Rockstar wants to capture the appeal of RDR 2's single player in Online

“With Red Dead Online we are continuing to build and expand to match the world we created for Red Dead Redemption 2’s story.”

- Red Dead Online producer Tarek Hamad discusses the scale the Online team eventually wants the mode to reach.

Open-world online modes have become the lifeblood of Rockstar Games’ flagship titles, so much so that the studio’s post-launch focus of its latest game looks to involve its multiplayer significantly more than its single player side.

VG247 spoke with several members of the Red Dead development team at Rockstar to get a feel for how new changes to the landscape of Red Dead Online are playing out while also, in a roundabout way, discussing the studio’s plans for its single player mode.

Red Dead Redemption 2’s single player campaign on its own is a massive undertaking, and the online mode lets players explore that same world as a pseudo-massively multiplayer online game with its own characters, goals, and updates.

In short, the team's plan is to “bring everything that a player can love about single player into the online world,” according to Rockstar’s Kate Pica, and flesh out Red Dead Online as a whole in the process.

The idea that Rockstar would pour its efforts into Red Dead Online (and seemingly try to encourage those enamored with the single player story to branch into Online) isn’t a surprising one, especially when considering the similar approach taken with 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V.

Much like Red Dead Redemption 2, GTAV shipped with a sizable single player campaign and later opened up an online mode set in the same world. Single player DLC was rumored, but instead Grand Theft Auto Online took off and the game’s new content came in the form of sizable updates to what it offers. Thanks to Online, which lets its players pick up in-game cash through microtransactions, has since become a staple in parent company Take-Two Interactive’s earnings reports, even more than half a decade after its release.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a newer entry, having launched less than a year ago, but so far Rockstar’s post-launch attention has been on Online, which uses an only slightly different in-game currency monetization scheme than Grand Theft Auto Online.

The full VG247 interview captures more comments from the team on the direction the studio is taking Red Dead Online, and how new content aims to expand the mode.