Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in late 2018, and Red Dead Online emerged a few months later, in 2019. As the follow-up title to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, ‘RDR2’ was one of the most highly-anticipated games in the history of the industry. When Red Dead Online was launched, it gave players the ability to explore a vast wilderness with their friends, giving a fresh angle to an already incredible game. Today, we’re here to answer a question that many people ask: is Red Dead Online cross-platform?
Unfortunately, while Red Dead Online enjoyed a remarkably positive launch, it ultimately subsided into disappointment for millions of fans. By 2022, the online platform was abandoned, with Rockstar Games, the developer, almost refusing to release any meaningful content for the game. A few expansions were launched over the years, but with them all out of the way, Red Dead Online quickly became a relatively empty place to explore.
With that in mind, we’re asking, is Red Dead Online crossplay, and if it is, what’s the state of the multiplayer scene today? We will also be looking at the popular player question: “is Red Dead Redemption 2 cross-platform?”, so read on for all the details!
Image Credit: Rockstar Games
In May 2022, a campaign emerged online under the moniker, #SaveRedDeadOnline. It was a community-driven campaign that implored Rockstar Games to, quite literally, save Red Dead Online from inevitable collapse. While it might have seemed dramatic for those outside of the debate, it was true that, at the time, Red Dead Online had seemingly been abandoned by its developers. For the most part, any updates were meaningless, events were repetitive, and the world was exactly the same as it had been for years.
Admittedly, Rockstar Games hadn’t abandoned Red Dead Online, but it sure felt as though they had. As time wore on, the numbers dwindled, and both players and viewers dropped away from Red Dead Online and any associated content quite rapidly. By today, Red Dead Online is a considerably quiet title, and despite many potential features being listed by the community, Rockstar Games still hasn’t revived the platform in any way, instead opting to focus efforts on the money-making GTA online as well as the upcoming GTA 6 title.
Still, you would expect that Rockstar would still see the value in integrating a Red Dead 2 cross-platform feature to keep players flocking to the vast map. It would certainly bring all of the game’s players together into one central location, as that’s the very meaning of cross-platform play.
But is Red Dead Online cross-platform? Has it ever been a crossplay game? Let’s take a closer look.
Unfortunately, Red Dead Online is not cross-platform in any way, shape, or form. It’s a restricted title that locks players into their unique platform, regardless of whether they’re playing on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation. It’s not a crossplay game, nor it is a cross-progression game.
What’s the meaning of cross-progression? This simply means that if a player migrates from Xbox to PlayStation (for example), they must restart their game from the beginning, and none of their progress will move across. This is a typical, run-of-the-mill practice for Rockstar Games titles, as, by comparison, GTA 5 crossplay also doesn’t exist.
Sadly, this means that the community is somewhat divided, creating a rift on a platform already impacted by bad press. As gaming becomes more technically advanced, we’re seeing some of the best crossplay games emerge with accessible, cross-platform features present from day one. At present, it seems that there are absolutely no plans to integrate Red Dead Online crossplay features, meaning the community will remain divided forevermore.
There’s still a top-notch multiplayer experience to be had, but it’s reserved more for the newer players. It must be stressed that Red Dead Online is a bit of a grind, and once the base content is completed, there isn’t all that much to do, besides daily, repetitive tasks.
As with the online version of Rockstar’s classic Western game, you way be wondering “is Red Dead Redemption 2 cross-platform?”. The answer is similarly “no”. There is not the option for cross-platform play, which would let you play with friends on different devices. There is, however, cross-generation play, meaning that players are able to join sessions with players that are using the same console family, such as Ps4 and Ps5, for example.
It is also worth noting that Red Dead Redemption 2 does not support cross-progression, so single player gameplay progress with Arthur Morgan is tied to a specific platform.
So, to summarise: Is Red Dead Online cross-platform? No, but it is still a semi-decent multiplayer game in itself, despite no longer receiving major updates from Rockstar.
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