Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption series has been giving players an old west sandbox to cause mayhem in for years now. Red Dead Redemption brought players on a high stakes old western adventure following John Marston on his mission to kill his old gang, and Red Dead Redemption 2 brought the story back in time to the height of said gang. Both titles are considered some of the best that Rockstar has ever made, and Red Dead Redemption 2 is considered one of the best open-worlds in gaming. The franchise has seen a lot of success, but Red Dead Redemption 2 has yet to see any DLC content.
DLC is the name of the game in today's gaming industry. Grand Theft Auto 5's DLC came in the form of GTA Online updates, but Red Dead Redemption 2 seldom gets updates for its own online mode. Rockstar has seemingly moved on to its next title even if Red Dead Redemption 2 is rife with DLC potential. The game needs some type of extra content for fans to play through that is not just an update to Red Dead Online. Rockstar should craft a large-scale Undead Nightmare DLC just like the zombie DLC that its predecessor got.
What Made Undead Nightmare Special
In 2010, Rockstar released a large-scale DLC for Red Dead Redemption titled Undead Nightmare. The DLC included a brand-new single-player campaign following John Marston. Instead of connecting to the mainline story and offering another old west adventure, Undead Nightmare took the game to the zombie apocalypse. It sounds like a weird concept, but it proved to be a lot of fun. It took the world of Red Dead Redemption and added brand-new mechanics alongside zombies for an entirely new experience that is fondly remembered by fans of the title.
The campaign followed John Marston as he traversed the old west in search of a cure for this zombie virus. Both Abigail and Jack become infected with the virus which forces John to search for a way to save their lives. The campaign lasted around six hours and featured a ton of new content to chew through. The world was similar to the main game except it had been darkened and filled to the brim with undead creatures. This made the game feel spookier and kept players on their toes as a zombie could attack at any moment.
The gameplay of Undead Nightmare was very reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption as it was a non-canon expansion. However, the DLC introduced a new feature where the player would have to liberate towns from the undead. The various towns across the frontier had been overrun with zombies and the player would have to clear them out so that the living could go about their lives again. Once a town was liberated, the player could get side quests, challenges, and stranger requests. They could also trade ammunition with the townsfolk as that became the currency of the land.
The zombies in Undead Nightmare were very similar to how they worked in other video games. They would range from the classic slow zombies to large behemoths. The expansion added a multitude of different new weapons for the player to use to take out these undead creatures. John could use things like holy water and undead bait to beat back the hordes. Players could also tame undead horses, and they could hunt down other creatures like the Sasquatch and a unicorn, adding up to a lot of fun supernatural experiences.
Undead Nightmare 2 Could Be Equally Special
Undead Nightmare let the player run rampant guns blazing in the wild west. It added a new level of difficulty to the game and hours of fun for those who had finished the main story. Four years have passed since Red Dead Redemption 2 hit store shelves, and a large-scale DLC is long overdue. Many players are itching ro return to the old west and Red Dead Online is not doing enough to pull them back. A full-fledged Undead Nightmare 2, on the other hand, just might.
If Rockstar threw zombies into the world it constructed for Red Dead Redemption 2, it would be an easy win. Players should get a chance to take control over Arthur Morgan once again and kill zombie hordes in the wild west. The map is larger in the sequel and that just means even more towns to liberate. With a fun story attached, it could be a recipe for success. It would not only pull back Red Dead Redemption 2 fans, but it could also get zombie fans and those who are nostalgic about Undead Nightmare to boot up the game. It would give them more hours of fun with Arthur Morgan and provide the game with a new breath of life as it gets farther away from its release.
An Undead Nightmare 2 could take advantage of everything that Rockstar has learned over the years and deliver a fantastic zombie game. The story could involve the Dutch Van Der Linde gang at their height as they all try to beat back the horde. Players would be forced to constantly move their camp around as the horde could catch on and pursue them across the land. Traversing the swamps around Red Dead Redemption 2's Lagras while dodging zombies would be spine tingling, fighting zombies in the plantations around Rhodes would be exhilarating, and walking through the eerie Armadillo just waiting for a zombie to jump out would be thrilling.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is just waiting for Rockstar to craft DLC around it. Undead Nightmare was something special for the Red Dead Redemption series, and it needs to be repeated. Throwing zombies into the wild west seems like an odd choice, but it proved to be a lot of fun back in 2010. If Rockstar were to do it again, it would probably be just as fun and the exact thing that the game needs right now.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.