With a game as massive and popular asRed Dead Redemption 2, a sequel inRed Dead Redemption 3seems like an inevitability. However, based on what little has been reported onGrand Theft Auto 6, there’s a good chance thatRDR3would look nothing like the long-form storytelling found inRDR1andRDR2.
Of course, this cannot be exactly confirmed until Rockstar Games beginsmarketing forGrand Theft Auto 6and actually confirms that it exists. Rockstar isn’t likely to skimp out on its most popular franchise though, but it does seem to be approaching it different than games past.
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Grand Theft Auto 6’s Development Status
Crunch culture has been a huge topic for discussion this year; indeed, it’s an issue that constantly rears its ugly head but one that has yet to be resolved. This year,The Last of Us 2andCyberpunk 2077were the focus for this discussion. In fact, afterCyberpunk 2077’s release,GTA 6fans were begging Rockstarto take its time with the game. After all, Rockstar has been brought up in the crunch culture discussions before.
While its impact remains to be seen, reports indicate thatGrand Theft Auto 6will effectively see an ‘incremental development,‘meaning the game will launch “moderately sized” and then be expanded as the game goes on. There is the question of crunch post-release, but it’s possible that this approach allows much of that to be mitigated. In other words,Grand Theft Auto 6seems set to release in chunks instead of a full game day one. That’s likely to russle someone’s jimmies, but if done well and especially to the betterment of the team, it’s something that could be good for a game likeGrand Theft Auto 6.
Ideally, what this means is the game is a whole game day one, but one whose story continues with the next big section and so on and so forth after launch. Indeed, for a game likeGrand Theft Autowhere the story is told in heists and crimes and the like, this makes a whole lot of sense. Cliffhangers, episodical approaches, and more would really work here as ways to connect one big thing to another until its eventual end, likely with a ton of support a laGTA Online.
But, whenever Rockstar begins to work on anotherRDRentry, there’s a good chance such an approach may harm the game more than it helps. There’s no proof, of course, thatthere ever will be aRed Dead Redemption 3, but it’s unlikely Rockstar just abandons the Wild, Wild West. However, where an incremental approach works for games likeGTA 6, it wouldn’t work for longform storytelling likeRDR.
Sure, much likeGTA 6, RDRcould be divided up into sections and released over time—but the impact would be severely impacted.GTA 6would be wild ride after wild ride, keeping players coming back for more.Red Dead Redemptionhas always been a slow burn, though, and it’s likely that it would burn itself out with such storytelling. It would be like if every person John Marston hunts down were the sections, thus delaying his eventual heartbreaking death and uniting with his family. It would be like if every move between camps was a section forRed Dead Redemption 2; as a result, long-form storytelling and slow emotional burns would lose their luster.
In fact, evenArthur Morgan actor Roger Clark thinksGTA 6’s approachmakes stories likeRDR2less likely. The two games may be similar in a lot of ways, both games may be the biggest franchises in Rockstar’s repertoire, butRDRandGTAare completely different beastswhen it comes to storytelling. As such, whenever it’s time for Rockstar to cowboy back up, it’ll be interesting to see how it approaches the next franchise entry.
Red Dead Redemption 2is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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