It looks like the only bounty set in Red Dead Online‘s new update is on your wallet. Rockstar has pushed some questionable changes with the new Bounty Hunter update, and the dwindling community of RDO is in an uproar.
By far the most triggering change is the change to the Outlaw Pass, which is essentially a season pass, with cosmetics and gear. Many games allow you to purchase the next battle pass with acquired currency during leveling up, something previous RDO Outlaw Passes did offer.
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Not any more. The new Outlaw Pass costs 40 gold bars (the typically mobile-game-sounding in-game currency of RDO) and you will only get 30 back by completing the pass. To put it in perspective, 40 gold bars is around $15.
And that is only the beginning of the microtransaction nonsense in Red Dead Online.
Red Dead Online: Bounty Hunters
Track down new bounty targets and bring them in dead or alive to unlock new high-level items, special skills, new weapon variants and more across 10 prestigious new ranks.
Now available: https://t.co/u5hGV67k0Z pic.twitter.com/dLD8RIbgN6
— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) December 1, 2020
Have you invested yourself in a favorite role? Were you looking forward to playing the new Bounty Hunter role in RDO? Turns out you’ll need to pay 15 Gold Bars for the second part of the role.
That’s 15 Gold Bars for 10 new ranks, even if you already own the Bounty Hunter license.
Oh, if you wanted to earn that currency a little quicker by grinding the game, you’re in luck – wait, nevermind. Daily Quests have had their rewards nerfed significantly. You also have to wait 6 hours, instead of 1, to go on a new Legendary Bounty mission.
Those handy challenge streaks that made it easy to build up Gold Bars if you consistently played the game? They’re now reset every 28 days. That means if you’ve been grinding this game for any period of time it’s going to start feeling a lot harder.
And this really tops off the MTX fiasco in Bounty Hunters: there’s a revolver variant available in the store for…21 Gold Bars. That costs more than the 10 extra ranks of play with the Bounty Hunter.
Overall, the Bounty Hunter update for Red Dead Online might just be the bullet in the spine of a game that has dwindled in popularity over the past two years. With lofty promises from Rockstar, it seems like the studio has pretty much ignored the game in favor of GTA V.
Players are annoyed, but for a failing multiplayer franchise, is it really surprising that Rockstar is trying to squeeze out any last money it can?