Development of Red Dead Redemption 2

A team of approximately 1,600 people developed Red Dead Redemption 2 over several years. Rockstar Games published the action-adventure game in October 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and in November 2019 for Microsoft Windows and Stadia. Rockstar co-opted all of its studios into one large team to facilitate development. The story is set in 1899 in a fictionalized representation of the Western, Midwestern and Southern United States and follows outlaw Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang. Arthur must deal with the decline of the Wild West while attempting to survive against government forces, rival gangs, and other adversaries. The story also follows fellow gang member John Marston, the protagonist of Red Dead Redemption (2010).

Rockstar Games programmers at the Game Developers Choice Awards 2019.

Rockstar used motion capture to record the performances of the cast, as well as face cameras to capture their facial reactions for later animation. The secretive nature of Rockstar's development processes meant that the actors and director were unsure of the future of the characters during production; the writers continued to work on the script while the actors shot their scenes in segments. Rockstar wanted a diverse cast of characters within the Van der Linde gang and put particular focus on the individual stories behind each character. While one of the main themes of the original game was to protect family at all costs, Red Dead Redemption 2 tells the story of the breakdown of a family in the form of the Van der Linde gang.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the first game from Rockstar built specifically for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Rockstar had tested the technical capabilities of the consoles when porting Grand Theft Auto V. Once the team had defined what limitations were sustainable, they found the areas that required the most focus. The game features an original score, composed by musician Woody Jackson, who worked with Rockstar on Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V. The score features contributions from artists such as Colin Stetson, Senyawa, and Arca. Rockstar engaged Daniel Lanois to produce the original vocal tracks for the game, collaborating with artists such as D'Angelo, Willie Nelson, Rhiannon Giddens, and Josh Homme.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was officially announced in October 2016; it was heavily promoted and widely anticipated. Rockstar missed the original release date, delaying the game twice for further polishing. Rockstar marketed the game through video trailers, announcing specific details about the game as development continued. Various special editions of the game were released. The game's development underwent media scrutiny due to the extensive hours expected of employees and the culture of "crunch" at the developer. The game's online multiplayer mode, Red Dead Online, opened its beta in November 2018; the beta ended in May 2019.

History and overview

Preliminary work on Red Dead Redemption 2 began during the development of the original game, Red Dead Redemption (2010),[1] though main production did not take place until after the game's release in May 2010.[2] Publisher Rockstar Games began receiving internal pitches for a sequel during production of the first game, and found the idea of a gang narrative "too compelling to turn away".[3] Vice President of Creativity Dan Houser spoke to Rockstar San Diego, the studio behind the original game, in early 2011 about the game's characters and style. The team had a rough outline by mid-year, and by late 2012, rough scripts of the game had been completed. Houser had video conference calls with department directors from all of Rockstar's worldwide offices.[4] When Rockstar Games realized that a group of distinct studios would not necessarily work, it co-opted all of its studios into one large team to facilitate development among 1,600 developers; a total of around 2,000 people worked on the game.[2]

In October 2018, Houser stated that the team had been working 100-hour weeks "several times" throughout the year.[4] Many sources interpreted this statement as "crunch time" for the entire development staff of the game, comparable to similar accusations made by wives of Rockstar San Diego employees in regards to the development of the game's predecessor, with Rockstar Games receiving strong criticism.[5] The following day, Rockstar clarified in a statement that the work duration mentioned by Houser only affected the senior writing staff for Red Dead Redemption 2, which comprised himself, Michael Unsworth, Rupert Humphries and Lazlow Jones, and that the duration had only been the case for three weeks during the entire development.[6] Houser also added that the company would never expect or force any employee to work as long as was stated, and if anyone was staying late at the development studios, it would be due to their passion for the project.[7][8] However, other Rockstar employees argued that Houser's statements did not give an accurate picture of the "crunch-time culture" at the company that many of its employees worked under, which included "mandatory" overtime and years-long periods of crunch. Due to the salary-based nature of employment contracts, many of these employees were not compensated for their overtime work and instead depended on year-end bonus payments that hinged on the sales performance of the game. Nonetheless, a sentiment echoed across many employee statements was the observation that working conditions had somewhat improved since development on the original Red Dead Redemption, which had been so demanding that a number of the developers' spouses had voiced their disapproval to Rockstar.[9][10]

Story and setting
The vistas in the game's world were inspired by the paintings of artists such as Albert Bierstadt.

While one of the main themes of the original game was to protect family at all costs, Red Dead Redemption 2 tells the story of the breakdown of a family in the form of the Van der Linde gang. The team were interested in exploring the story of why the gang fell apart, as frequently mentioned in the first game.[2] Josh Bass, art director at Rockstar San Diego, felt that the presence of gang leader Dutch van der Linde "loomed over" the original game.[11] Like the first game, Red Dead Redemption 2 is set during the fall of the American frontier, in a world becoming too modern for the gang. Aaron Garbut, director of art at Rockstar North, said that Rockstar "aimed to capture a wide slice of American life in 1899, a rapidly industrializing nation that would soon have its sights on the world stage".[11] The team were focused on creating an accurate reflection of the time period, with people and locations. The citizens in the game contrast between rich and poor, while the locales contrast between the civilization and the wilderness.[11]

In regards to the scale of the narrative, Houser described it as "more like Thackeray than Hemingway", with several changes in the characters, locations, and ideologies.[4] Houser was inspired by film and literature when writing the game, though he avoided contemporary works to avoid being accused of theft of ideas. He cited Uriah Heep, the fictional character from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield (1850), and some of the work of Arthur Conan Doyle as significant influences, as well as Henry James, John Keats, and Émile Zola. Houser aimed to have some parts of the game's narrative reflect contemporary events but not in a direct manner, noting that "It's more this sensation that we found interesting in the 19th century that spoke to us, and I hope it speaks to people about today's problems".[4] He did not want the game to be viewed as a work of history, but rather as a work of historical fiction, opting to allude to historical events instead of retelling them due to their unpleasantness.[12] Houser wanted the gang's withdrawal from society to be the antithesis of the game's calm opening. The first chapter was viewed as a method to freshen the landscape, pitting a group of cowboys against a snowy blizzard. The team redesigned the game's opening chapter for its extensive length, as Houser considered it the most important chapter.[12] Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson felt that the game's ending was "the right ending" for the game, due to the nature of the original title.[13]

The final script for the game's main story was around 2,000 pages, though Houser estimates that the pile of pages "would be eight feet high" if all side missions and additional dialogue was included.[4] Individual pedestrian actors each had scripts of around 80 pages in length.[12] About five hours of the game were dumped before release, some of which featured a second love interest for the protagonist as well as a mission taking place on a train with bounty hunters. Houser noted that the loss of these missions was because "they were never going to work technically or be quite slick enough, or they felt superfluous".[4]

Garbut stated that the team were not specifically inspired by film or art but rather real locations, noting that they "were building a place, not a linear or static representation".[14] Lighting director Owen Shepherd was inspired by pastoral painters such as J. M. W. Turner and Rembrandt.[14] The vistas in the game's open world were partly inspired by luminous paintings from artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Frank Tenney Johnson, and Charles Marion Russell.[4][14] Saint Denis is modeled on the city of New Orleans.[15] Rockstar designed the game world so that it responds to the ongoing narrative.[4] Nelson stated that the team were "obsessed with [the world] feeling natural or organic in every respect".[4] He noted that the team were "trying to build worlds that people believe in, that they can get lost in".[15]

Character development
Main article: List of Red Dead Redemption 2 characters
Some of the main cast members of the game: Roger Clark, Alex McKenna, and Rob Wiethoff

Red Dead Redemption 2's recording sessions began in 2013 and lasted a total of 2,200 days. The game features 1,200 actors, 700 of whom share the game's 500,000 lines of voiced dialogue.[4] In addition to using motion capture to record the performances, Rockstar also used face cameras to record their facial reactions for later animation;[16] around 60 or 70 cameras were used in total.[17] The motion capture sets were typically accurate to the dimensions of the in-game setting, which could be displayed to the actors and crew on a monitor in a previsualization format.[17] The secretive nature of Rockstar's development meant that the actors and director were unsure about the future of the characters during production;[18] the writers continued to work on the script while the actors shot their scenes in segments.[17]

Rockstar wanted a diverse cast of characters within the Van der Linde gang. Senior creative writer Michael Unsworth noted that the ensemble was advantageous when writing the narrative, as it helped to craft the story and added complexity to the game. The writers put particular focus on the individual stories behind each character, exploring their life prior to the gang and their reasons for remaining with the group. Unsworth felt that the gang is a "family" that offers "a sense of belonging and purpose", and that analyzing each story—and each character's relationship with Arthur—was important for the narrative.[2] Several characters were cut from the game during development as their personalities failed to add to the narrative. Some lines of dialogue from the first game, in which Dutch is described as an equitable leader, allowed the team to create a diverse group of characters in the gang. The developers often allowed the actors to take scenes in their own direction in order to develop the characters in new ways.[2] The actors sometimes improvised some additional lines, but mostly remained faithful to the script.[16]

The team decided that the player would control one character in Red Dead Redemption 2, as opposed to the three protagonists in Rockstar's previous title Grand Theft Auto V (2013), in order to follow the character more personally and understand how the events impact him.[2] They felt that a single character felt more appropriate for the narrative structure of a Western.[11] Nelson felt that the decision to limit to one protagonist shaped the other creative decisions of development. The conversations and sense of life within the gang environment was inspired by Grand Theft Auto V's exploration of the lives of two of the game's playable characters while the player was controlling the other one.[2] Rockstar wanted to grant agency to the player when experiencing the story of Arthur; Unsworth noted that Arthur is controlled by neither the storytellers nor the player, but his control consists of "a delicate push and pull between the two".[2] The team attempted to give the player more freedom with Arthur's relationship with other characters; when the narrative begins, Arthur has already formed relationships with the other gang members, so the team aimed to develop them in a way for the player to respond appropriately.[13]

Roger Clark
Alex McKenna
Peter Blomquist
Clark, McKenna, and Blomquist were cast as Arthur Morgan, Sadie Adler, and Micah Bell, respectively.

For his portrayal as Arthur Morgan, actor Roger Clark took main inspiration from Toshiro Mifune.[17] He found that Mifune's characters were very stoic while also having a "crazy" sense of humor, a complexity he wanted to portray within Arthur.[19] Clark also took inspiration from The Proposition (2005) as it involved a similar situation to Arthur's, wherein he is forced to betray some of his loyalties. He watched films such as High Noon (1952), as well as the work of John Wayne;[16] despite watching the Dollars Trilogy (1964–1966) he did not take much inspiration from Clint Eastwood's portrayal of the Man with No Name, as he felt that Arthur was more talkative.[17] Clark wanted to portray a character that was complex enough for the player to choose his path and still make sense. He initially faced difficulty with this concept, as the high honor performance was different to the low honor, but he reminded himself that Arthur was a complex character who could easily contradict himself.[16] He aimed to portray vulnerability with Arthur's ego. Clark felt that Arthur initially resented John Marston, as he had a family—something Arthur wishes he could have—but as the gang begins to fall apart, Arthur acts to help John, "try[ing] to do what he wishes he could have done for himself".[19] Clark looked to Rob Wiethoff's portrayal as John in the first game for inspiration with his own performance.[20]

Houser was interested in subverting the trope of the protagonist starting as weak and becoming stronger as the story progresses; instead, Arthur is already tough at the beginning of the game, and is "taken on a more intellectual roller coaster when his world view gets taken apart".[12] Houser felt that the decline of the American frontier has a deep impact on Arthur, noting that the character is "caught between the nastiness of nature and the brutality of encroaching industrialization in civilization".[4] Houser avoided meeting Roger Clark, who portrays Arthur, on set to avoid hearing his real voice.[12]

When Benjamin Byron Davis was asked to reprise his role as Dutch van der Linde, he was unsure of the nature and importance of the role until production began;[21] he first heard about his reprisal in mid-2013, and received about the first 100 pages of the script at the end of the year.[22] As Davis is much taller than Dutch, the animators had to adjust the height from the motion capture performances to fit the character, including eye lines of other characters. Brent Werzner often stepped in as a body double for some takes.[22] Davis portrayed Dutch "in his prime"—as a charming, confident man—for about a year before playing the decline of the character.[22] Unsworth felt that Dutch views himself not as a criminal, but somebody fighting against a "corrupt system of power that's been set up to divide and suppress".[2] He noted that Dutch's "anarchic, anti-establishment rhetoric" was compelling for the gang to remain with him.[2]

Rob Wiethoff
Steve J. Palmer
Benjamin Byron Davis
Wiethoff, Palmer, and Davis returned for their roles as John Marston, Bill Williamson, and Dutch van der Linde, respectively, from Red Dead Redemption.

Davis felt that Dutch was motivated by a "noble drive", believing in the greater good;[20] Davis described the character as a "principled man", but felt that Dutch began to evolve into a villain particularly when faced against characters who were powerful figures in their areas, such as Catherine Braithwaite and Angelo Bronte.[21] Davis felt that Dutch's downfall takes place when he witnesses the corruption of other people achieving the "utopia" that he wants for his own gang and realizes that he does not want the same to happen to him.[21] Davis thought that when Dutch does not have his best friend Hosea Matthews by his side, he is unable to hear criticism; when Arthur tries to help Dutch "see the light", Dutch begins to distrust him, instead turning to the "unwavering [...] support" of Micah".[21] Davis felt that Dutch's dream paradise would be at Horseshoe Overlook, in the game's second chapter, where he was constantly looking to the future. Davis says that Dutch "was a dreamer. The journey was more important than any arrival".[21] Davis felt that, by the end of the game, Dutch was also seeking redemption for his mistakes, which is why he does not harm John or his family.[23]

When developing John Marston, the protagonist of the original game, the writers felt that his previous appearance could be limiting to them, since players have already resonated with the character.[2] Rob Wiethoff, who reprises his role as John, looked to his own life when returning to the character; he always looked up to his older sister's male friends for approval in the same way that John looks up to the rest of the gang for validation.[17] He also took inspiration from the "pretty tough dudes" in his home town of Seymour, Indiana for John's personality.[20] Cali Elizabeth Moore, who portrays John's wife Abigail Roberts, found ease in recording the couple's proposal scene, as both her and Wiethoff remembered their own proposals; she recalled only recording the scene twice, due to the emotion.[24] Moore also became emotional during the scenes in which Abigail's son Jack is returned to the camp, considering if the scenario was applied to her own children.[25]

The actors formed a close bond during production, which helped with individual performances.[24] Actress Alex McKenna said that the scene in which Sadie Adler gets her revenge "haunted [her] a little", as she experienced a lot of Sadie's backstory up to that point.[24] Motion capture director Rod Edge described Sadie as "so feminine but so tough".[18] McKenna appreciated the lack of stereotyping with the characters, and enjoyed that Sadie was written as Arthur's equal instead of his love interest.[18] Noshir Dalal resonated with the character of Charles Smith, whose father is African-American and mother is Native American, as Dalal is half-Japanese and half-Parsi. He drew experiences from his personal life when portraying the character.[17] The original actor for Charles was recast as the team felt he did not fit.[19] Gabriel Sloyer felt that Javier Escuella is "looking for home, somewhere to belong", feeling torn between grasping at the American Dream and longing for his home in Mexico.[26] Sloyer considered his own father, also named Javier, and his experience with immigrating to the United States.[27] Peter Blomquist described the character of Micah Bell as a "slimy opportunist".[23] He opted to develop the character from scratch, instead of taking specific inspiration from others.[23]

Technical and gameplay development
Red Dead Redemption 2 is the first game from Rockstar built specifically for the PlayStation 4 (left) and Xbox One (right).

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the first game from Rockstar built specifically for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.[3] Rockstar had tested the technical capabilities of the consoles when porting Grand Theft Auto V—the game was originally released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, so pushing the technology allowed the team to see what was possible on the new hardware. Once the team had defined what limitations were sustainable, they found the areas that required the most focus: according to graphics technical director Alex Hadjadj, "things like a global lighting solution, atmospheric effects, or post processing and presentation".[28] Red Dead Redemption 2 allowed for about 10 times the amount of animations over Grand Theft Auto V due to the additional memory of the consoles.[3] While Grand Theft Auto V required dense crowds in the city streets, Red Dead Redemption 2 demanded populated towns with identifiable characters, so the technology was evolved to allow this.[28]

Technical director Phil Hooker stated that the number of animations required for the individual character reactions was unlike any previous Rockstar game.[15] Rockstar overhauled its entire animation system for the game to achieve more believable human and animal behavior on the new generation of consoles. A significant range of animations was added for enemy artificial intelligence to make them appear natural during combat. Subtle animations were emphasized by the developers to make the world feel more believable; Rockstar upgraded its Euphoria physics engine for the game's development,[28] and completely overhauled its AI system for the first time in 17 years.[12]

One of Rockstar's goals with Red Dead Redemption 2's gameplay was to make the player feel as though they inhabit a living world, instead of playing missions and watching cutscenes. A method used to achieve this was through the gang's moving camp, where the player can interact with other characters. The team ensured that the characters maintained the same personality and mood from cutscene to gameplay to make the world feel more alive and realistic. Unsworth described the camp as "one of the most ambitious things" done by the studio.[2] Rockstar felt that the gameplay mechanics allowed the writers to "delve deeper" into the game's characters.[2]

A significant part of making the game world feel alive was to create routines for the gang members around camp, including activities and chores they partake in, and times of day that they are awake.[2] This was a system previously explored in Grand Theft Auto V, particularly with one of the protagonists' family home, but Houser also cites the Mexican town of Chuparosa from Red Dead Redemption, which was full of characters performing minor tasks.[12] Another method to achieve realism was to have characters converse with each other at camp, which the player can choose to respond to; should the player respond frequently, characters will begin to invite their responses in future conversations. The game also features a "walk-and-talk system", where characters briefly follow the player and inform them of events in the game world—a system previously transmitted through the use of the character's mobile phone in Grand Theft Auto V.[2] Some of the game's missions were deliberately placed to demonstrate Arthur's personality; for example, a mission where Arthur gets drunk is placed before a mission wherein he saves Micah from prison, reflecting that Arthur does not care as much about Micah's fate.[13]

The team decided to limit the weapon inventory to a select number of guns, to maintain realism; all other owned weapons remain with the player's horse, also serving as a way to increase the player's bond with the animal.[13] Rockstar was careful not to include too much realism in the game—such as a full, extensive animation to skin an animal—to avoid boring players.[15] Some of the teams at Rockstar felt that simply existing and surviving in the wilderness was a big draw to the original game, so attempted to expand upon this idea in Red Dead Redemption 2.[13] When replaying the game throughout development, the team discovered conflict in the missions forcing the player to behave badly and those forcing them to behave well. As a result, they crafted branching scenes and dialogue options based on the player's behavior in the game, which ties into the Honor system.[2]

The team considered the idea of the player being able to take camp members to different activities, such as fishing, but ultimately felt that it led to more AI-like behavior instead of more a realistic tone.[13] Several activities within the game, especially those that were out of character for Arthur, were stripped back to become optional to the player.[2] Some tasks also became optional if they included any opportunity for the player to grow and reflect.[13] The gunplay was revised from Rockstar's previous games to improve the feeling and speed of using the weapons.[29] Late in the game's development, senior staff at Rockstar decided to add letterboxing to the game's cutscenes, requiring more work for cinematics staff and reshoots for the cast.[12]

Music production
Main article: Music of Red Dead Redemption 2
Woody Jackson, who previously worked on Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V, returned to compose the original score for Red Dead Redemption 2.
Daniel Lanois produced all of the game's original vocal tracks, engaging several artists and musicians. Lanois was chosen to produce all of the songs to create consistency within the music.

Woody Jackson, who worked with Rockstar on the original game and Grand Theft Auto V, returned to compose Red Dead Redemption 2's original score.[4] Jackson composed roughly 60 hours of music for the game, but not every track made the final product;[30] the game has 192 interactive mission tracks.[4] Ivan Pavlovich, director of music and audio, estimated that the player would only hear around one-third of the total music created for the game in a standard playthrough.[31] Red Dead Redemption 2 has three different types of score: narrative, which is heard during the missions in the game's story; interactive, when the player is roaming the open world or in multiplayer; and environmental, which includes campfire singing songs or a character playing music in the world. The game's music regularly reacts according to the player's decisions in the world,[30] matching the game's atmosphere and the player's choices.[31] Jackson's goal with the ambient music is for it to accompany the game's sound design and not become distracting for the player. Comparing the game to a television season, Jackson considers a mission to be like an episode, as it tells an individual story arc while maintaining the same themes across multiple missions.[32] For the narrative music, Jackson maintains the same tempo and key to avoid any clutter.[33] At one point during development, he used around 15 stems, but ultimately brought it back to around six.[34]

To ensure that his music was effective for the game, Jackson listened to the music while shooting at a target range using a gun from the game's time period. He also purchased several instruments from the Wrecking Crew that were featured on classic cowboy films, such as Dennis Budimir's 1898 Martin 1-28 gut string and Tommy Tedesco's Harmina Salinas Hijas gut string. During recording, Jackson played cues to each musician using call and response, to which they would respond organically, either copying Jackson's cue or playing how they feel.[30] This system took place over a few days, and the tracks make up most of the open world music.[33] Several recording tools were used to capture the music, dating from a 1959 8-track tape to the modern digital workstation Pro Tools.[30] When creating the score, Jackson gathered musician friends like bassist Mike Watt, violinist Petra Haden, and drummer Jon Theodore for jam sessions, often using Jackson's old instruments.[35]

While the first game imitated popular Spaghetti Western film soundtracks, the second game aimed to become more unique.[34] Jackson estimated that he changed the music about four times throughout development, from extreme experimentation to classic Western sounds, ultimately blending to make "something different".[33] Pavlovich felt that in order to find an effective result with the score, they had to "push it almost until you break it, and then you swing back".[34] To avoid imitating the bell used in Spaghetti Western soundtracks, Jackson instead used a mandolin used by the Wrecking Crew. The music team found reference points in Willie Nelson's album Teatro (1998) and the soundtrack for the 1971 film The Hired Hand. Session guitarist Matt Sweeney took inspiration from segments of other music—such as the insistent drums in the work of Ennio Morricone—without being derivative.[34] While researching for the game's score, Jackson found that Morricone's work—particularly on Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy—was already a departure from typical Western music of the time, instead featuring sounds popular at the time such as "psychedelic guitars, lots of noises", so Jackson felt that he could also take such creative liberties with Red Dead Redemption 2.[32] Similarly, he was even more influenced by Masaru Sato's score on Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo (1961), which he felt focused on emotion rather than trying to replicate the sound of feudal Japan, the film's setting.[33]

In total, over 110 musicians worked on the music for the game. Sweeney noted that several musicians turned down offers to work on the soundtrack, due to their unfamiliarity with the industry and technology.[34] Pavlovich engaged Daniel Lanois to produce all of the game's original vocal tracks, wanting a consistent "through-line" to complement Jackson's score.[31] Lanois collaborated with artists such as D'Angelo, Willie Nelson, Rhiannon Giddens, and Josh Homme.[30] Lanois wrote the song "Cruel World" especially for Nelson. When a hurricane prevented Nelson from recording the song, the team sent the track to Homme in the hopes that he could record it in time for the game's release; Homme recorded his vocals in an Australian studio while on tour. Nelson was ultimately able to record the song in time, but the team included both versions in the game. Pavlovich felt that the diversity of the game's landscapes allowed for more diverse sounds,[31] engaging saxophone player Colin Stetson, experimental band Senyawa, and musician Arca to work on the score. While Pavlovich felt that Arca's work was "too angular or sharp or modern sounding", he found techniques to subtly add it to the game to separate it from the Spaghetti Western sounds.[34]

Release
A billboard advertising the release of the game in Edinburgh

Rockstar Games first teased Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 16–17, 2016, releasing two teaser images in the color and theme of Red Dead Redemption to its website and social media platforms.[36][37] The teaser images led to considerable attention and raised the stock price of Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive by nearly six percent.[38][39] The game was officially announced on October 18, 2016.[40] On the day of its announcement for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, some fans started petitioning Rockstar for the game to be made available on Microsoft Windows as well.[41] Originally due for release in the second half of 2017, the game was delayed twice: first to Q1/Q2 2018,[42] and later to October 26, 2018.[43] According to Rockstar, the game required extra development time for "polish".[43] In October 2019, Rockstar announced that the game would release for Microsoft Windows on November 5, 2019, and would also be a launch title for Stadia when the service launched in November 2019.[44][45] The Windows version has visual and technical improvements. It featured new bounties, weapons and hideouts,[46] which were released on PlayStation 4 in December 2019 and Xbox One in January 2020.[47]

Promotion

The game's debut trailer was released on October 20, 2016, depicting the open world environment,[48] and the second and third trailers—released on September 28, 2017, and May 2, 2018, respectively—introduced the game's characters and story.[49][50] A trailer released on August 9 features the first gameplay footage, demonstrating the shooting and horse mechanics, and the ability to maintain the player's gang and camps.[51] A second gameplay trailer, released on October 1, 2018, demonstrated the in-game heists and Dead Eye targeting system.[52] The final pre-launch trailer was released on October 18, 2018, intended to be a television advertisement.[53] Houser noted that the team often edits several hundred versions of the trailer, based on suggestions from other teams.[4] A trailer for the Windows version was released on October 17, 2019, demonstrating the updated 4K resolution gameplay at 60 frames per second.[54]

To spur pre-order sales, Rockstar collaborated with several retail outlets to provide special edition versions of the game. The "Special Edition" includes exclusive single-player content, while the "Ultimate Edition" features additional content for Red Dead Online. The "Collector's Box" is a collection of physical merchandise relating to the game.[55] Players could earn the stone hatchet in the game by acquiring it through a mission in Grand Theft Auto Online.[56] Rockstar updated the official Red Dead Redemption 2 website in the months prior to release to show a preview of activities and locales within the open world,[57] and an examination of the stories of the Van der Linde gang members.[58] Merchandise was also released for the game prior to the release, including clothing matching the in-game characters, and some with the game's logo.[59][60] A companion app, released alongside the game for Android and iOS devices, acts as a second screen wherein the player can view in-game items such as catalogs, journals, and a real-time mini-map.[61]

References
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