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Here are 5 unique items we'd love to find in Red Dead Online
From flying machines to new melee weapons, here's what we're dying to see in the Red Dead Online beta.
The Red Dead Online beta is slated to launch later this month. Perhaps it's a moment too soon for many players, who are still ambling their way through the single player campaign.
There's so much to do and the game directs you, both explicitly and implicitly, to go slower at every opportunity. Most games are akin to fast food burgers: tasty, filling, and ultimately inessential. But Red Dead Redemption 2 is a thick, aged porterhouse steak, with all the gristle and fat sizzling on its edges. You're meant to savour it, bite by bite, and take your time. Walk instead of run. Trot instead of gallop.
Will Red Dead Online capture the slow, deliberate pacing of Red Dead Redemption 2? At this point, the details are too scant to know for sure. Aside from a single September press release, Rockstar has focused its marketing campaign entirely on Arthur Morgan's story. But based on the precedent set by Grand Theft Auto Online, we can certainly expect to find new items, new vehicles, new horses, and new weapons.
Here are five unique items that we would love to find In Red Dead Online. The possibilities, even in 1899, are endless.
It takes reckless courage to 'count coup'
© George Catlin
1. Coup stick
Historically, the Plains Indians engaged in a war ritual known as 'counting coup,' in which a warrior would ride close enough to the enemy to club him. It served multiple purposes: first, as a mark of a warrior's bravery, and second, as a means of humiliating one's enemy.
It was courageous bordering on reckless. In fact, during the Indian Wars against the United States federal government, the Plains Indians, led by Lakota Chief Crazy Horse, had to modify their method of fighting from pursuing personal glory to fighting as a single unit. After all, they were fighting a disciplined military unit rather than a rival tribe with the same emphases on bravery.
Imagine melee horseback combat in Red Dead Online, during which you could wield a blunt coup stick and charge towards your gun-toting opponent. Imagine there was a Dead Eye boost or some other reward for 'counting coup' on your enemy. It would add an interesting wrinkle to multiplayer strategy.
The best moments in this game are the ones between the combat
© Rockstar Games
2. Playable musical instruments
Walk into a saloon, and you'll see a pianist playing a jaunty tune. Walk into camp, and you might see Uncle playing his banjo, plucking old American standards. Arthur Morgan is not musically inclined, but perhaps, your online avatar could be.
It would be wonderful if you could learn to play an instrument in Red Dead Online by practicing; you would start out with simplistic plucking, and then slowly, your melodies would get smoother and more complex. Eventually, you'd be able to play on the street to earn money, or play in the saloon to earn tips. There should be multiple ways to earn money in Red Dead Online, and lots of them should operate within the law's restrictions.
3. Cattle brand
Domesticity is an eventual ideal for these rugged outlaws. And Red Dead Online should allow its players to transition to legitimate businesses like cattle ranching or horse trading after a life of unbridled debauchery.
These career paths should come with unique items; if you're a rancher, for example, you could design and customise a cattle brand, and mark your livestock with it. Should your herd get stolen, mixed up, or spooked and scattered, a distinctive brand would make it much easier to gather them.
4. Baseball equipment
In post-Civil War America, baseball became the country's unofficial, national sport. And just as Grand Theft Auto had a tennis mini-game, Red Dead Online could have a baseball mini-game.
Whether a full-length simulation of a regulation game, or a modest side activity where you play catch with a ball, a bat, and a glove, baseball could be another way to add variety to this world, and create the illusion of a massive universe, beyond what the player sees.
There were no airplanes in 1899, but there are other options
© Department of Commerce
5. Operable flying machines
Red Dead Redemption takes place in 1899; the Wright Brothers would not build and fly the first airplane for another four years, but even so, there's lots of historically accurate flight options for Red Dead Online.
A hot air balloon is the obvious choice; you actually use one in a late story mission, so Rockstar wouldn't have to build one from the ground up. But there are also more eccentric flying machines. As far back as the seventh century, there were man-carrying kites, which were used during military campaigns in ancient China. And all through the 1800s, Western inventors designed a number of winged gliders, several of which were powered by steam.
They don't even have to work particularly well to make them fun; in fact, that could be part of their appeal.
