Red Dead Redemption 2 has gamers all over hyped up for a new adventure in the wild west. This new edition of the franchise brings promises of a massive open world to explore, new mechanics for interacting with the environment and a lengthy story to keep gamers captivated. Before we begin our epic new adventure, let’s take a look back at what came before in the series and what has lead up to this long-expected title.
Back in 2000, Red Dead Revolver was being produced by Angel Studios with oversight by Capcom and set for a release in spring of 2002. During 2002, Take-Two Interactive announced that they had acquired Angel Studios and moved it under the Rockstar label, renaming the studio Rockstar San Diego. Red Dead Revolver was in a bit of development hell after that due to still being tied to Capcom until eventually Rockstar Studios acquired the rights to the game and gave it to Rockstar San Diego to develop. The game finally launched as the first title in the series on May 4th, 2004.
The story of Red Dead Revolver takes place in the 1880’s wild west, where Nate Harlow and his partner Griff strike gold in Bear Mountain. To celebrate, the two commission two matching revolvers with a scorpion design on them. Not long after, Griff is captured by the Mexican Army where he offered the army General Diego half of the gold in the mountain to spare his life. While General Diego complies, he sends Colonel Daren to kill Nate. The Colonel goes to Nate’s farm killing both him and his wife, but before getting away Nate’s son Red grabs his father’s revolver and shoots off Daren’s arm before he escapes.
Years later, Red has become a successful bounty hunter tracking down contracts all over the old west. After a run in with a few outlaw gangs and saving a few citizens on the way, he has an encounter with Annie Stokes who gives him information and leads him to Griff, now Governor Griffin who still owns part of Bear Mountain. Red eventually tracks down General Diego and kills him while he is transporting a large sum of the gold he had mined from Bear Mountain. After the conflict, Red learns that it was Griff who sold out his parents to the General and chases him down after a quickdraw competition that was supposed to be rigged to kill Red. Once he has Griff cornered in his mansion, he takes the second revolver from Griff letting him know that it was never about the money and the story of Red Dead Revolver concludes.
In 2005, Rockstar San Diego began development in the second chapter of the series Red Dead Redemption with a team of around 800 people. The main focus that the developers wanted to bring to the game was the open world and the authentic old west feel is set in 1911 where the modern age was slowly beginning to take hold. The teams did extensive research of old photographs of the time period as well as a plethora of old western films in an attempt to fill the world with enough content that would keep players captivated. The estimated total budget for the development of the game was between 80 and 100 million making it one of the most expensive video games in history. Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4 on May 19, 2010.
A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.
According to SteamDB.
An announcement trailer was also released.