option is available for GTA V Enhanced.

What makes this even more interesting is that, since that Reddit thread was posted, the option has been removed from the site, although multiple users in the thread claim to have also seen the option.

Not one day removed from that, another user on Reddit noticed that PS4 is a platform option when requesting help for GTA 4 on the website. And in the time since it was posted, that option was likewise removed.

What's more interesting about this case is that it would match the re-release of the original Red Dead Redemption, which was only released on PS4 despite being years into PS5's life (alongside a Switch port). And if it follows that formula, there won't be an Xbox version due to backwards compatibility already being available.

While it's best not to get your hopes up until something official comes out, this does add some fuel to the remaster rumors for both games, and considering it's for two of Rockstar's best stories, I'd be pleased if they're real.

GTA 6 will "remain" the most expensive game ever, former Rockstar dev predicts, because GTA 7 will see the "bulk of the work" replaced by AI.

We have never been more back, partner. Red Dead Online has actually gotten a fresh new update, and fans are gushing over it and are hopeful for the future of the rootin' tootin' shootin' game.

Rockstar surprised everyone and dropped a trailer for the Strange Tales of the West update. It adds "four new adventures that require steely resolve and courage in the face of the odd, twisted, and downright supernatural." It's got a similar tone to the fantastic Undead Nightmare DLC for the original Red Dead Redemption.

It adds creepy robots that look a bit like retro cybermen, a person howling at the moon who may be a werewolf, and what could be a zombie. As soon as I've redownloaded the ridiculously big Red Dead Redemption 2 game file and had a play myself, I'll report back.

Rockstar announced three years ago that it wouldn't be releasing anymore major updates for the live-service game. But, the fact it's gone to the lengths of making a trailer for this update has given us all hope.

"It's odd that they made a trailer for it, it's unlike them to put any effort into marketing RDO, praying this is a sign of good things to come," writes one fan on Reddit. "It says vol. 1 so I'm already expecting at least a vol. 2," replies another.

Others can't believe their eyes. "Can't believe I'm watching a new RDO trailer for new RDO content in the year 2025. Surely they jest." Another fan points out these sorts of missions have been a regular occurrence since 2022, but this is the first time they've been promoted like this.

Maybe Rockstar plans to return to the Wild West once development on GTA 6 is completed. A cowboy can dream.

If you're not a fan of the outlaw life, check out the best online games you can play instead.

Us Red Dead Redemption fans have been getting all hot and bothered about some "exciting news" John Marston actor Rob Wiethoff teased while streaming last week. A meet the cast event has now been announced, and while that is pretty cool, it's not the remaster or Red Dead Online update we were hoping for.

The National Gaming Expo revealed the lineup on Instagram, and that's been shared to the Red Dead Redemption subreddit alongside the disappointed caption, "Was this the announcement Rob was so excited for?" This would also make sense given that Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clark also knew about the news in question before, and he's part of the event.

Was this the announcement Rob was so excited for? from r/reddeadredemption

"We're cooked, chat," replies one fan. Some people are huffing copium though, writing, "It would be great if they waited for this convention to reveal there’s going to be SOME kind of update, remastering, DLC, a next chapter etc."

To be fair, Wiethoff did later walk back his comment and try to calm everyone down, saying he possibly misled us and reiterating that "I do not make announcements for Rockstar Games."

You'll be able to meet the actors who play the most iconic characters across the two games, and can see the full list right here. No shade to the actors, they all do an amazing job and this will be fun for whoever is going to the expo, but for those of us hoping for a Red Dead Redemption remake or a current-gen update for Red Dead Redemption 2, we're out of luck.

I was quietly holding my breath for a Red Dead Online update, but I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't have and I did it anyway, so I've only got myself to blame for that disappointment. "Once again, Red Dead Redemption fans acting very stupid," someone writes. I'm going to go and hang my head in shame.

In the meantime, check out the best open-world games you can play right now to scratch that Red Dead Redemption or GTA itch.

Red Dead Redemption's John Marston actor Rob Wiethoff has attempted to calm fans down again after he teased some "exciting news" coming this week while playing through the 2010 action-adventure he stars in, now reminding everyone that "I do not make announcements for Rockstar Games."

Previously, the stars seemed to be aligning for some sort of Red Dead Redemption-related announcement. Not only did Wiethoff say that "cannot think about anything else, especially playing this game" during his stream, but asked if he knew "what the Red Dead news is Rob mentioned," Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clark said "yes," seemingly confirming it really is something to do with the series.

Now though, in a new livestream on his YouTube channel (highlighted by @jonbranham_ on Twitter), Wiethoff says that while "I do have something I'm really excited about, I truly am, and I think you will be too," he now realises that he "possibly misled some people when I announced that I have something to announce that I can't talk about right now.

"Just please recognize – and I know that you know this, but let me remind you, I guess – I do not make announcements for Rockstar Games. We all know that, I'm just reminding you I do not make announcements for Rockstar Games. Rockstar Games makes announcements for Rockstar Games, and they don't use me to do that," he laughs. "So please know that, and again I still think that a lot of you are going to be really excited about this news, absolutely."

Wiethoff says he still "can't share it with you yet, and I'm so sorry" about that, but assuming his original teaser still holds up, we should be finding out whatever it is in the next few days. Again, Clark's previous comment does indicate that there's something related to Red Dead going on, but anyone hoping for something like a remake, port, or new game should probably temper their expectations at this point.

15 years later, Red Dead Redemption's John Marston is playing the open-world cowboy game for the first time and reveals why "John is screaming at people for no reason" when riding a horse.

It's seemingly increasingly likely that Red Dead Redemption fans have something to be excited about, as another actor from the series has teased an upcoming announcement of some sort.

Late last week, John Marston actor Rob Wiethoff broke the internet while streaming Red Dead Redemption as he teased that he's "got such exciting news" he can't currently share. Whatever it is, he suggested we should probably find out soon: "By the end of this week, hopefully sooner... definitely before Friday."

How mysterious. Obviously, everyone immediately began speculating that it could be something Red Dead Redemption-related, whether that could possibly be a next-gen update for RDR2, a Switch 2 port, or something else entirely. Curiously, he also mentioned that he "won't be the only one sharing" the news, and now, Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan actor, Roger Clark, claims he's also in the know.

Asked on Twitter if he knows "what the Red Dead news is Rob mentioned," Clark simply says "yes," sharing a GIF of a dog giving a smug smile.

Although he's not revealed exactly what the news is, it looks like he might have given something away by the fact that he was specifically asked about some "Red Dead news," and still responded with a metaphorical thumbs up. Even though fans quickly made the assumption, Wiethoff never actually said out loud that his announcement would be related to the series, so it appears that Clark may have inadvertently confirmed that.

It really feels like the pair are taking notes from the Persona 4 cast, of which three actors (from the original game and the Golden re-release) ended up speaking publicly about not returning to the JRPG's remake… before Persona 4 Revival was actually announced. Needless to say, the remake's reveal wasn't exactly a shock when it was finally shown, but it was very good news nonetheless.

Now, it's Red Dead Redemption fans' time to wait and see what the two actors are teasing. If Wiethoff's original statement holds up, we'll hopefully find out by the end of the week.

15 years later, Red Dead Redemption's John Marston is playing the open-world cowboy game for the first time and reveals why "John is screaming at people for no reason" when riding a horse.

Rob Wiethoff - the voice of gruff outlaw John Marston in Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2 - teased that some big news is coming our way very soon while live streaming the first cowboy game.

After 15 entire years, Wiethoff finally decided to pick up the controller and play Red Dead Redemption for the very first time for our entertainment, all while giving us little behind-the-scenes anecdotes. But in a recent stream, instead of reminiscing, Wiethoff took a few moments to tease the audience about something coming in the future.

"I've got such exciting news," he said in the clip embedded below. "I can't share it with you right now, and it's absolutely killing me. By the end of this week, hopefully sooner... definitely before Friday. Oh my goodness! The news that I have to share, and I won't be the only one sharing it. I cannot wait for you to know what's going on, and that's all I can say. That's the only thing I can think about right now, and you'll know soon enough. I can't wait for you to know."

i wonder what this could mean? from r/reddeadredemption

Of course, that could be about anything, but then, the actor went on to say that he "cannot think about anything else, especially playing this game, I can't think of anything else."

That last bit gave some fans hope that whatever's coming next for Wiethoff could be something Red Dead Related or, at least, cowboy adjacent. My best guess is as good as yours, though. A next-gen update for Red Dead Redemption 2 is well overdue, I guess, alongside a potential Nintendo Switch 2 port. That aside, I can't imagine Rockstar Games has space for a big new project in the lead up to the behemoth that is GTA 6.

Don't write off a Red Dead Redemption 2 remake or remaster, Arthur Morgan actor says: "We've already started to see it for GTA 5 and the original"

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most gorgeous games ever made. It beautifully blends realism with a subtle stylization that ensures you can still see at night and objects you can interact with are fairly obvious. It surely doesn't need a remake, but Arthur Morgan's actor, Roger Clark himself, thinks Rockstar may already be cooking one up.

"I think it's already starting to happen," Clark tells TheGamer. "What's also starting to happen is that classic games, games that did well, and games that still are able to hold on to their fandom are getting remastered now more than ever before. So, I don't know, the data isn't going anywhere, but the technology to refine its graphics is only just going to keep getting better and better."

We've seen plenty of Rockstar games get remasters or ports to modern consoles, and I'm not even talking about GTA 5. There was the GTA Trilogy remaster (that had a bunch of bugs in it) and the PC port of Red Dead Redemption, which has finally got John Marston actor Rob Wiethoff playing the game some 15 years after it first released.

"I don't think a remake of [Red Dead Redemption 2] is something that we can write off for the future, or a remaster," Clark adds. "We've already started to see it for GTA 5 and the original Red Dead Redemption. So, I think possibly it'll remain in the limelight with modern versions of the same game, because the stories are what keeps the players coming back."

Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn't even have a current-gen update and it still looks amazing, so maybe we'll at least get that patch sometime in the future. If Rockstar goes big enough, a PS5 and Xbox Series X-level modernization could very well pass for a remaster.

In the meantime, check out the Summer Game Fest 2025 schedule so you can keep up with everything that's going on over the weekend.

Rockstar has quietly bumped up the prices of both Red Dead Redemption games on consoles in the UK and beyond, making the 15-year-old game £50 for PS4 users.

While we were all too focused on GTA 6, with a lot of focus being on what the eventual price will be (or, if you're GTA 5's Micheal voice actor – the in-game buttcheeks), with fans worried it could cost $100, Rockstar has casually thrown out a little price rise elsewhere. Pure Xbox noticed that both Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been bumped up in price on Xbox – with the backwards compatible version of the first game going up to £29.99 and the sequel now being £59.99; £5 more than they were last month.

Then sister site Push Square noticed the same thing had happened over on PlayStation, with the PS4 versions of both games getting an increase. However, while Red Dead 2 got the same £5 bump as on Xbox, the PS4 port of the original Red Dead Redemption got bumped up by £10, meaning the 2023 port (that had very little in the way of improvements) of the 2010 game will now run you £49.99.

Looking at the price charting website PSPrices, it looks like Rockstar is being very selective about which regions get this price rise. So far, we've seen the bump in the UK, Australia, and Brazil (although only for Red Dead 2 for the latter), while the US, Japan, and most of Europe are unaffected by the change. Funnily enough, the Steam and Nintendo Switch editions of the first game are also untouched in most regions (with Brazil getting a price rise on Switch back in March).

It's unclear whether Rockstar plans to extend this price rise across all regions eventually, but for now, the US is unaffected by these changes.

Both Red Dead Redemption games are pretty high up on our best Rockstar games list. But you should maybe wait for a sale now.

If you find yourself exhausted by the thought of all those 100-hour RPGs and open-world games in your backlog, you're in good company. Shawn Layden, who served for decades in executive roles at PlayStation, culminating in his tenure as chairman for SIE Worldwide Studios from 2014 through 2019, says that game development costs are skyrocketing to unsustainable levels, and part of the problem is that games have gotten very, very long.

Layden tells Eurogamer that game dev costs tend to double every generation. "The PS4 generation, which was the last I was associated with, game dev was 150m if you want to be top of the line, and that's before marketing," he explains. "So by that math, PS5 games should eventually reach $300m to $400m - and that is just outright not sustainable.

He compares modern game development to the elaborate, expensive cathedrals being built toward the end of the 18th century. "Can we continue to build these massive edifices to God for this incredible amount of labor and time?" he asks, adding that he's "afraid we've built AAA gaming into a kind of cathedral business" that's "probably grown too far already."

"How do we cap that? How do we bring that back? I think part of that answer is - and it sounds simplistic, but hear me out - I think games are too long. I haven't even opened Red Dead Redemption 2 because I don't have 90 hours. And I'm retired and I don't have 90 hours. For the longest time, we kept banging on about '100 hours of gameplay'. 'This is going to be awesome. It's 100 hours of gameplay!' Like that's the most important thing to know. That was a metric in the early years, when the average gamer was 18 to 23. And when you're 18 to 23, you're time-rich and money-poor. But as the average age of the gamer moved into the late 20s, the early 30s - well, it's the opposite, right? Maybe you aren't money-rich, but you're definitely time-poor. So I think our approach is a mismatch to that market, to reality."

Layden admits that he presided over plenty of 80- and 90-hour games, and he'll "be the first to say those weren't always 100 percent quality hours." These days, he'd "like to see a world where you can get back to 18 to 23 hours of gameplay, but with gameplay so compelling you don't want to put the controller down. I want the entire game to be like that moment in Resident Evil where the freaking dogs come through the window and you drop your controller out of fear. I want more of those kinds of game moments, if we can bring down the scale and scope."

And the issue of development costs compounds when 100-hour games meet the modern "obsession with photorealism," so developers are spending tons of time and resources across a game's development when perhaps "only 50 percent of players see the end of your game." He asks, "What would Coppola do if you walked out halfway through his movie?"

Of course, many of the most successful games of the past decade have been extremely long, and games like The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, and even Layden's own example of Red Dead Redemption 2 certainly haven't suffered in terms of reception and sales because of their size. But how many studios might get crushed under the weight of trying to measure up to successes like those?

"I want a movement that gets more people to finish games," Layden says, "where we make it so compelling they just want to see it, and where it's not so onerous they don't have to spend three months doing it."

After arguing against super long games, Super Smash Bros' creator Masahiro Sakurai praises the "great" Astro Bot because it "doesn't take that much time."

Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor Roger Clark reveals that if he could, he would work with renowned developer Hideo Kojima - the legend behind smash-hit titles like Death Stranding and Metal Gear.

Clark's voice is undoubtedly iconic, serving as protagonist Arthur Morgan's own in Rockstar Games' 2018 Red Dead sequel, and it's not all that surprising to learn that the actor would be interested in collaborating with Kojima. Speaking in a recent post, he declares that "Kojima is a genius" and admits "[I] wish I could work with him." It'd certainly be a powerful duo in my opinion - and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"Manifesting this for you," reads a hopeful comment under Clark's post. "Don’t we all wish that," jokes another. Various replies also feature fans tagging Kojima's official account in the thread to try and grab the creator's attention. "Make it happen," writes one to the Metal Gear mastermind, "please." Elsewhere, somebody states that if the two did collaborate, the product "already would be the game of the year."

As far as wild collabs and possibilities go, the two teaming up wouldn't be all that out there - after all, Kojima's upcoming ever-mysterious horror project OD he calls "a bit risky" and "a game like no other" is the result of his work alongside comedian and filmmaker Jordan Peele. Plus, it seems that Clark's post has indeed caught Kojima's eye - he has since left a response himself with a heart and prayer emoji.

This cozy cowboy-themed life sim looks like Red Dead Redemption meets Stardew Valley, with a debut trailer that features Arthur Morgan himself

A Red Dead Redemption 2 modder is wreaking havoc on the Wild West with a mod that makes wagons and horses travel at ludicrous speeds.

In the hilarious video below, you can see the violent frenzy that erupts when you edit Red Dead Redemption 2's programming to make wagons and horses "travel at super sonic speeds." Horse-drawn carriages suddenly interrupt otherwise peaceful scenes by rocketing through busy streets and pitching all manner of wood, wheel, human, and most sadly, horse, into the air.

As modder Blurbs rightly says, "It's now a horror game."

The wildest thing about this simulation, which is saying something, is seeing horses and wagons fitfully zip around the sky at high elevation, possibly a product of the gravity-defying momentum you'd presumably achieve moving at those speeds. In this version of Red Dead Redemption, nowhere's safe. Taking a stroll through town? WHAM! Horse bullet. Hiking up a hill? Wagon rocket to the dome. Chilling on your front patio? Not without a few human bodies wrapped around your pillars, y'know, for ambience.

Modder Blurbs is apparently something of a chaos agent, as he's the same modder who made every Red Dead Redemption 2 character obscenely drunk, even in cutscenes, which as you can imagine produced similarly anarchic results, if not quite so violent. Unfortunately, it appears neither mod is available publicly for the moment, so you'll just have to enjoy the madness from afar.

Meanwhile, Red Dead Redemption 2 dev reveals detail "99% of people never saw" that's part of "what makes Rockstar's games so good."

Red Dead Redemption 2 has all sorts of little details that the vast majority of players will never see, and that's part of what makes Rockstar games so special, says former Rockstar designer Ben Hinchliffe.

Hinchliffe worked at the studio from 2009 all the way to 2022, at which time he was a game designer on GTA 6. He recently appeared on the GTAVIoclock podcast (timestamped here), and at one point got on the topic of Red Dead Redemption 2, describing a mission where you're tasked with ransacking a moonshine wagon. While most folks are happy to simply do what cowboys do and shoot the thing up Wild West-style, Rockstar went the extra mile to ensure that the wagon's lore continues for pacifist Arthur Morgan.

"There's a moonshine wagon and you've got to meet it in the middle, and you're supposed to ambush it on the bridge. And if you ambush it on the bridge, cool, you get it, I think you've got to take it to the professor," Hinchliffe said. "If you don't ambush it on the bridge where you're told to, and you follow it along the road for quite some time, it'll end up at a bandit camp."

Hinchliffe went on to describe a scene full of enemy NPCs "doing their animations, the guys get off the wagons, they go to their tent." He reckoned "99% of people never saw that, because they would ambush the wagon where they were told on the bridge. But again it was that thing of 'where's it going, what's the story behind it, why is it going from here to here?' So it was always that extra narrative that you have to put in."

It's not uncommon for NPCs to have alternate programming for unlikely player interactions, but it's also true that Rockstar sandboxes are revered for their realism and hyper-interactivity. Hinchliffe said the amount of "'What ifs?'" in particular is part of "what makes Rockstar's games so good - all that additional detail and content that they put into everything that players aren't even aware it's there. They just don't know it exists, but it does, for the people who just play it a little bit different."

Baldur's Gate 3 boss Swen Vincke shared similar comments last year, highlighting developer Larian's investment in "things that maybe 0.001% of the audience will see."

Hinchliffe founded his own studio, Just Add Water Development, in May 2022, and is preparing for the November 14 release of its debut title, DIG VR.

The former GTA 6 designer recently said the open world sequel will "blow people away" and "people will be talking about it for ages" because Rockstar has "raised the bar again".

Red Dead Redemption's map was apparently created before its PS3 version was even in development, and a new comment from a former Rockstar Games veteran may have given us some insight into why.

A new DF Direct video from Digital Foundry talks about Rockstar Games' 2010 action-adventure finally arriving on PC, but it also mentions its original development, and the work on its PS3 version apparently coming later down the line than the Xbox 360 version. Clarifying a statement on Twitter, Digital Foundry claims: "Strictly speaking, the comment from back in the day was that the map was created before a PS3 version was in development. So, not exactly 'late in development.'"

Weighing in on the same Twitter thread, former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij – who left the studio in 2009, almost a full year before Red Dead Redemption's launch – explains that working with the Xbox 360 was easier to work with compared to the PS3. He writes: "The Xbox 360 used DirectX. This means the hardware was hidden behind a layer of software. This made it easy to write for the 360. 

"To get good performance out of the PS3, the developer would have to get very low level. Program the graphics chips in their native language. This was hard and time-consuming," he continues. "This is why it made more sense to lead on the 360 for us."

Over the years, many have considered the PS3 version of Red Dead Redemption to be the worst of the two original platforms. Even if it's not bad, per se, the Xbox 360 version is almost always the favorite thanks to it running a bit better, and with Vermeij's explanation in mind, it makes a lot of sense. 

If you're on the lookout for more to play, be sure to check out our recommendations for games like Red Dead Redemption 2. 

The original Red Dead Redemption and its spooky Undead Nightmare expansion are coming to PC for the first time.

In a YouTube video posted today, Rockstar confirmed that "for the first time in its storied legacy, John Marston's beloved journey can be experienced on PC in stunning, new detail, with both Red Dead Redemption and its iconic zombie-horror companion story, Undead Nightmare, arriving to PC on October 29.

The PC version is being worked on in collaboration with British studio Double Eleven, which was founded by former Rockstar developers. It'll feature "PC-specific enhancements," which will include native 4K resolution, ultrawide and super-ultrawide support, and NVIDIA DLSS and upscaling support. Of personal intrigue are the adjustable draw distances, which do sound as though they'll lend plenty of extra oomph on newer hardware.

Hints as to the existence of Red Dead Redemption PC have been swirling for months now, ever since a datamine in May mentioned the project. Since then, it's popped up in a number of other places, suggesting that this might have been a pretty badly-kept secret. Given, however, that we got a PS4 port of Red Dead 1 last year, I'd argue that this new PC announcement is pretty overdue.

Red Dead Redemption's history on PC is a peculiar one, but that might simply be Rockstar at work. This original game never launched on the platform of course, but neither did its sequel - it took Red Dead Redemption 2 13 months to find a home on PC. That's a trend reflected in the release of GTA 5, which didn't come to PC until 18 months after that game's original PS3 and Xbox 360 release. It's also something we'll see with GTA 6, which isn't launching on PC (but will probably come out there a little while after release).

You've got a couple of weeks to wait, so here are some more games like Red Dead Redemption 2 to get you rootin', tootin', and maybe even shootin'.

There've been a lot of mods for Red Dead Redemption 2 since its launch, with everything from visual enhancements to one that turns the action-adventure into a chill job sim, but this new creation from Twitch streamer and ex-software engineer Blurbs might just offer the weirdest way to play the game yet.

Behold, Red Dead Redemption 2, but all of the NPCs are extremely drunk. This chaotic mod is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: every NPC in sight is constantly stumbling around, falling over, throwing up, and if they're particularly unlucky, wobbling straight off the side of cliffs, straight to their doom. This continues throughout cutscenes, too, which – depending on how you look at it – totally ruins the story, or offers a truly bizarre new twist on it. You can get a glimpse of it in action below.

Since the NPCs definitely aren't supposed to behave like this at all times, the whole gameplay experience isn't exactly fine-tuned – they can even phase through poor ol' Arthur Morgan when they fall over, which must be extremely disconcerting as the only guy not under the influence of alcohol. 

It doesn't appear that this mod has currently been released for public use, so at least for the time being, it looks like Red Dead fans will just have to observe the havoc from afar via Blurbs' adventures. To be fair, it's probably not the best way to play the entire game, anyway – certain impactful scenes might lose their punch slightly if everyone's flailing around and being sick during them, but hey, with no Red Dead Redemption 3 in sight, it's certainly a different way to experience Rockstar's 2018 yeehawing adventure. 

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Another round of back-end game updates makes it once again appear that the long-awaited PC port of Red Dead Redemption 1 is actually happening. Fans have been through this rodeo before, but enough evidence is starting to pile up to indicate the release might actually be for real this time.

Earlier today, an update to Rockstar's own PC launcher added a folder to users' PCs labeled simply "Red Dead Redemption" - which, I should note, is distinct from the existing "Red Dead Redemption 2" folder. As prominent Rockstar community member videotechuk notes on Twitter, the update was quickly reverted.

It doesn't appear that the PC edition will be exclusive to the Rockstar launcher, either. Coinciding with that update, a round of changes hit this mysterious Steam app - which has been enough for it to be labeled as the Red Dead Redemption remaster on SteamDB. This app first appeared back in May, right around the time Rockstar accidentally added the phrase "now playable on PC" to a backend description for the game. The same phrase showed up in August as part of the game's PlayStation Store page. 

Red Dead Redemption first launched way back in 2010 for Xbox 360 and PS3, and spent 13 years exclusive to those consoles. The game was eventually ported to PS4 and Switch last year, but its high asking price and lack of additional features left fans cold at the time. Here's hoping the seemingly inevitable PC edition can satisfy all the speculative hype.

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One mastermind Fallout: New Vegas modder is tackling the seemingly impossible - trying to add rideable horses to Obsidian's epic Western RPG.

New Vegas' monumental 2010 release was well over a decade ago now, but players are still finding ways to spice the post-apocalyptic game up today. One such fan is Xїlandro Axeuora, a modder hoping to integrate fully functional horses and horseback riding into the Fallout series' most iconic spin-off. Speaking in an interview with Aftermath, Axeuora provides a more in-depth look at his approach and the lengthy development process underway.

"In my head, I constantly compare what Rockstar developers created," he explains, alluding to Red Dead Redemption 2 and its own impressive horses. "Animations aside, of course - I don't have a horse and a mocap studio." Axeuora, who says his mod has cost him his "sanity," states that he keeps reworking things to meet the standards he's envisioning: "I keep rewriting code over and over again, looking for that 'OK, this feels close enough' moment."

As for replicating horses akin to Red Dead's stunning four-legged beasts, Axeuora is doing everything he can to nail "the overall feel of natural horse movement without sacrificing responsiveness of controls." He wants something "natural" rather than hyper-realistic: "It's a living, breathing creature. It can't move and turn like an arcadey tank." Judging by reactions from actual former New Vegas developers themselves - Axeuora is doing a great job.

In a post directed toward the modder, New Vegas gameplay programmer Jonathan Burke praises the work put in by Axeuroa so far: "As a programmer on New Vegas, can confirm, this is impressive as hell and everyone should applaud you for it." Fans of the game agree just as much, too - countless comments celebrate the mod as "fantastic," and I'm inclined to agree myself as both a Fallout stan and a dedicated equestrian.

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The voice of Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan says he'd "absolutely" like to return to the character in a TV or film adaptation, but that Hollywood's attitude to video game actors might make him think twice.

In a recent Gamology Q&A, Roger Clark was asked if he'd ever like to play his Red Dead Redemption 2 character for television. In response he said that "Four or five years ago, I would have said yes, absolutely. But now, my opinion about it is a little more complicated."

While Clark notes that "we're starting to see more and more video game adaptations be converted to film and TV," and that that's definitely a good thing. "But what I don't think is awesome is how the original cast never even gets acknowledged or looked at, even."

Clark points to The Last of Us' original Joel and Ellie actors, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, as a notable exception to this rule: "We get to see Troy and Ashley in the TV series, I thought that was brilliant - but so often, we're not seeing the original cast being considered, or even getting auditions."

"One of the reasons" for that, according to Clark, is "because of the misconception that it's voice acting. If [movie and TV producers] had a better understanding of how much these videogame actors physically inhabit the roles, I think that may change their attitudes about it."

Even if he thinks that he might be starting to get a little old to play Arthur, Clark does say that he'd still "absolutely" play the character if he was asked. If he didn't get the part, however, he's already picked an unlikely candidate to stand in for him - "Danny DeVito or we riot."

Elsewhere, Clark shared his personal "canon ending" for Red Dead Redemption 2, and reckons half the endings don't make sense for Arthur anyway.