In October, Rockstar Studios answered the cries of fans around the world and officially announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 was in active development. At the time, the game was given a release window of fall 2017, but now the day and date might have been leaked by an over-eager online retailer.
U.K. retailer Littlewoods listed Red Dead Redemption 2 as being scheduled to release on October 2, 2017, as recently as this morning, according to a report from MS Power User. Since then, the storefront has removed that date and replaced it with December 29, 2017, which is likely to be a placeholder.
The question remains: Was the original date itself a placeholder, or did Littlewoods erroneously publish a legitimate release date ahead of Rockstar’s official reveal? At this point, the only concrete information we have is confirmation that the game is scheduled to launch in fall 2017.
Back in the Grand Theft Auto III era, Rockstar upheld a tradition of launching its biggest titles in the month of October; that game and its sequels Vice City and San Andreas were all released in that particular month. However, Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V and its HD re-release, and the original Red Dead Redemption didn’t release in October.
If Red Dead Redemption 2 turns out to prioritize multiplayer in the same way that Grand Theft Auto V has done, it’s perhaps reasonable to expect an early October launch, as Rockstar will be eager to beat out their competition. With new installments of Destiny, Star Wars Battlefront, and Call of Duty expected to hit before the year is out, it would be in the studio’s favor to get players hooked before other releases monopolize their time.
While it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see October 2 named as the Red Dead Redemption 2 release date, it’s perhaps wise to wait for confirmation from Rockstar before making any assumptions. Fortunately, as the 2017 release calendar continues to fill up, we are likely to hear something official sooner rather than later.
