We all know how active and creative the modding community can be, particularly Grand Theft Auto 5‘s modding community.
We’ve seen the likes of Vice City being modded into the game, as we have GTA IV‘s Liberty City, while graphical mods continue to make an already fantastic-looking game even better.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing and anticipated mods for the game was that of a Red Dead Redemption mod being made by the dot white team.
Called Red Dead Redemption V, it was to bring the full map from the open-world classic into GTA 5, alongside some “additional content”.
The framework was there and it appeared ready to be unleashed as recently as last month, with the mod team “constantly fine tuning” the map.
At the time, the team thought their biggest challenge was bringing over RDR‘s version of the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) into a more advanced GTA V.
As it turns out, however, they were to face far bigger challenges in bringing their vision to the GTA 5 faithful.
Unfortunately, despite the mod looking promising and being deep into development, Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two, has asked that the content be taken down.
“I know this is hard pill to swallow, but as you may have noticed we did get contacted, and we sadly have to say we are stopping this project,” the mod team said. “So thanks guys, but it isn’t going to happen, sorry.”
It’s clear why Take-Two has opted to take this mod down, but not the many other mods that are based on past Rockstar games, like the ones listed above.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is said to be destined for a late 2017 release, and Red Dead Redemption V was also looking at a release at that time.
While it’s a “hard pill to swallow”, as the dot white team says, it’s understandable that Take-Two would act this way with this specific mod. Mods are rarely if ever taken down by the publisher for Rockstar titles, and the community remains active and thriving.
It’s been six years since the release of the first Redemption entry, which of course was a kind-of continuation of the original game, Red Dead Revolver, from 2004.
Redemption was a critical and commercial success, and eventually saw support on Xbox One’s backwards compatibility service in 2016.
Many assumed it was a hint from Rockstar that a new Red Dead was on the way, or perhaps a remake/remaster of Redemption. Thankfully, it’s a new game, and hopefully it’s just as good if not better than the original.
Rockstar says the game is slated for a Fall 2017 release date. For Australia, that’s Spring 2017, so a year from now.
Whether or not the game actually hits that release date is another matter: Rockstar is not one to hit its initial release windows, so be prepared for a delay into 2018.
There are murmurs that Red Dead Redemption 2 will be set to the “east” of the original game. The first entry was set around virtual interpretations of California, Mexico (called Nuevo Paraíso), and spread towards the east coast. Keeping with its Wild West setting, it appears likely to offer a similar setting, but of course much bigger than what the original game world was.
