Rockstar Games heads west again: 'Red Dead Redemption 2' announced for 2017

By Gabe Gurwin October 18, 2016

gta red dead redemption reddeadmarston — Image used with permission by copyright holder

No longer will fans have to speculate, plead, or pray to a picture of the Houser brothers: Red Dead Redemption 2 is indeed real, and it’s arriving next year.

Developer Rockstar Games made the announcement official on its website this morning, dating the game for a fall 2017 release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

“Developed by the creators of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America’s unforgiving heartland. The game’s vast and atmospheric world will also provide the foundation for a brand new online multiplayer experience,” reads the official announcement.

A third image, following the two we’ve seen in the last two days, was also released alongside the news, showing seven outlaws, each holding weapons that appear to line up with the equipment we’ve seen in previous games — this won’t be a “modern” Western like Call of Juarez: The Cartel attempted in 2011.

Just a few hours before the announcement, fans became aware that Rockstar parent company Take-Two had registered “RedDeadOnline.com,” which is likely what the “brand new online multiplayer experience” mentioned in the announcement is referring to.

This branding would also line up nicely with the company’s other major property, Grand Theft Auto, which bundled the multiplayer components of Grand Theft Auto V into Grand Theft Auto Online shortly after the game released in 2013.

The multiplayer component of the original Red Dead Redemption — itself a successor to the earlier Red Dead Revolver — was praised in its own right, with Vice’s Jake Tucker calling it “the best part of the game” and “the best emergent mode that Rockstar has ever realized.”

As the announcement does not make mention of a PC version of the game, it’s unclear if Red Dead Redemption will be coming to the platform at all. The game’s first trailer will release on Thursday, October 20, at 11 a.m. ET.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Gaming

How to get fuses in Dead Island 2

A group of survivors looking stressed and annoyed.

eThere are going to be tons of things blocking your progress when trying to escape LA in Dead Island 2. Aside from the, you know, hordes of zombies, you will find plenty of gates and doors that need power to open. Most can be worked around by installing a battery or circuit breaker, but some require something else. Fuses aren't required at any point in the main story, but instead are limited keys that hide away some of the game's best loot. If you've been spotting all these gates and garage doors taunting you to open them, but lack the fuses to do so, we'll tell you how you can get your hands on some in Dead Island 2.
Where to get fuses in Dead Island 2

Unlike batteries or circuit breakers, fuses won't be found anywhere on the map while exploring. Instead, the only way to get these electrical devices is to purchase them. Obviously, your local hardware store isn't open for business anymore, so your options are limited to the vendors you come across such as Carlos in Emma's house or Ezekiel on The Pier. No matter who you get them from, you're going to be paying a premium. Each fuse costs $1,500, and the sellers usually only hold a few at a time. Even if they had the stock and you had the cash, your character can only hold three fuses at a time before needing to spend them to get more.

Gaming

Dead Island 2 takes aim at Los Angeles culture, the rich, and influencers

A zombie crawls toward a player on a boardwalk in Dead Island 2.

Getting stuck in development hell often doesn't bode well for games. For every Final Fantasy VII Remake or The Last Guardian, there's an Aliens: Colonial Marines or Duke Nukem Forever. Often, the final releases lack a compelling design identity, chasing trends that popped up over the years and feeling like a mishmash of multiple developers' ideas of what the game should be. My biggest fear going into my hands-on demo with a near-final build of the oft-delayed Dead Island 2 was that it'd feel devoid of much creativity or lack a clear vision; thankfully, I was dead wrong.

Dead Island 2 - Extended Gameplay Reveal [4K Official]

Gaming

Dead Island 2’s Amazon Alexa voice commands are novel, but limited

Dani lights a cigarette as zombies attack her from behind in Dead Island 2 key art.

I’ve always found myself interested in new technologies that could possibly enhance how we play or experience games. Whether it’s a computing innovation like cloud gaming or new controller features like the DualSense’s Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers, I love testing those things out. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to try Alexa Game Control during my recent hands-on preview experience with Dead Island 2.
When Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver’s Dead Island 2 finally launches on April 21, it will be the first game to support Alexa Game Control. By connecting one’s Amazon account to the game, players can use the voice-recognition capabilities of Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa to perform in-game actions like taunting zombies or equipping their best weapons. I was curious to see just how deep this went, but after some hands-on time, this first implementation of it proved to be little more than a novelty.

Hey, Alexa
Dead Island 2 players can toggle Alexa Game Control on when they first show up in Bel-Air after the game’s opening. It has a dedicated tab in the Options Menu where players can choose to enable or disable it, choose whether they want it to work automatically or with push to talk, set the voice capture threshold, and decide which microphone they wish to use.
After enabling Alexa Game Control, I immediately noticed a ring at the bottom-left corner of the screen. When I spoke, this lit up with blue and teal colors, like the top ring on an Alexa device, and text confirming whether it could do the action or not would appear. Not having to say “Hey, Alexa” also means it implemented itself into the game smoothly. At first, I tried to see if voice commands would work for basic things like walking, jumping, and dodging, to no avail. After this, I hopped to a save I had placed later in the game and opened its tutorial menu to see what Alexa Game Control could really do.
Reading its tutorials and lists of commands, the limits of Alexa Game Control became clear. It mainly provides quick shortcuts to save you a button press or two in the middle of playing. In Dead Island 2, Alexa Game Control has four main uses: setting waypoints, taunting enemies, triggering emotes, and switching weapons. The tutorial menus give a complete list of commands that work, although each wildly varies in its usefulness.
Oi, zombie!
The funniest use of this voice technology in Dead Island 2 is taunting zombies. Shouting something like “Hey, dude” or “Oi, zombie” to get the attention of enemies that hadn’t detected me always made me chuckle. It’s also occasionally useful; at one point, I got a bunch of zombies to walk into a large pool of acid and die after taunting them. While it takes the same amount of time as walking up to the zombie to get their attention, I see the potential in voice technology that lets you interact with the world like this.