Red Dead Redemption 2 was up there with the most anticipated releases in video game history in 2018, promising to provide fans with one of the most ambitious gaming experiences that Rockstar ever produced. Aside from the sheer scale of the release, the title was of course bolstered by the legacy of its predecessor, which itself was considered a defining portrayal of the Old West for the medium of video games.
The huge amounts of success and attention that Red Dead Redemption 2 enjoyed around the time of its release were rather predictable, but the amount of engagement that the title still receives to this day is perhaps more surprising. When regarding the huge amounts of content and replayability of the title, there are many aspects of the game that show why it is still so popular today.
The Alternate Endings of Red Dead Redemption 2
One of the biggest boons to the longevity and replayability of Red Dead Redemption 2 are the multiple branching endings that players can experience. Akin to the first Red Dead Redemption, RDR2 implements an in-game honor system that is solely at the player's discretion to influence, with morally heinous deeds reducing a player's honor and and good deeds improving their standing.
Unlike the first game, however, a player's honor score at the end of the title's narrative will directly influence what kind of ending the player will be faced with, leading to "good" or "bad" endings that are shaped by how the player decided to control Arthur Morgan throughout the game's main story. While players may not want to immediately jump into a subsequent playthrough of the title, the ability to eventually play through the game once more with a different honor angle and thus getting a different ending is a significant driving force behind the continued playership of Red Dead Redemption 2.
Red Dead Online
Given the massive amounts of financial success that Grand Theft Auto Online has brought Rockstar, it's no wonder that Red Dead Redemption 2 received its own dedicated and sprawling multiplayer mode that built significantly from the online modes available in the original Red Dead Redemption. Of course, online modes are a fantastic way to foster a tangible space for a title's community to interact and feel seen, and Red Dead Online has done just this for fans of the RDR franchise.
Red Dead Online offers swathes of additional content for players to enjoy with its many batches of post-launch DLC. The PC player count for Red Dead Redemption 2 recently peaked in November 2022, and the popularity of Red Dead Online on this platform is a huge contributing factor to this impressive statistic for the game.
The Huge Amount of Red Dead Redemption 2 Side Content
Like many Rockstar titles, Red Dead Redemption 2 does not shy away from offering fans a generous amount of side quests to complete outside of Red Dead Redemption's main narrative. There is a huge abundance of things for players to complete when trying to enjoy the full RDR2 experience, which offers a huge amount of longevity to the title that will have influenced its continued popularity.
With stranger missions, chance encounters, compendium entries, collectibles, and much more to explore, it is estimated that attaining 100% completion in Red Dead Redemption 2 can take close to 175 hours in total, speaking volumes to the massive scope of gameplay that the title fosters. Considering how a large majority of this side content can be experienced after beating the game, it is no wonder that many fans continue their playthroughs of RDR2 to this day.
The Beauty of Red Dead Redemption 2
A deceptively important aspect of Red Dead Redemption 2's continued popularity concerns the beauty of the game world and landscapes of the title. As a truly dedicated representation of the Frontier, RDR2 features a variety of locations ranging from snow-capped mountains, dense forests, and arid expanses of desert, each designed with a careful level of aesthetic craftsmanship.
A huge selling point of Red Dead Redemption 2 was the level of detail that Rockstar put into RDR2's environments. The title offers a huge amount of entertainment simply in traveling through the different settlements and wilderness trails that populate the map of New Austin. RDR2's game world is very biologically diverse, with a massive array of wildlife providing a lot of random encounters within exploration, which makes every session of exploration unique. Even for longtime players, the size of Red Dead 2's map only opens up more opportunities for exploration where players may discover previously unseen, breathtaking locations, giving the game even more continued popularity.
The scale and ambition of Red Dead Redemption 2 is more than clear to see across the many facets of gameplay that the title comprises, which led to the great amounts of attention that the game received in 2018. However, over four years later, the game is still considered to provide one of the most awe-inspiring and immersive gameplay experiences that the medium can offer, and so it is no wonder that RDR2 is so popular even to this day.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
