“Leaked” Red Dead Redemption 2 Image Actually For New Game, Wild West Online

[NewsBot]

The image “leaked” yesterday was real. The only problem? It was not taken from Red Dead Redemption 2.

Wild West Online is an upcoming PVP MMO that its creators, DJ2, say will launch later this year exclusively on PC. They are currently planning a Kickstarter campaign which is set to go live later this month, however, the team told PCGamer in an exclusive interview that regardless of the $250,000 Kickstarter campaign’s success, the launch of the “core game” is set for this year. The additional fundraising is only meant to cover expansions scheduled for a later time.

The timing couldn’t be better for Wild West Online and its developers, 612 Games. Fans of Red Dead Redemption are starving for more information about the much anticipated sequel (prequel?) to the 2010 hit and speculation is rife. Then when a very legitimate looking off-screen image popped up yesterday it looked like their prayers had been partially answered, at least.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be the case. 612 Games, however, got their screenshot featured in hundreds of media outlets across the web and no doubt there will be many more follow up pieces, just like this one, spreading the news that the image wasn’t actually from Red Dead Redemption 2.

In his chat with PCGamer, Creative VP at DJ2, Stephan Bugaj, said that they got tired of waiting for Red Dead Redemption to properly arrive on PC and so decided to “take matters into their own hands” – and not in a build a Red Dead Redemption mod for Grand Theft Auto V on PC kinda way.

They’ve built a Western game for PC only instead.

There’s an audience for this that just wasn’t being served on PC. So we wanted to make this big, open Wild West world with a bit of a twist that, like the best MMOs, is a place where people can really live in.

Bugaj also dropped additional information on the game, revealing that there will be a recipe finding and learning aspect to the crafting system (much like another well-known MMO – World of Warcraft), but that unlike the aforementioned game, there probably won’t be a big progression system. We assume this means that any grinding will be kept to a minimum.

It’s something that we’re still kicking around. There’s going to be story, character, and gameplay-driven motives to keep playing, but we haven’t yet fully worked out what the progression system is going to be for that.

One big immediate difference between Red Dead Redemption and Wild West Online too – there will be no PVE aspect in the latter. You’ll only be able to fight other players and if you become wanted, NPCs won’t chase you.

It’s more like a reputation system than anything. The wanted system in something like Grand Theft Auto is really about PVE combat, whereas in Wild West Online it’s more about pitting lawmen against bandits against working class people caught in between.

Some details about the stretch goals for Wild West Online’s Kickstarter campaign were also revealed:

• $400,000: Women will be playable as characters. Rockstar already introduced this with Grand Theft Auto Online and it’s been incredibly well-received by the GTA community.
• $1.75 million: Train robberies will be included as part of an update post-launch (something that’s been discussed as a potential Red Dead Redemption 2 feature in our forums several times).

With both Red Dead Redemption 2 and Wild West Online now both scheduled to launch later this year (admittedly on different platforms) it’s going to be very interesting to comparing the two. Being a Red Dead Redemption 2 fan-site we’re extremely confident (if not a little biased) that Rockstar Game will come out with something special, however being a PC only Western, Wild West Online has definitely created an exclusive niche and player base for itself from the get go.

The post “Leaked” Red Dead Redemption 2 Image Actually For New Game, Wild West Online appeared first on RDR2.

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