Red Dead Online: latest news, updates and multiplayer features

(Image credit: Rockstar Games)

Red Dead Online is officially out of beta testing and is beginning to earn its stripe as a fully-fledged online game. But with such a massive open-world to explore in Red Dead Redemption 2's single-player story, why should you be excited about the game's online mode?

Rockstar's open-world Western game, a prequel to 2010's Red Dead Redemption, was released to wide critical acclaim last year and was all anyone could talk about for months on end. 

While you might have expected an online mode to be live from the game's successful launch, it makes sense that Rockstar wants you to focus on the main story – and boy is there a lot of it – before waltzing into a less narrative-driven multiplayer experience in Red Dead Online

Rockstar has proved itself at converting a massively single-player game into a lively online experience, as shown in the launch of GTA Online in 2013, which has become almost as massive a phenomenon as the mainline GTA V game it spun off from.