Will ‘Red Dead Online’ release this week or will it be delayed?

By Georgina Torbet November 24, 2018

Updated 11/25/18 to reflect that the image found was from an intro sequence, not a trailer.

Red Dead Redemption 2 continues its reign as one of the best selling games of the year, as well as one of the best reviewed. Fans have been waiting impatiently for the release of the online multiplayer mode, called Red Dead Online, which is supposed to be opening in beta mode in November. However, the lack of announcement of a date for the beta release means that some are skeptical whether the multiplayer mode will actually be made available this month.

The multiplayer mode was announced as a large free expansion that would be made available to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players, and would be playable either alone or as part of a party. A trailer for the mode was expected to drop to give players a first look at the action, based on an image that was found by snooping around Rockstar’s website which appeared to be a still from an intro sequence according to rockstarintel.com. Other tidbits found in the game’s companion app were that Red Dead Online will feature anniversary modes, which are probably similar to Grand Theft Auto Online’s player-versus-player challenges, and that private sessions and seamless PvE will be possible.

Although developers Rockstar Games haven’t given a beta release date yet, they also haven’t officially announced a delay to the multiplayer mode. So it isn’t yet clear whether the mode will be arriving in the next week or not. It could be that Rockstar hasn’t shared an announcement because of the Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday sales, which have been dominating the news and the attention of many technology fans and gamers.

Another theory is that because the game has sold so well, being the second best-selling game of the year so far despite its late release date, the sheer number of players wanting to join the beta has required Rockstar to iron out server issues ahead of time before allowing players in.

More specific details about Red Dead Online were uncovered by the site RockstarIntel and suggest that the first mission will be jailbreak-themed and that once you complete an online mission, you’ll get an award image which will appear on your social club.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Gaming

Dead Island 2’s Amazon Alexa voice commands are novel, but limited

Dani lights a cigarette as zombies attack her from behind in Dead Island 2 key art.

I’ve always found myself interested in new technologies that could possibly enhance how we play or experience games. Whether it’s a computing innovation like cloud gaming or new controller features like the DualSense’s Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers, I love testing those things out. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to try Alexa Game Control during my recent hands-on preview experience with Dead Island 2.
When Dambuster Studios and Deep Silver’s Dead Island 2 finally launches on April 21, it will be the first game to support Alexa Game Control. By connecting one’s Amazon account to the game, players can use the voice-recognition capabilities of Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa to perform in-game actions like taunting zombies or equipping their best weapons. I was curious to see just how deep this went, but after some hands-on time, this first implementation of it proved to be little more than a novelty.

Hey, Alexa
Dead Island 2 players can toggle Alexa Game Control on when they first show up in Bel-Air after the game’s opening. It has a dedicated tab in the Options Menu where players can choose to enable or disable it, choose whether they want it to work automatically or with push to talk, set the voice capture threshold, and decide which microphone they wish to use.
After enabling Alexa Game Control, I immediately noticed a ring at the bottom-left corner of the screen. When I spoke, this lit up with blue and teal colors, like the top ring on an Alexa device, and text confirming whether it could do the action or not would appear. Not having to say “Hey, Alexa” also means it implemented itself into the game smoothly. At first, I tried to see if voice commands would work for basic things like walking, jumping, and dodging, to no avail. After this, I hopped to a save I had placed later in the game and opened its tutorial menu to see what Alexa Game Control could really do.
Reading its tutorials and lists of commands, the limits of Alexa Game Control became clear. It mainly provides quick shortcuts to save you a button press or two in the middle of playing. In Dead Island 2, Alexa Game Control has four main uses: setting waypoints, taunting enemies, triggering emotes, and switching weapons. The tutorial menus give a complete list of commands that work, although each wildly varies in its usefulness.
Oi, zombie!
The funniest use of this voice technology in Dead Island 2 is taunting zombies. Shouting something like “Hey, dude” or “Oi, zombie” to get the attention of enemies that hadn’t detected me always made me chuckle. It’s also occasionally useful; at one point, I got a bunch of zombies to walk into a large pool of acid and die after taunting them. While it takes the same amount of time as walking up to the zombie to get their attention, I see the potential in voice technology that lets you interact with the world like this.

Gaming

Dead Island 2: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

soak sunshine slaughter first dead island 2 gameplay screenshot 3

Believe it or not, Dead Island 2 is not only still real, but it's actually coming out. For those who've been following the troubled trajectory this title has had, you know this is a story almost 10 years in the making. Originally revealed in 2014, Dead Island 2 has died and been resurrected no less than twice, with a new development team taking up the project each time. The average person probably assumed the game was scrapped years ago, but for those who never gave up hope, your faith has been rewarded.

Leaks did take some of the excitement out of Dead Island 2's big re-reveal during Gamescom 2022, but it couldn't stifle what looks to be a game far better than its beleaguered history would lead you to believe. Since so much has changed over the course of development, let alone with the entire gaming landscape, plenty of people may be wondering what all the excitement over this zombie game is all about. Grab yourself a blunt object and get ready to smash some zombie skulls as we run through everything we know about Dead Island 2.
Release date

Gaming

Dead Island 2 avoids Star Wars Jedi clash by bumping up its release date

Dead Island 2 zombie

Dead Island 2, a game that never seemed like it was going to come out, has gone gold and even had its release date moved up by a week. Originally slated for April 28, Dead Island 2 will now be released on April 21. That means it'll launch one week before Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which just had its release date pushed to April 28.
The developers of the LA-based zombie game revealed the news via a tweet with a video that highlights a bunch of comments asking if the game was polished and if it will actually ever be released before it confirms that Dead Island 2 has gone gold and is coming out a bit earlier than we currently expected.
https://twitter.com/deadislandgame/status/1625147886643150852
Release dates moving up instead of being delayed are a rarity, with one of the only recent examples being Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Still, the delay makes sense now that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is coming out on April 28. This announcement also feels cathartic after Dead Island 2's rough development. The zombie sequel has notoriously been delayed significantly more than most games. Originally announced in 2014 with a Q2 2015 release window, Dead Island 2 got pushed back again and again, switching developers multiple times and slowly seeming more and more likely to become vaporware.
Deep Silver Dambuster Studios' new version of the game finally reemerged as the big final reveal of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022, but even after that, the game got delayed one more time to April 28. Even if it's moving its release date up by just a week, the fact that Dead Island 2 has gone gold and even moved its release date up a bit feels like the satisfying end to an excruciatingly long journey. Whether it's good or not, we finally don't have to wait much longer to actually play Dead Island 2.
Dead Island 2 will be released for PC, PS4, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on April 21.