Last week, fans received a bittersweet announcement from Rockstar as the company finally announced a solid release date for its highly anticipated western. Unfortunately, the release date of October 26, 2018 also confirmed that Red Dead Redemption 2 had been once again delayed out of its expected Spring 2018 release window. While Rockstar isn't saying anything beyond needing more polish time, new rumors have recently come out, some of which may explain the game needs more time in development.

According to leaked documents obtained by Trusted Reviews, Red Dead Redemption 2 is set to once again offer a robust online experience, though this time it's also bringing a Battle Royale style mode with it. The leak, unfortunately, doesn't have any additional details on how the mode will operate, whether it intends to be a more grounded experience like PUBG or a little more fast-paced like Fortnite. Still, the thought of charging other players on horseback is no doubt tantalizing.

In addition to Battle Royale, players will have a more detailed and robust free roam option complete with events, missions, and NPCs to interact with. Taking a page out of Grand Theft Auto 5's Apartments feature, players can even purchase and upgrade a home base in the form of a tent. The leak also mentions other available competitive modes such as Revive and Survive and Money Grab. Revive and Survive pits two teams against each other in an elimination-style deathmatch, while Money Grab is an objective based mode as teams battle each other to collect money and deposit them back at their base.

These rumors also mention the existence of a first-person mode that players can opt to turn on, a feature which was added to Grand Theft Auto 5 when it initially launched on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The single player also contains plenty of new gameplay features and mechanics, such as more populated and lively towns living in accordance to a 24/7 day-night cycle, a slums market to purchase discounted goods, and much more.

This type of news shouldn't be terribly surprising considering how far games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite have pushed the Battle Royale genre. Both games have achieved massive player numbers and continue to evolve in order to retain those monster numbers. It shouldn't be surprising then to see other AAA publishers and developers want to get a piece of that as well. In fact, Rockstar has already dabbled with a Battle Royale style mode for Grand Theft Auto Online called Motor Wars, which sent four teams to scrounge for supplies, survive, and do battle inside an ever-shrinking kill box. Though Rockstar never actually used the word Battle Royale in the description, the mode was very clearly inspired by the game type and could have even possibly been a testing ground for what could be potentially coming in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is set to launch on October 26, 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Source: Trusted Reviews