In Red Dead Online Players Are Never Their Own Boss

In Red Dead Online, Players Are Never Their Own Boss

Contents

All the missions in Red Dead Online have players working for someone else, getting paid to get their hands dirty building another person’s empire.

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In Red Dead Online Players Are Never Their Own Boss

Players in Red Dead Online are supposed to be making a name for themselves, but every role involves them working for another character. In many ways, the Red Dead Redemption series is considered the wild west sibling of Grand Theft Auto, but in truth, the two franchises tell almost inverted narratives from one another. The GTA series is all about building, or rebuilding, a criminal empire, whereas the Red Dead Redemption games tell the story of individuals trapped in the criminal life trying to escape. This works impressively well for the single-player narratives, but in Red Dead Online it poses a major issue, as players are supposed to be outlaws developing their own reputation.

Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online are almost diametrically opposed, with RDO players rarely ever being in charge of what they’re doing. This stands as a stark contrast from GTA Online which gives players the ability to operate a vast criminal empire from running nightclubs, to peddling a vast array of illicit goods, to building an all-out underground Doomsday lair to mount their own GTA heists. Aside from the Moonshiner Specialist Role, every other aspect of RDO gives players no real control over their experience, and while in GTA players do have to carry out all the work of their empire, they at least get the joy of working towards something.

The flaw in Red Dead Online’s design is unfortunately the direct carry-over from the story in Red Dead Redemption 2. The entire host of stranger and story missions functions similarly to most of the single-player narrative, where Arthur Morgan or John Marston stumbles upon someone in the frontier who needs help or has a job opportunity. For Arthur’s and John’s story in Red Dead Redemption, this makes sense as a means to an end, and it could even serve as the foundation for players in RDO to build up some money to start their own operation similar to the early days of GTA, before the game’s economy inflated and Rockstar began dishing out free in-game money to players. The concept falters for RDO as it never gets far after the setup phase.

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Red Dead Online’s Roles Don’t Empower Players

In Red Dead Online Players Are Never Their Own Boss

The bulk of this issue can surprisingly be blamed on Red Dead Online’s best addition to date, the various Player Roles. Rockstar’s introduction of Frontier Pursuits breathed new life into RDO’s then-dismal frontier and brought with them some very enjoyable gameplay. Building on the core functions of the game, players can spend their time in any number of ways from chasing down bounty targets to hunting to finding rare collectibles, yet nothing substantial ever comes from that. Most of the rewards in Red Dead Online are outfit-based, but worse than that players spend their entire time working for someone else. Cripps is in charge of the Trader, Madame Nazar basically functions like a pawn shop clerk, and the Bounty Hunter is nothing more than a delivery wagon. Even with the unusual introduction of the Naturalist players are still only working for Harriet.

The one exception to this shortcoming is the Moonshiner, which introduced the Moonshine Shack as the first-ever bit of property in the game, something players have been requesting from the very beginning. The Moonshiner role also brought its own story missions to make it feel like more than just another delivery driver job. The Moonshiner role deserves praise for being one of the best specialist roles in Red Dead Online thus far, but it also deserves its critique as well. With only five short missions, two shack upgrades, and only a few decor options, the Moonshiner ends up being only a teaser of what could be with Rockstar’s grand western frontier. In the span of less than a weekend, players can easily complete every mission and upgrade and are right back to waiting for more to do.

Red Dead Online Needs Properties Like GTA

After the slow drip of new and expanded roles over the course of 2020, the first truly promising news dropped with the announcement of Red Dead Online: Blood Money. The Blood Money update was meant to be Red Dead’s version of GTA’s heists, but the problem was that wasn’t really what players got in the update. Yet again the RDO players are summoned to work for someone else, this time by a true crime lord – mafia underboss Guido Martelli.

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Martelli introduces the new Capitale system which becomes its own mission grind to get access to the three large scale jewel heists. Once all the initial set up full of pomp and circumstance is over, however, the update devolves back into the mission grind that serves no real purpose. The new missions offer some fun, new variety to the game to give players a bit more diversity, but at the end of the day it’s still just monotonous missions for players to make more money in Red Dead Online, even though players have nothing to spend it on.

Red Dead Online’s biggest hurdle in letting players be the boss of their own criminal empire, though, is that it is trapped in the timeline of the larger Red Dead Redemption universe. Ironically enough, however, this is both its main challenge and gives Rockstar a clear framework of how to expand the world. With GTA, players start out with literally nothing other than a cell phone and the gun Lamar gives them. They have to work jobs to save up money to buy houses, motorcycle clubs, nightclubs, and more to gain access to more jobs and heists. Obviously RDO can’t add submarines and state-of-the-art doomsday bunkers, but that doesn’t mean it can’t give players the opportunity to build something.

RDO would have to add purchaseable homes and properties that fit into the narrative that Rockstar has already established. Fortunately, Rockstar has previously established how the world evolves given that RDR2 serves as a prequel. The original Red Dead Redemption shows what towns like Blackwater and Armadillo grow to become, while towns like Saint Denis and Annesburg could be anything Rockstar wishes. Rockstar could give players the ability to establish themselves both as one of the premier frontier criminals and also a cornerstone of the world’s development.

There are plenty of people not named in either Red Dead Redemption or RDR2, plenty of buildings and businesses whose owners remain a mystery, and there are the regions of Lemoyne, New Hanover, and Ambarino which are almost entirely open-ended. Red Dead Online is constructed in the vein of Red Dead Redemption 2 and has shackled itself to that same narrative, but that does not have to be the case forever. There is ample potential for Rockstar to explore, if it only will.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/red-dead-online-rdo-specialist-roles-gta-better/

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