Rockstar can’t really complain about a lack of attention on their projects right now, as the studio is expected to make several highly anticipated hit releases over the next few years. While fans still don’t know the exact release dates of those projects – or anything concrete in some cases, such as “GTA 6” – there is still a lot of discussion about them within the respective community of each franchise. “Red Dead Redemption” is one game in Rockstar’s portfolio that many fans would undoubtedly love to see continued, and recent rumors indicate that we might be getting closer and closer to seeing the official announcement of the sequel.
Recently, Take-Two Interactive announced that they are getting ready for a major announcement to the press, revolving around one of their projects that has been in the works for some time. They didn’t specify which one, but there aren’t that many games Rockstar could be working on, knowing the studio’s history.
There’s always the possibility that they have a brand new IP in the works, but that doesn’t seem very likely in the current market climate. With so many rumors about “GTA 6”, and additionally so many fans of “Red Dead Redemption” calling for a sequel, working on something new could be a bad idea for Rockstar all around. While they could always pull off something good, their fans would definitely be disappointed at the lack of news about their beloved franchises.
It’s also highly unlikely – pretty much out of the question – that the announcement would concern “GTA 6”, as it’s too early in the lifecycle of “GTA 5” for that. A game of that scale would take a considerable amount of time to develop anyway, so we don’t expect to hear any such announcements until at least 2017-2018, and even then it would probably just be an early preview.
What could “Red Dead Redemption 2” do to properly continue where the first game left off? A lot has happened in the gaming world since the original came out, and various game mechanics that have become prominent could find a good home in a game like that. Rockstar could even borrow from their own franchises, most notably “GTA”, where the latest installment saw some clever additions to the formula that were received well by fans.
For example, the idea of having multiple protagonists is something that could potentially work very well in “Red Dead Redemption 2”, although the story might need to take a few adjustments for that to work. Let’s not forget that the “GTA” games are largely disconnected and the developers don’t have to feature the same protagonists over and over, while the new “Red Dead Redemption” likely won’t work in that way. Of course, the studio can always add new protagonists to the mix and expand the story significantly, especially with the help of modern hardware.
There is still some time until Take-Two make their major announcement, so all fans can do until then is guess. Gamescom will be a very interesting event this year if Rockstar are there with a new “Red Dead Redemption”, although we’re curious to see what other possible sequels the studio could have in the works. We would be surprised if they decided to continue something like “Bully” though, as that likely wouldn’t be seen too well by fans as we pointed out above. No matter what kind of a marketing spin they put on that release, it will harm the studio’s reputation.