Red Dead Redemption 2 online update brings battle royale mode

Rockstar has announced that today’s updated for Red Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer, Red Dead Online, will bring a battle royale mode.

Gun Rush sees 32 players battling it out in an ever-shrinking play area, with each combatant racing to find weapons and ammunition to take each other out. The last gunslinger standing wins. Gun Rush will be available in both free-for-all and team modes.

Is was heavily rumoured ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2’s release that Red Dead Online would feature a battle royale, the mode popularised by the enormous success of Fortnite. The game began with the ‘Make It Count’ mode, which was a survival mode with a shrinking play area, but was on a much smaller scale and gave its players bows and knives.

Gun Rush looks to bethe larger-scale, action-focussed spin on battle royale that was perhaps expected. The news comes as Rockstar detailed more of its upcoming plans for Red Dead Online.

The publisher said that the multiplayer portion of Red Dead Redemption 2 will remain in beta for a ‘few more months’ as it continues to test and adjust the game based on player feedback. Today’s update brings new daily challenges and a handful of adjustments that should make unwanted ‘griefing’ (where other players continuously kill others) less prevalent in the open-world.

Rockstar also announced some of the changes to come to Red Dead Online, including new story missions, dynamic events and new competitive game modes.

Red Dead Online latest update: What’s new?

Daily Challenges: Tackle new challenges each day covering every aspect of the game, from sharpshooting to evading the law.
Law and Bounty Upgrades: Some changes are coming to the way the Law and Bounty systems work in Red Dead Online to reduce the enticements for griefing. Soon, players will get a bounty for committing crimes and will be incentivized to pay them off within an allotted time. Wait too long and bounty hunters from each of the states will track the player forcing them to either pay up or escape.
Parley Changes: We’re making the Parley system easier to trigger so that you can avoid aggressive players more quickly. In addition, it will be easier to trigger Feuds, Posse Feuds and Leader Feuds to take on attacking players in structured competition.
Proximity-Based Player Blips: Player location blips will soon appear only over short distances, reducing the range at which you are visible to others, decreasing the likelihood of being targeted by another player across large areas. Down the line, we’re also looking to introduce the ability to identify players who grief and kill indiscriminately with a progressively darkening blip that becomes more visible and at a longer range, so everyone in a session can identify potentially dangerous opponents at a glance and from a safe distance.