Shigeru Miyamoto famously said, “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.” There are examples both for and against this in the games industry, but with the recent delay of Red Dead Redemption 2, many have wondered what this might mean for the title. While most turn to this quote and hope for the best, there is still a chance that things aren’t as good as they seem over at Rockstar. The company is famously tight-lipped. Even if there was trouble, we would never hear about it. With so many secrets still up in the air, we set about taking a different angle on the game’s delay.

While this could turn out to be a good thing, it could also be a sign of bad things brewing in the background. Rockstar is spinning a lot of different plates, but Grand Theft Auto V released in 2013, and the company needs to get a game out the door to stay relevant. Hopefully, Red Dead Redemption 2 turns out well in the end. That being said, wishing for a game's success has never done anyone any good. So we're going to take a glass half empty approach and look at just how Red Dead Redemption 2's Delay could doom Rockstar as a company.

15 Where Are The Gameplay Videos?

The delay of Red Dead Redemption did not come with new details on the game. Several new screenshots accompanied the news, but these do not make us less worried. All screenshots do is prove that the game still looks great. We don’t know how the game looks in action, though, which can be a worry. The delay may only be a few months, but news of a delay is rarely good news, as it means that the game in question is in a rough state. Showing cold, hard gameplay would appease the public’s fears of quality and get fans even more excited for the game when it finally released in 2018. Until then, all we can do is speculate about how Rockstar may have evolved the series.

14 This Is Rockstar’s First Truly Next Gen

While the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions of GTA V prepped Rockstar for working on new hardware, they still weren’t creating an entirely new game. Even the first-person mode was just a new perspective. The game itself didn’t change drastically when it jumped consoles. With Red Dead 2, the development team over at Rockstar is making their very first next generation game from the ground up. While the new hardware has been praised by developers, Rockstar is known for pushing hardware to its limits, and creating graphically stunning games, this new challenge could be proving more difficult than they anticipated, drastically hampering the game’s development.

13 GTA V Never Received Story DLC — Will RDR2?

GTA IV had a great multiplayer mode, but the greatest thing Rockstar did was release two single player expansions for the game. Red Dead Redemption received a fantastic standalone adventure in Undead Nightmare, and GTA V got nothing. Instead, Rockstar focused on improving the game’s online after launch, going so far as to launch it as its own separate product. Rockstar has been putting more and more focus on multiplayer modes, which is a shame because their stories are some of the best in the industry. The move away from single player content could completely change what Rockstar is about, we want them to continue making the games they are great at making while innovating as they have been for years.

12 Others Could Out 'Red Dead' Rockstar

2017 is shaping up to be a landmark year for video games. Not only do we have the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Persona 5 already released, but Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, Crackdown 3, Far Cry 5, and God of War are all set to release before spring 2018. Red Dead may be a beloved game, but it doesn’t have the name recognition of Rockstar’s other big open-world crime game, or the popularity of some of the other games coming out. Even with this delay moving it away from the likes of Call of Duty WW2 and Battlefront 2, the game still has to go up against some of the most highly anticipated titles of the past couple of years.

11 It Will Have Been Five Years Since GTA V

GTA V in its original state hit shelves in September of 2013. The next generation version came roughly a year later, with the PC version hitting in early 2015. Rockstar has been gradually updating GTA V online since then and working on Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar is known for taking a long to release games, but five years between projects is long, even for them. When GTA IV released in 2008, Red Dead hit only 2 years later in 2010, which was followed by GTA V three years after that. The company must have known what their next game would be for some time. Maybe this prolonged development cycle is another sign that the game is in a very rough state and the delay is for more than just polish.

10 Delays Mean Trouble

Games are never delayed because the game is in a particularly good place. They are often the result of the product not meeting expectation,s so extra time is taken to smooth out the wrinkles. Hopefully, the delay is simply the perfectionists over at Rockstar trying to make the best game they possibly can, but there is a chance that the game simply isn’t coming together like they hoped it would. It’s been seven years since the original came out, which had many questioning whether or not a follow-up would ever come. As the company’s first next-gen game, there is a lot of pressure for the game to be groundbreaking, but the delay could hint at some trouble brewing.

9 Drawn Out Marketing Decreases Hype

The marketing for a game starts the second it is announced. The job of marketing is to not only increase awareness of a title, but maintain hype through the game’s release. Shorter marketing cycles are typically more effective because they have a tighter focus. Red Dead Redemption 2’s marketing started in late 2016. While it is intermittent, this incredibly long cycle will likely see the game fall off some people’s radar for months before they suddenly remember that it exists. Rockstar is no stranger to long marketing cycles, but that doesn’t change the fact that it could still negatively impact the game’s sales. Red Dead simply isn’t as well known as GTA, so it needs every push it can get to take the gaming world by storm once again.

8 GTA V Players Are Fed Up

Grand Theft Auto V Online has been a constant source of income for Rockstar since its release, with people even joining the chaos on multiple consoles. The anticipation of Red Dead Redemption may cause many to lose interest in GTA V Online, opting instead to wait for something that will likely be bigger and better. While Rockstar presumably has a nearly inexhaustible amount of funds, they still need to keep their community interested in what they are still producing. Sadly, that seems to be mostly GTA V Online content. Hopefully, fans of GTA continue to support Rockstar and let them know what does and doesn’t work as the release date for Red Dead 2 creeps nearer.

7 GameStop Says Delay Won’t Affect Fall Sales, And?

GameStop stated that the game’s delay would not affect the overall sale of video games in the fall. This could be because the impact of the game has already lessened, meaning that it wouldn’t have been the end-all game many are hyping it up to be. Instead, moving it to the beginning of the year simply moves it out of the way of potentially bigger titles that could steal its sales. The holiday season is incredibly important in the games industry because everyone wants the best new game as a gift. Rockstar could have realized that even that time of year wouldn’t have helped Red Dead in any real way, so moving the game’s release date at least moved it out of the way of other big players.

6 A Crazy Long Time Since The Announcement

In fall of 2016, Rockstar teased us with several images that hinted towards the existence of Red Dead Redemption 2 before finally dropping its first trailer. It’s now been almost a full year since that trailer released. The game was originally slated to hit shelves in the fall of 2017, but the recent delay means that the total time between announcement and release will have been roughly a year and a half. While many are still incredibly excited about the game, these long, drawn out pre-release cycles tend to detract from a game’s impact upon release. Rockstar would have been better off announcing the game in one fell swoop six months before release and then going quiet until launch.

5 Can Red Dead Fill GTA V's Shoes?

When Grand Theft Auto V hit store shelves, Rockstar revolutionized the open-world genre. Being able to switch between three unique characters, each with their own stats and abilities greatly diversified the experience. The thoughtful way that this mechanic played into the story set the game apart from its competitors even further. The online component was also revolutionary, letting players wreak havoc in a vast open-world. As Rockstar’s latest completed project, the comparisons between GTA V and Read Dead 2 will be inevitable. It will need to match the game’s single-player and multiplayer options, moving Rockstar’s signature style forward even further. GTA V is a hard act to follow and could be hating Read Dead 2’s development as they think about how to meet expectations.

4 The Original Red Dead Is A Classic

Read Dead Redemption released in 2010 and quickly established its place as a classic. Taking the GTA formula players were familiar with and transported them to the wild west was a welcome change of place. It also made acting like a murderous maniac more fun as you could assume the role of a bandito and stick up banks, tie people to train tracks, and drag them behind your horse. It also had an incredible story, following John Marston as he tracked down one of his old outlaw buddies. Read Dead Redemption 2 has a lot to live up to. It’s expected to not only match the quality of the original but surpass it. The delay could signal trouble, which means that goal could be out of reach.

3 We've Seen NOTHING

The game was originally revealed late last year, but it’s not set to release for another seven months or so. All we’ve seen of the game so far is an incredibly brief gameplay trailer and several new screenshots. The trailer was largely used to set up the world. While it was all shot in-game, we still haven’t actually seen what the game will look like in action. The screenshots do the same thing, highlighting the impressive visuals and well-realized setting. Rockstar likes to play things close to the vest, but if the game is still so far out, it would help fans stay excited by showing them what they can look forward to, instead of constantly teasing them with incremental drops.

2 More Time, More Scrutiny 

Rockstar has a nearly flawless track record. Delays aren’t uncommon for their titles, but if Red Dead 2 isn’t up to the company’s standards, critics and fans alike will tear it apart. The development team has now taken extra time to ensure that the game lives up to expectations. The original Red Dead Redemption and GTA V remain two of Rockstar’s very best releases, so Red Dead 2 has lofty expectations to live up to. The game will likely continue the company’s track record of releasing a stellar single-player game with a separate multiplayer suite that not only stands on its own, but ties into the main game as well. If Red Dead 2 ends up being anything less than what fans and critics expect out of the highly anticipated release, the company will be in hot water.

1 Rockstar Ain't The Only Game In Town

It seems like these days most games take the open-world approach. Rockstar is known for creating, living, breathing worlds for players to inhabit, but the longer it waits to release, the more open-world games have the chance to release and challenge Red Dead’s claim to the open world throne. Far Cry 5 is set in the American Midwest in the modern day, and will release in the same quarter as Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead will remain one of the most anticipated games of early 2018, but it may not fare as well as anticipated if the competition decides to steal some of its thunder. With the like of Far Cry, God of War, and other big titles slated for the first several months of 2018, there’s still a chance that Read Dead won’t be the biggest fish in the sea.