Red Dead Online is best with friends
There are games that are just simply better with friends, and Red Dead Online is one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love exploring the vast and rich world that Rockstar has created on my own, but it can be done solo. RDO really shines when you gather friends together to form a group of outlaws and thugs in search of infamy and wealth.
In February, I played RDO every day for a solid month. I wrote a lot of guides on this at the time, so I could play it without the guilt, knowing that my time was going to be a better guide writer. Now, I don’t write guides that often, but I still like to play them every now and then. I play it in a less programmed way, so I mostly play alone – while it’s still enjoyable, it just doesn’t compare to the experiences I had back then.
Because I bought Red Dead Redemption 2 at launch, I had plenty of goodies stacked in my Red Dead Online account. I had discounts on most roles and about $ 1,000 up front. My other friends bought the game as a standalone product when it was on sale, so they made me buy the posse license and off we went.
The first few sessions meant that we all found our feet. We had terrible horses, terrible guns and no idea what we were doing. Learning how the game worked together was a big part of the fun we had with it. It was like being kids exploring the woods or sneaking into an abandoned building in a bad part of town. We had no idea what the world had in store for us, but we couldn’t wait to find out, whatever it was.
Because I had so many discounts and started out with a lot of gold and silver, I was able to buy all the roles pretty quickly. This meant that anyone could do jobs and assignments with me while determining which one was their favorite. Two of us preferred Trader and the other two loved Collector. We spent an entire afternoon following an interactive map someone had made that showed the whereabouts of each collectible. It would have been terribly boring alone, but doing it with pals meant we could chat while we were riding, or jump on someone else’s horse if we needed to go for a drink or cook.
Once we found our feet and had some cash in our pockets, spending our ill-gotten money was also more fun together than it would have been on its own. Going to stores and showing off our new guns, flies, or purebred horses has always been a great way to revel in our loot. It made us boastful and opulent, and made spending our money just as fun as earning it. Fashion is one of the best parts of the game, but while I love buying Arthur a new costume in single player mode, it’s just right for me. Showing off a sleek fur coat with a wide hat and a few cool kicks, though? It’s for my friends.
The problem with our outrageous spending was that it meant we also had to earn more. It really helped motivate us to continue the gameplay loop. Alone, I would have been happy to live modestly. Maybe I upgraded my tent, warm clothes, a clean suit – that would have suited me well. Together we were constantly trying to outdo ourselves and be the biggest and coolest outlaw. We got more daring with our missions and had to prepare for more PvP if we were to get really rich. Deliveries from Long Traders make more money, but a rival group can attack you, so we had to make sure we had the best guns and the fastest horses before we left. It was tense, and we lost a few deliveries, but the successes were worth all the failures.
After a while we all had all the roles, all the guns we wanted and a horse we loved. However, there is always more to be done, and we really hope Rockstar will add appropriate player homes at some point. Our campsite looks more like a small village than a slum, but we need real homes to properly display our wealth. The new Heist update will also be fun, as we can try to be stealthy together – it has never worked in the past, but it’s worth it.
The next update will bring the gang out of retirement. We’ll dust off our guns and put our spurs on, ready to take back control of the Old West. We’ve gone from a motley bunch of prison escapees to the fastest, fastest, and fastest riding gang in the Old West. It was a journey that we could only take together, because without encouragement we would all have opted for mediocrity. Alone we were bad, but together we are notorious.
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