Red Dead Online Beta Launch with Early Access
4 min read
Red Dead Online beta will launch this week. Tuesday, November 27th, marks the beginning of early access. What this means is that every day Rockstar will increase the online population, up until Friday, November 30th, which is when Beta will be open to anyone who owns a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2. This effort is made to help reduce server crashes during launch week. Here are some specifics:
- Tuesday, November 27th: All Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition. Please note, players who purchased the physical Ultimate Edition must redeem the Ultimate Edition code in the packaging to be eligible.
- Wednesday, November 28th: All players who played Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 26th.
- Thursday, November 29th: All players who played Red Dead Redemption 2 between October 26th to October 29th.
- Friday, November 30th: All players who own Red Dead Redemption 2.
During your experience, if you encounter any technical issues you can visit the dedicated Rockstar Support site to report them. Even if you simply have comments about experience, ideas for future content, or ways to improve gameplay, jot down your thoughts and send it along to the developer. It is the players who can help make Red Dead Online fun for everyone.
This week: Ride with friends in a Posse, set up your Camp, embark on cooperative story-based missions or go head-to-head in competitive series, find strangers throughout the world to help (or hurt), tackle spontaneous Free Roam challenges, go hunting, fishing, bond with your horse, explore with friends or on your own (but look out for ambushes), and much more.
All the while, you’ll accumulate XP through explorations and encounters that counts towards your rank and provides added bonuses. Unlock items and improve attributes while you progress. Tackle Award challenges throughout your open-world experiences to earn Awards in 12 categories like combat, hunting, sharpshooter and survivalist.
Red Dead Online begins with creating a character. Detail your appearance and attributes before you set out on your journey from Sisika Penitentiary, where you’ll acquire a horse, set up a Camp, hunt down a treasure, equip your first Ability Card and meet some fateful characters with a larger story to tell; one that involves chasing truth, revenge, and honor.
In Red Dead Online, your honor will shift high and low based on your decisions and behavior. Shape your honor through your choices: from life or death decisions to natural interactions such as caring for your horse.
In addition to the world responding to you in subtly different ways, you’ll also notice the nature of certain missions will reveal themselves to you based on your current honor state:
Free Roam Missions – Head over to the Stranger icons throughout the map alone or with your Posse to embark on Free Roam Missions. You’ll see some familiar faces along the way, and these missions can vary based on how noble or nefarious you are. For example, an honorable gunslinger may be asked to help escort a convoy, defending it from attacking gangs or even other players’ Posses, whereas a dishonorable outlaw may be asked to help spring a felon from the law.
A Land of Opportunities – Honor also plays into this deeper cooperative strand for two to four players that will be continually built upon. In A Land of Opportunities, you’ll be faced with a multi-part series of missions, with some parts changing as your honor changes on a larger journey to seek truth and justice, or revenge.
Competitive Gameplay:
Shootout & Team Shootout – Classic gunfight modes with unlimited lives. Compete to rack up the most kills before the timer runs out. Sudden death will trigger in the event of a tie: whoever gets the first kill wins.
Make it Count – A true test of resourcefulness in two game modes: use nothing but a bow and a handful of arrows or throwing knives to be the last one standing. With a gradually shrinking player area, there’s nowhere to run.
Most Wanted – A tactical race to the top. Every kill pushes you up the scoreboard, but watch out: the closer to the top you are, the more points everyone else gets for killing you.
Hostile Territory – Work in teams to control the land. Capture a territory to start racking up points: the team with most points wins – or you can win outright by capturing every territory.
Name your Weapon – Demonstrate your personal specialty in this free-for-all or team based match: the trickier the weapon you use to land the killing blow, the more points you get.
