Red Dead Online Preview - The Ride of Unprecedented Greed (Topic)

Arthur Morgan's story in Red Dead Redemption 2 is certainly good and can easily take 100 hours of real time. But when the world of the game has been explored far and wide, and in the list of tasks there are only such "intriguing" quests as "collect the feathers of a rare bird" and find "10 rock paintings", it's time to move to the multiplayer mode - Red Dead Online. We just warn you right away - don't expect too much, it's not for nothing that the word "BETA" flaunts next to the name of the multiplayer and periodic crashes to the desktop are far from the main problem of the game. Learn more in the Red Dead Online preview.

Another story in the Wild West

First of all, Red Dead Online pleasantly surprises with the presence of a plot component. She's not enough stars from the sky, but it's nice to see how Rockstar got confused and tried to give the multiplayer orgy at least some sense and polish to the single mode, where even the smallest tasks were accompanied by unique cutscenes. Another point is the widespread attention to detail, for example, depending on the gender of the player, NPCs may have different lines. Thanks at least for not pressing on a sore spot and not making fun of the appearance of the protagonist. But there is a reason.

The system for generating characters' faces is a real freak show, in which people with an appearance, shall we say, fall for an amateur. Rockstar provided a minimum of possibilities for customizing the appearance in Red Dead Online, and the basic faces do not cause anything but fits of laughter and regret that these characters will have to be played. No, in fact, everything is not so bad and I have often met pretty characters in the vastness of online, but my protagonist clearly will not get into the qualifying round of the Miss Wild West show. There are also advantages of customization, for example, there is a wide range of whistle settings and the ability to choose teeth for the main character.

But these are small details, the story missions of Red Dead Online are much more interesting and here the developers came up with a fair amount of creativity. In essence, they represent the development of ideas from heists in GTA Online, where each of the players is often assigned a separate role. There is also a nonlinearity standard for the story mode, when some tasks are allowed to be performed secretly or under deafening explosions of dynamite and shotgun volleys.

Not without moral choices. At other times, quest members are asked to vote to spare or kill a story character, which adds extra replayability to Red Dead Online. The only problem is that the "expensive and rich" missions in the multiplayer once or twice and missed. What can I say, if the full story passage of Red Dead Online takes no more than 5 hours.

One against all and all against one

The plot is not the only way to keep yourself busy in the game. By and large, multiplayer is the same single player mode, so activities such as fishing or hunting are available at any time. Unless a bullet in the forehead can interrupt your unity with nature at any moment. In Red Dead Online, in addition to an endless number of faceless extras, there are also real players. In total - 32 people on the server and since the PVP mode cannot be turned off, the game repeats a story similar to Fallout 76. As in the radioactive wasteland, the inhabitants of the Wild West would rather throw dynamite in your direction than wave their hands in a friendly way.

When exploring the world, hostile players rarely cause tangible inconveniences; missions from strangers are a completely different matter. They are a primitive version of story missions, except that they delight in the presence of familiar characters from the story mode, including even those who appeared only in the original Red Dead Redemption. Assignments from strangers are always simple and most often boil down to delivering mail or stealing stagecoaches. Nothing unusual, only such quests can be difficult to complete due to the fact that you can become a victim of other players at any time.

There is nothing more offensive than spending 15 minutes on the delivery of a valuable cargo and becoming a victim of another player near the quest marker. Does PVP add extra adrenaline to quests? Of course! That's just the number of critical failures can discourage all the desire to continue playing Red Dead Online. Perhaps, the game would not be disturbed by the passive mode, when it is possible to disable PVP. But do not worry, there is a panacea for hostile players - to put together your own gang and complete missions in co-op. But proud loners only have to rely on fate and look with suspicion at the minimap in search of the nearest adversaries.

Another form of entertainment in the open world of Red Dead Online is random events that the game notifies about in the igloo of the screen. They take place according to the following scenario - a group of players is teleported to the nearest location and given a simple task, for example, to steal a horse.

If you are looking for adventure on your ass there is no desire. Then competitive modes are always available: horse racing, several variations of deathmatch and capture of control points. The main problem is that there is no way to choose the game mode yourself, Rockstar was allowed only to participate in a series of single combats for 16 or 32 players.

Another drawback is the small number of maps (2-3 for each mode) and the inability to set up the competition, which is why they almost always follow the same scenario. For example, the "Weapon of Victory" mode, where the amount of experience per kill depends on the weapon used. The arsenal for all skirmishes is always the same: carbine, revolver, tomahawk and double-barreled shotgun. Rare weapons hidden in the location clearly do not add variety. The best option is to let the player choose not only the desired mode or map, but also customize it for himself.

Even so, there is a chance that competitive modes will not be to everyone's liking. The problem lies in the combat system of Red Dead Online, which is exactly the same as the leisurely and inert combat from the story mode. In addition, the ubiquitous auto-guidance can put a spoke in the wheels. A common situation is when, when aiming at the desired enemy, the scope leads to a completely different direction and now you lose a precious second of time, and your carcass flies away in a prolonged flight with a gunshot wound flaunting in the middle of the forehead.

More gold needed

GTA Online has been widely criticized for sky-high prices for in-game items in the past few years. To, say, buy a cozy townhouse, you had to participate in competitive modes for a dozen hours or, alternatively, buy in-game currency for real money. As we can see, the system has fully met the financial expectations of Take-Two and in Red Dead Online the need to engage in grinding exceeds every conceivable limit.

For example, a standard carbine starts at hundreds of dollars. You can either collect cents from defeated game characters, find rare items and sell them for pennies, or participate in missions (they take at least 20 minutes of time), for completing which you get, at best, about ten dollars. At the same time, there are examples of equipment or weapons with a price tag of about $ 900, which will require you to literally live in front of the monitor in an attempt to buy the item you like. However, there are non-obvious secrets of how to quickly earn dollars in Red Dead Online, but in any case, you will not be able to get hold of another currency - gold bars anyway.

For completing the storyline campaign, you will receive at least one ingot, while others will have to earn with painstaking work, or more precisely, collect gold ingots from nuggets. 100 gold nuggets equals one ingot. How do I earn Gold Bars in Red Dead Online? The most obvious way is to participate in competitive modes and get two gold nuggets in a 7-minute round. If you remember the math lessons for the second grade and add extra time before the start and in the final of the match, then one bar can be earned in 7 hours of intense play.

This is a real mockery, considering that many items can only be purchased with gold bars. Even a barber's hair color change costs one gold bar, which generally takes a tremendous amount of time for the player if he simply wants to slightly diversify the appearance of his character. And as the icing on the cake, there is a level limit for the purchase of some items, and almost all of them are purely cosmetic and do not affect the balance. No, I certainly understand that the developers are trying to make money on microtransactions and delay the player in Red Dead Online longer, but you also need to know the measure.

If the list of shortcomings has gone so zealously, then do not forget about the extremely unstable network code of the game. The servers creak pitifully under the onslaught of millions of players, which translates into crashes on the desktop, disconnections from servers and various bugs. The game met me with a character falling through the textures, and before I started writing a review of Red Dead Online, a shotgun bought with honestly earned money disappeared from the character's inventory.

Summary

At the moment, Red Dead Online is a raw and largely experimental project that is sorely lacking in content, balance of the economic system, and polishing of absolutely every aspect of the game. But that doesn't mean that Red Dead Redemption 2's multiplayer mode is a deafening failure. In no case, you can get a huge boost of pleasure from the game, and the subtitle "BETA" inspires optimism and allows us to hope that the developers will bring the multiplayer to mind for a full release.

But last but not least, we recommend buying Red Dead Redemption 2 for the sake of multiplayer, nevertheless, the main advantage of the game is a single-player company. The singleplayer for over 100 hours surprises with the scale and high quality of elaboration of even the smallest details, which we wrote about in detail in the Red Dead Redemption 2 review.

The Topic of Article: Red Dead Online Preview - The Ride of Unprecedented Greed.
Author: Jake Pinkman