‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ Revealed In Teaser Trailer That Looks At The Open Wild West

Red Dead Redemption 2 was finally given a first look Thursday after nearly a week’s worth of teasing. The upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Wild West title from Rockstar Games is taking the franchise in new directions, and the new teaser trailer genuinely fits the bill.

The minute long trailer takes viewers through the landscape of Red Dead Redemption 2 and remains an ultimate tease. There isn’t much in terms of gameplay and story as the video heavily emphasizes the game’s open world and beautiful graphics with scenes of plains, forests, rivers, farms, railroads, oil fields, and small towns.

The teaser is punctuated at the end with an unknown character stating, “Listen to me. When the time comes, you’ve got to run and don’t look back. This is over.” It then cuts to a shot of seven horse riders charging past the camera and into the plains with mountains off in the distance.

The seven characters riding off across the plains matches the same number of characters in the first teaser image released earlier this week. As previously covered, the fact seven characters are shown suggests the next entry in the Red Dead follow-up will work with multiple characters. It’s possible the game could go the GTA 5 route by allowing players to switch between characters in a group or these may simply be a cast of characters or companion characters in a posse. In fact, the seven characters on the screen come across as a nod to the classic Western film, The Magnificent Seven.

Rockstar Games pulled off yet another brilliant tease as not much is shown about the game, but just enough to get the gaming community talking. The only thing the developer says about the trailer with its release is, “Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America’s unforgiving heartland.” The studio also confirmed the fall 2017 release once again.

As a reminder, Rockstar Games announced Red Dead Redemption 2 only for the PS4 and Xbox One. The studio appears to be taking an approach similar to Grand Theft Auto V where the game will hit consoles first followed by a PC release afterward.

There was no mention of online play at all with the Red Dead Redemption 2 teaser trailer. A RedDead.Online domain registration was discovered this week shortly before Rockstar Games officially announced the game.

This points towards an online component similar to Grand Theft Auto V‘s wildly successful GTA Online, which has been a key driver of revenue for publisher Take-Two Interactive.

GTA 5 has sold more than 65 million copies to date and is a consistent driver of digital revenue due to players spending real world cash on Shark Cards to quickly obtain in-game money. Take-Two reported $172.1 million in digital sales during its last fiscal quarter, via Seeking Alpha, with the game being a primary contributor.

There’s every reason to believe Rockstar Games and Take-Two will take the successful model established with GTA 5 and expand it to Red Dead Redemption 2 with Red Dead Online.

Fans should expect to see an open-world multiplayer world with the ability to customize their character, weapons, and more. If the same model is used, all game modes and content will be released free with the Shark Cards micro-transaction paying for them. Now, the question is how will Rockstar evolve its online gameplay for a Wild West showdown.

Xbox One owners can take Red Dead Redemption for a spin while they wait for Rockstar Games to make an announcement. The Xbox 360 game was added to the current-gen console’s backward compatibility library of titles this past July, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

Red Dead Redemption runs better than ever on the Xbox One. Framerate tests on the game show it holding a steady 30 frames per second (fps) on the console through the majority of tests. This includes areas where the performance tanked on the last-gen console. Issues with screen tearing were also fixed. The quality of the graphics remains the same, but the performance is improved. This makes for a great opportunity to catch up for those who haven’t played the game to get familiar with the franchise before the sequel releases next year.

The PlayStation 4 does not support the ability to play backward compatible titles. Sony has released remastered games for the console, but there has been no mention of Red Dead Redemption being brought forward by Take-Two Interactive or Sony.

[Featured Image by Rockstar Games]