Rockstar recently announced what the future of both GTA Online and Red Dead Online would look like. While its golden child will be healthy for years to come, the diagnosis for the rootin' and tootin' Red Dead Online looks a lot more terminal. No more "major themed content updates" as development resources are shifted to GTA 6. Fans on the game's subreddit have shared their thoughts on the matter.
The prevailing attitude is well summarised by this post. "Pahahahaha 'New telegram missions!' Fuck off R*" One player responded, "This eulogy sucks, someone please make a better one please." Someone suggested a more honest company statement would have been, "we're done updating rdo, thanks for the cash."
One frustrated player wrote, "Fuck the funeral, vote with your time and wallet. Don't even log on and give them the activity and advertisement." They're referring to a planned funeral for the game that players organised to lament the last year with no proper updates.
The mood is pretty dire, with one player writing, "And when GTA 6 releases, all hands on deck will be working on GTA Online 2 or whatever version they name it. RDO will just die off like Arthur Morgan with TB."
Some people have decided to cope with the sad news with humour, like the person who posted this meme of Dennis Reyolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia smothering a woman with a pillow.
Another person shared some altered artwork for the game, with the new title, Officially Dead Online. Not as good as our photo and news editor, James Troughton, who called it "Red Dead Offline."
It's a shame that the campaign to #SaveRedDeadOnline didn't work. We sort of knew it hadn't when Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed he had heard the pleas of fans but that any future announcements would be made by Rockstar. Well, the announcement has been made, and it ain't good.