Rockstar Ignites Fan Fury With Recent Red Dead Online Patch

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a pretty incredible game, one that has helped to reshape modern gaming in a number of ways since its release. However, its online component continues to be a struggle for the people who have found themselves invested in it. 

Rockstar Games recently made a massive update to Red Dead Online in an attempt to make several small quality of life improvements in the game. Unfortunately, the update resulted in a whole mess of new problems that have rendered the game virtually unplayable on Xbox and PS4 (comparatively, the PC version is apparently doing alright). Needless to say, fans are not pleased.

What kind of problems are people having? How about all of them?

It legitimately appears as though just about every aspect of the game has been subject to highly embarrassing issues. Users on Reddit and Twitter have taken to cataloguing all of the glitches that have been seen in the game so far, and they are extensive. Players are reporting that the game now frequently crashes, oftentimes without any kind of error message displaying on the screen. Others say that NPCs and wild animals no longer spawn at all for them, making it impossible to take quests and rendering the game literally pointless for anyone who doesn't want to just wander around on foot. 

That's right: most players also can't even get on their horses anymore, if they can even get those to appear in the game when they log in. And even when they do manage to get on their horses, some players have reported that their horses vanish or turn invisible, leaving them hunting for their lost phantom steed to no avail.

In a clip shared by Twitter user @lilith_sparkles, her character can be seen calling her horse. When the horse fails to show up, she walks over to the nearby saloon and finds the horse apparently dancing in midair, completely untethered from the laws of physics. This player also reported that her horse has literally disappeared while she was riding it and that she has found herself unable to fire her weapons in the game. 

Others are reporting that they can't accept bounty quests, or if they do, the bounties themselves either don't spawn or are impervious to damage. Some PS4 players have reported that their own characters have become invincible, which could be kind of fun if any of the other NPCs were spawning to offer any kind of a fight. Still others are having smaller, weirder issues, like character's clothes no longer fitting their bodies all of a sudden.

In other words, this patch has been an unmitigated disaster.

The player frustration was addressed by fan Twitter account Red Dead Online Community (RedDeadRDC), which tweeted, "Reading all of the new issues players are experiencing, along with existing issues persisting ... I do wonder if it would be best to revert to the previous patch. I've never known any other online game to repeatedly have patches causing more issues than they fix. It's every time."

According to RedDeadRDC, the big issue seems to come down to Rockstar holding off on patches for long stretches of time. Then, in response to built-up frustration from fans, Rockstar attempts to fix everything at once, resulting in a monster patch that does more harm than good.

"If Rockstar would just communicate, players would give them more time to fix these things. Instead they just stay quiet and pump out horrible patches that cause even more damage to the game," tweeted RedDeadRDC.

Red Dead Online has proven to be something of a headache for even its most hardcore fans. Earlier this summer, a large number of players began dressing as clowns in-game to gently protest the lack of significant updates being made to the game. Other players have complained about the fact that the game has been infested with hackers for quite some time. This has resulted in some truly bonkers mods from hackers, including one that reenacted the controversial X-rated "Hot Coffee" mini game from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That mod actually resulted in threats of legal action by Rockstar.

However, none of those issues really hold a candle to the latest game-breaking glitches facing Red Dead Online players. It's unclear how Rockstar will choose to address these problems. As suggested by the Red Dead Online Community Twitter account, it may be easier for Rockstar to revert the game to its previous update while the kinks are sorted out of the latest one. The longer Rockstar waits, the more frustrated even the most diehard Red Dead Online players will become.