Red Dead 2 Sold 70m – Why Was It Abandoned?

One of my favourite times of the year is when Take-Two updates sales figures for Rockstar Games. GTA5 has sold to 210m people and Red Dead Redemption 2 is a relative flop at only 70m. Yes, a mere 70m copies. So why does it feel like it was abandoned?

Don’t get me wrong, nobody is going to complain about the amount of content in that game. It’s a colossal world with systems upon systems, and we’re still discovering new things today. There was a time when “cutting content” for DLC was frowned upon, and whatever the actual DLC consisted of, people were angry it wasn’t just there to begin with. Those days are gone, and few games come out without some kind of long-term monetisation in mind.

For Red Dead 2 it was Red Dead Online, a cowboy-themed sandbox that on paper sounds like a fantastic escape. But it wasn’t GTA Online, and it didn’t pick up in the same way, and so Rockstar abandoned it.

What about single player content? Undead Nightmare for the original Red Dead is an iconic piece of DLC. It took the base PS3/360 game and added zombies, plus a unicorn, and inevitable critical success was showered upon it. But a sequel? Nothing doing, despite an obvious set-up in reviving a fan favourite character.

It seems that no sooner did it become clear that Red Dead Online wasn’t as successful as its modern times cousin that either developer or publisher or both quit additional content entirely. That’s the official look. Behind the scenes we think it may be a bit more complicated.

Rumours and Red Dead

Because before Grand Theft Auto 6 ate all of Rockstar’s attention, there seems to have been work happening on further Red Dead adventures.

Leakers were sure something was happening. The biggest one, and the one that stuck around the longest, was that a remake of the original Red Dead Redemption game was being made in the Red Dead 2 engine. This had the support of leakers, dataminers (who showed Mexico was in the Red Dead 2 game files, but not in the game) and even saw some screenshots shown on Twitter. In the end, the official release was a simple remaster, adding so little that it wasn’t even released on Xbox. The original was already in 4k there. It released on PC, a miracle, where it currently sells for many times more than its prequel. And yet it stubbornly refuses to acknowledge any of the changes that came after. An oddity – but likely a very profitable one.

Whatever was happening in private, the end result is the same. Red Dead 2 was abandoned, left to stand magnifically alone. 70m people and counting left without the option for further content, another oddity in this day and age.

Grand Theft Auto 5 famously got no single player DLC. But you could play that game’s online mode for months and not see everything. It has been unendingly supported., although arguably in the most disappointing way. Grand Theft Auto 6 will be no different.

It feels like the passion for Red Dead has gone, internally. And as it’s one of the best games of last generation that’s terribly disappointing. At this point there has to be giant question marks about the future of the series at all.