Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

GTA+ feels like last nail in the coffin for Red Dead Online

Otto Kratky
By

It feels like every single headline I’ve seen recently in a story about Rockstar has included Grand Theft Auto Online somehow. With the massively popular multiplayer component of Grand Theft Auto V releasing as a stand-alone game recently, it’s no surprise that Rockstar is going all-in on it. GTA Online has been around since 2013, when GTA V launched. And it didn’t just retain a player base, but grew it larger and larger.

GTA+ is the be-all and end-all of that, the four-carat diamond ring planted on the online game’s finger that says “you’re my forever.” It offers players (specifically those on Xbox Series X/S or PS5) a ton of free rewards, from $500,000 in GTA bucks in their in-game bank accounts to entire properties needed to take part in certain pieces of content.

Recommended Videos

But what GTA+ tells me about Rockstar’s future commitments isn’t that it’s all about GTA Online; it’s that Red Dead Online is dead in the dust.

Related

Into the yonder

Red Dead Online‘s decline has been a slow and painful one, like a ship sinking in slow motion. I’ve always been a big fan of the game, mostly thanks to its atmosphere. Whereas GTA V and GTA Online capture Rockstar’s take on the fake people of Los Angeles with plastic visuals, Red Dead Online bleeds realism. From the grizzled faces of the outlaws I gunned down to the gorgeous sunsets I saw, Red Dead Online always had an iron grip on me.

The game’s content, on the other hand, was paper-thin. Sure, you can sign up for different professions (all of which had to be bought with the game’s premium currency, gold bars), but those quickly got repetitive. You can only slowly drive a carriage packed with pelts so many times before it becomes tiring. Even the game’s latest burst of content, which actually rewarded players for being criminals, was a disappointment.

A CEO sits surrounded by piles of cash in GTA Online.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Red Dead Online didn’t let you take part in any bank robberies, it didn’t have unique multiplayer games, and it didn’t have purchasable properties. All of that was saved for GTA Online. RDO simply got the scraps.

The truth of the matter is that RDO‘s decline was a self-perpetuating cycle. As GTA Online grew more popular, Rockstar had more of a reason to invest in it rather than its cowboy counterpart. RDO then had less and less content, driving more players away while GTA Online‘s base continued to grow. See where this is going? In a way, RDO was doomed from the start.

All-in

While GTA+ is a huge investment in the future of GTA Online, it’s also the final nail in RDO‘s coffin. The subscription service is the next natural step for GTA Online, one that’s leaps and bounds past where RDO has been for years. While GTA Online was getting new heists, RDO was getting the same job-based bonuses it’s getting to this day. Well, not exactly. Those used to come weekly for RDO. Now they come monthly.

Truth be told, none of this would be as bad if GTA Online were actually radically different from RDO, but they’re largely the same experience. They both have missions (GTA Online has a great many more), they both ask players to transport goods over long distances, they both require a disgusting amount of grinding to reach worthwhile content.

But now, by paying $6 a month, you can slowly get access to GTA Online‘s good content. With just $6, you can get a free car, free clothes, free paint jobs, free buildings — all these free, fun things that RDO could never offer you because Rockstar never really invested in it. Since 2013, Rockstar has known that GTA Online was a winner, and RDO was an experiment to see if lightning could strike twice. It didn’t, and now there’s hardly a reason to play cowboys with your friends in RDO‘s Old West at all.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Otto Kratky
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
Grand Theft Auto 6’s reveal is comically anticlimactic
Trevor, Michael, and Franklin are all holding guns in GTA 5 promotional art.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is one of the most heavily rumored games ever, and before February 4, 2022, it was never officially acknowledged by Rockstar Games. Our only indication of its existence was through an April 2020 Kotaku article and a series of rumors dating back several years.
That's why it's so comical that its announcement came in the way of a footnote in a Rockstar Newswire post about the GTA series. 
After years of expecting some sort of elaborate alternate reality game or event to reveal GTA 6, it was an extremely anticlimatic moment. While fans seemed to expect more from Rockstar's reveal of the next Grand Theft Auto, the actual confirmation demonstrates how Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, was always more concerned with the financial implications of its announcement, rather than the fan reception. 
Can I see it? No!
Grand Theft Auto fans have convinced themselves that a new entry in the series has been on the way for some time. As far back as February 2015, less than a year-and-a-half after GTA V's launch, speculation about a new entry in the series has existed online. From theory posts to bad 4Chan leaks trying to pass as real, we've seen plenty of speculation about GTA 6 and how Rockstar would go about revealing it.
Grand Theft Auto V was originally released for PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, and is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X this year. Rockstar Games
The rumor to gain the most traction was "Project Americas." This leak claimed that GTA 6 is set in both Vice City and a Rio de Janeiro-inspired location in the 1970s or 1980s. Lots of other potential leaks continued to build on top of what this rumor established, so Project Americas has been the lifeblood of the hype cycle behind GTA 6.
We still technically don't know whether or not this leak is true, but there's no doubt that it added a substantial amount of fuel to the GTA 6 anticipation fire. But in reality, the ongoing success of GTA Online and the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 meant that GTA 6 was years away from coming to fruition. Following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA 6 once again started to feel like an inevitably. This all came to a head in an April 2020 Kotaku report that mentioned the game's existence.
While the focus of the article was on Rockstar's improved workplace culture, the thing most people took from it was the following line: "One plan that management has laid out for the next game, a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, is to start out with a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar’s standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch."
Prior to February 2022, this was the closest thing to official confirmation we had for GTA 6. It then gave momentum to a bevy of new rumors, many of which were now centered around a potential reveal. Fans thought everything from the art for a new car in GTA Online to a new image on Rockstar's website was part of a massive teaser conspiracy ahead of GTA 6's reveal.
In the end, none of that came to be. Rockstar confirmed the new Grand Theft Auto in a tweet and a post about the series at large in a way that makes fan expectations seem laughable. But why did it end up this way? 
Why Rockstar finally revealed GTA 6
The timing of this confirmation is key to why Rockstar shared this news. Shortly after Rockstar Games' posts revealing GTA 6 went live, Take-Two confirmed that its next earnings calling would be on Monday, February 7. Now, in the middle of a merger and acquisition rush in the video game industry, Take-Two can go to its investors and highlight that a new Grand Theft Auto game is on the horizon. Its confirmation makes the future outlook for Take-Two appear brighter, even if the reveal wasn't very elaborate or spectacular. As Take-Two and Rockstar's biggest franchise, any new information on GTA is good news for current and potential Take-Two Interactive investors. 

This isn't even the first time Rockstar and Take-Two did this with the GTA series. The next-gen versions of GTA V got a November 11, 2021 release date prior to an earnings call. While it eventually got delayed, it certainly looked good for Take-Two to have a targeted release date to show investors. While GTA 6 might not launch for several years, confirming its existence is certainly appealing to investors who want a piece of the inevitable success the next Grand Theft Auto game will have.
It also helps from a hiring perspective. While the post doesn't directly specify that Rockstar is hiring, the knowledge that it is indeed working on GTA 6 will drive new people to apply. As Venture Beat points out, we've seen Respawn Entertainment, Blizzard, and Crytek also pull the same move this year alone, driving hiring with news of new games. Rockstar probably wants the best and brightest of the game's industry working on its games, and GTA 6 is certainly a game some developers might be willing to leave their current employer to work on. 
In the end, GTA 6's announcement was more about enticing potential hires and investors, rather than hyping fans up with an awesome trailer or some complicated ARG that reveals Rockstar teased it for years. Is it awesome that the game is finally confirmed? Of course! Its reveal is just comically underwhelming after almost a decade of fans eagerly awaiting it. Hopefully, GTA 6's first trailer can make up for some of the lost hype around this reveal.
Grand Theft Auto 6 does not currently have a release date.

Read more
Wherever Grand Theft Auto 6 goes, GTA Online has to follow
Lester speaking to a player in GTA Online.

Rockstar finally announced that it has a sequel for Grand Theft Auto V cooking, and that's a good reason to celebrate. GTA V is commonly seen as one of the best games ever made. It's the crown jewel for Rockstar, and a sequel for the game, which was released in 2013, is something fans have looked forward to for more than five years.

https://twitter.com/RockstarGames/status/1489617718009606150

Read more
Grand Theft Auto V gets current-gen console boost in March
Trevor, Franklin, and Michael prepare to hunt someone in the forests outside of Los Santos.

Rockstar Games has confirmed that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions of Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online will launch on March 15.
While the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of GTA V don't seem to add anything in the way of new story content, the blog post revealing the new date explains how they will utilize the power of the new systems. Rockstar Games promises 4K resolution and 60 frames-per-second (fps) support, better draw distance, more detailed textures, HDR, ray tracing, better loading times, haptic feedback, and 3D audio.
GTA Online will see the same improvements, and will also get a stand-alone release for those just interested in multiplayer. Rockstar Games will no longer require players to complete GTA V's prologue before accessing it, and it's getting a reworked tutorial as well. On PS5 and Xbox Series X, Hao's Special Works auto shop will be exclusively available, and will upgrade cars so they have "elite driving performance that takes full advantage of the upgraded power of new console hardware."
Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S – Coming March 2022
The stand-alone version of GTA Online will be free on PS5 for the first three months. Rockstar Games also confirmed that players will be able to carry over GTA V and GTA Online progression to these next-gen systems with a "one-time migration." 
These next-gen remasters were announced in June 2020 as the first reveal during Sony's PS5 unveiling livestream. We have not seen much of the remasters since then, though. Last year, they were given a November 11 release date, but were eventually pushed to March 2022 because Rockstar thought the ports needed "a few additional months for polishing and fine-tuning."
In its place, we got GTA: The Trilogy -- The Definitive Edition, remasters of three classic GTA games. Sadly, that collection came out buggy and rushed, as it was clearly forced to launch on the date GTA V abandoned. Now, all eyes are on these next-gen ports of GTA V to see if they also have technical issues at release, or if this delay was beneficial. GTA V and GTA Online will be released for PS5 and Xbox Series X on March 15, 2022. Oh, and GTA 6 was finally announced, too.

Read more