Red Dead Redemption Rumor: Will Take-Two Announce A Sequel At E3?


Rumors of a Red Dead Redemption sequel have been circulating on the internet since at least 2014. The rumors have never been substantiated and were mostly based on second or third-party information. The sources have rarely sounded reliable, and the information they have provided has always turned out to be wrong.

For example, in January 2014, Game Rant reported that Baird Equity Research was predicting that Rockstar would announce and release a sequel before the end of 2014. It didn’t happen. To Game Rant‘s credit, they were highly skeptical at the time.

“It’s hard to believe Rockstar would announce and release a follow-up within the same year,” said GR.

Red Dead Redemption 2 rumors have been flowing ever since. Some even stating that the sequel will be called Red Dead Revolution. The sources seem to almost always be either anonymous or have names like cyberpunkKid1988. They also almost always claim to be, or claim to know, employees of Rockstar or Take-Two. Many of the so-called sources have stemmed from Reddit, and all have proven unreliable.

The reason for the history lesson is because these rumors have historically been wrong. At the risk of being tongue-in-cheek, one could say that all rumors are wrong… until they are right. So until they are confirmed, all rumors should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.

The latest Red Dead Redemption rumor has the sequel being announced at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly referred to as E3. The gaming website Fraghero reports to have received an anonymous (there’s that trigger word) email from someone who claims to have information gained from an ex-Rockstar Games employee (there’s another trigger). The email reveals several details about the potential Take-Two production.

According to the source, the sequel is in production and will be titled Red Dead Redemption 2: Legends Of The West. In addition to its announcement at E3, the email claims that the game is scheduled for a Fall 2017 release.

The rumors of Red Dead Redemption 2 continue with the source stating, “the game is going to contain more than one playable character and feature a much bigger open world than the last Red Dead title.”

In addition to the rumors of the sequel, the anonymous source also claims that an HD remake of the original RDR is in the final stages of development and will be released before the end of this year. So fans of the game will be able to play a remastered version of Red Dead on their current consoles, if the rumor holds true.

While Fraghero cannot verify the Red Dead Redemption rumors listed in the email, they do claim that they have conducted their own independent research into at least the E3 announcement rumor.

According to their report, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, has previously stated that RDR is considered to be a permanent franchise. That essentially means that they do intend to continue the franchise into the foreseeable future. This statement is confirmed by an article posted on May 29, 2014, by GameSpot that quoted Zelnick:

“I pretty much know the ones that I can assure you are permanent. It’s obvious that GTA is a permanent franchise as long as we keep delivering this incredible quality; it seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise, again with the same caveat.”

Red Dead Redemption rumors aside, this does indicate that a sequel is almost assuredly coming in the future, else he would not have described it as a permanent franchise.

Another piece of evidence that Fraghero points to is a comment on Reddit made by a user named Danny. Danny is believed to be a former Rockstar Games employee, who at the time worked for Opie & Anthony, which lends him at least some credibility.

Despite Reddit being the source of a lot of false Red Dead Redemption rumors, a user in the AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread, asked Danny, “What the [expletive] does Rockstar have on deck?”

Danny simply replied, “Really? Dumb**s. Really? Two.”

Fraghero postulates that Danny’s response was a simple coded message that translated to: RDR 2, which would be an abbreviation for Red Dead Redemption 2. While this is still not solid evidence that a sequel is in production, when coupled with the fact that the franchise is permanent, Fraghero seems to feel pretty confident that a sequel could be coming very soon.

So there might be more to the Red Dead Redemption rumors in the anonymous email than just further he-said-she-said journalism. The E3 rumor could be confirmed or denied by early this summer. E3 2016 will take place from June 14-16, 2016, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

What do you think? Does this latest Red Dead Redemption rumor seem plausible?

[Image via action_1971 | Flickr | CC BY-SA 2.0 ]

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