Red Dead Redemption 2 Online's New Update Is Causing An Uproar
A major patch, scheduled for Dec. 1st, is set to significantly overhaul some key features in Red Dead Online, the multiplayer Red Dead game that comes bundled with the innovative Red Dead Redemption 2. The update is subtitled "Bounty Hunters," due to a focus on adding new bounties for players to track down, overall creating more to do in the Bounty Hunter role. While some of the patch's additions are intended to bring new players to its community, one new feature in particular has made some of the game's devoted fans upset.
Prior to the imminent update, completing one "daily challenge" quest a day would count toward a streak. The higher the streak, the more gold bars would be awarded upon the completion of a given day's challenge. While the highest effective number a streak could reach was 28, the game nevertheless tracked consecutive completion days beyond that. One Reddit user, claiming "the longest streak that ever was or ever will be," shared an unbroken streak of 570. By maintaining numbers like these, players were rewarded the highest possible amount of gold each day.
Now Rockstar is revamping its streak system, starting with an across-the-board wipe of all player streaks, which will continue to occur at the beginning of every month moving forward. Furthermore, gold rewarded per day has been halved, meaning that a minimum 15 day streak is now required to gain the amount of gold previously rewarded to accounts with no streak whatsoever.
Gold bars can be purchased through microtransactions, so some players are theorizing that developer Rockstar is ultimately trying to make more money, due to players now having a harder time obtaining gold at no real-world cost. For what its worth, at least one Reddit post, albeit without quite the volume of upvotes as similar posts complaining about the update, posits that the change could be simply to even out the differential in gold owned between newer and older players.
Other components of the patch are drawing a backlash too. Items awarded from a new battle pass, for example, are being largely described as underwhelming or even ugly. Meanwhile, an added gold cost needed to progress in the Bounty Hunter role central to the update is similarly controversial. This isn't even the first time a Red Dead Online update has drawn player ire, though this particular patch has yet to inspire in-game protests.
Perhaps the most significant change to Red Dead Online is that it no longer requires a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 to play, giving fans of similar games an easier opportunity to try it out. Until Feb. 21 of next year, a stand-alone copy of Red Dead Online will cost 4.99 before being raised to a non-sale price of 19.99. Inevitably, this increase in ease of access will bring an influx of new players to the game — the cost, however, may be a good chunk of its existing player base.