Summary
Though it’s been over five years sinceRed Dead Redemption 2’s epic Western journey came to a close, fans have not stopped combing through its massively detailed world as well as hoping for more content to come. In 2019, Rockstar Games’Red Dead Redemption 2raised the bar for storytelling and world design in games, and has left its mark on the industry, with it still being hailed as an achievement that has yet to be matched in many ways to the present day.
Despite its enduring esteem and player demand, though, the studio has not since relayed what, if anything, it might be planning next for the franchise. With the upcoming entry in its other massively popular series,Grand Theft Auto 6, set to arrive this year, it’s quite likely that if Rockstar is planning anotherRDRentry, it won’t be arriving any time soon. But there’s an untapped well inRed Dead Redemption 2that leaves plenty of room for the developer to create a splinter series that features some of the most interesting side characters introduced in the base game. While theVan der Linde gang’s storymight be complete, there is another posse of sorts fromRDR2whose members would translate well into being the stars of their own titles: the collection of famous gunslingers.
A short-lived and oft-forgotten game titledRed Dead Redemption: Gunslingerswas released as a promotionon Facebook ahead of the 2010 entry.
During the course of his adventure, Arthur Morgan meets a heavily inebriated Jim “Boy” Calloway and his bedraggled biographer, Theodore Levin. The latter is penning the true tale of the famous gunslinger, but wishes to gather the full story from the other sources that Calloway crossed paths with. Arthur can agree to help and track downRed Dead Redemption 2’s famous gunslingers:
There are also a couple of figures not directly encountered but who are depicted in one ofRDR2’s cigarette card collectionsas being part of the same circle:
All of these would be a great springboard for Rockstar to let players delve more into their histories and experience the world from their perspectives.
Whether there will even be a fullRed Dead Redemption 3is the source of much speculation and fan theorizing. But with more content ever in demand, perhaps a series of smaller standalone games, each featuring a handful of the legendary gunslingers that round out their lives, would work well to bridge the gap.
Taking this direction, Rockstar could let gamers play through significant slices of each of the gungslinger’s adventures at their height, possibly switching perspectives between them in something like an anthology. Players could follow their exploits across the frontier either before they met their fates or ended up in the positions that Arthur finds them in during the events ofRDR2. Fan-favoriteLandon Ricketts,who players did meet in the firstRDR,could likely carry an entire game himself, or at least be featured heavily in one that takes an ensemble cast approach.
Spending more time with any of these characters in their heyday as they built their reputation for being the fastest and most deadly guns in the West would be a great way to let players dive back into the setting while expanding on its already substantial lore through the eyes of a few of its most intriguing figures, and potentially provide a perfect appetizer for if, and when, aRed Dead Redemption 3arrives.
