Rockstar, like many companies, is currently faced with figuring out the best way to make sure people continue to buy the games it developed for the current generation with a new generation of consoles just around the corner. Not only that, but a lack of Red Dead Online updates has left some players frustrated waiting for new content for Red Dead Redemption 2.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most financially successful and critically acclaimed games of this generation. With a Red Dead Redemption remaster possible and a next-gen port of RDR2 likely, Rockstar is clearly interested in preserving the legacy of its western franchise. To perfect that legacy, however, there is one clear add-on Rockstar needs to develop and make available in time for the PS5 and Xbox Series X: Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare 2.
The Original Undead Nightmare
The original Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare was one of the best DLCs ever released for the PS3 or Xbox 360. It grew from the developers’ desire to make a zombie game on a similar world scale to its Grand Theft Auto games but took a turn when the team became interested in developing a horror story for Red Dead’s western setting instead as a unique stage for an apocalyptic showdown.
The game flipped the world of Red Dead Redemption on its head in an alternate timeline that allowed Rockstar to indulge in some of the most entertaining moments in the franchise. “Jack, be kind to your mother. Abigail, teach the boy right from wrong. Both of you, stop biting chunks out of people,” says John Marston, leaving his hog-tied zombified wife and son in the master bedroom while he sets out in search of a cure.
As well as fighting the zombie hordes, the add-on turned the game’s wolves, bears, and cougars into zombies, and included new monsters that could be hunted from unicorns to six separate Sasquatches among other supernatural creatures in Red Dead. John could also use the four horses of the apocalypse as steeds, all with different special abilities, a feature many fans would love to see return in some special Red Dead Online events.
Characters from the game’s main story appeared in the Undead Nightmare timeline as well. Skittish professor Harold MacDougal returns from Yale to have a brief meltdown in one scene before an infected Nastas satisfyingly dispatches him. Although the add-on was silly, the developer clearly had a deep genuine interest in zombie horror and knows how to play it with a straight face at times. The game also pokes fun at some of the absurd tropes of both the horror and western genres, with John eventually discovering the source of the plague to be an ancient Aztec mask, which is comically stolen again at the end of the game.
It wasn’t just fun and games, however. When players finished hunting all six Sasquatches in Undead Nightmare, the final one would scold them for their cruelty, and leave the player with the choice of killing them or sparing their life and letting them live in misery as the last of their kind. It’s a bizarre and thought-provoking side mission that wouldn’t have fit in anywhere else in the game, or quite possibly any other game for that matter.
Undead Nightmare’s Legacy
Rockstar Games could go a lot of different ways with a sequel to Undead Nightmare. In the original’s epilogue, John arises from his grave as a revenant, a zombie with a man’s soul, because he was buried with holy water. It seems unlikely, therefore, that a sequel would continue from the events of Undead Nightmare directly, since it already established that the events of the original game, including John’s death, take place in a relatively similar way after the zombies are cured.
The developer could repeat the essential premise in another alternate timeline with Arthur in John’s place, but ultimately, whether Undead Nightmare 2 is really about zombies isn’t the point. Undead Nightmare’s real legacy is that is changed the scale of what fans expected from downloadable content. The add-on is one of the few in existence that many people would want a sequel for in and of itself. The fact that it was entirely non-canonical only allowed Rockstar to flex its creative muscles and create a game that felt at times genuinely tense while infused with a sense of humor.
Rockstar should develop a spiritual successor to Undead Nightmare using a Red Dead Redemption 2 port as its foundation, and should once again take the opportunity to explore a smaller idea the team is interested in that doesn’t warrant a full game, or that the developer otherwise wouldn’t have the resources for. It could combine genres in any number of ways, including another take from the horror genre. It would make sense - after all, there are already vampires lurking the streets of Saint Denis for players looking carefully enough, and mysterious lights appearing in the skies at night.
To see one of the biggest game developers in the world get a lower stakes chance to explore a passion project is a unique opportunity, and one which has yielded great results for Rockstar in the past. The success of Red Dead 2 already ensures the likely success of any big DLC released for the game, which could further encourage the developer to experiment and take the sort of risks that fans haven’t seen from them for a while, leading some to already add zombies to Red Dead 2 with mods.
Rockstar used to be famous for its DLC, with Grand Theft Auto 4 released two major add-ons, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. The developer needs to remind fans what will continue to make it stand out in the next generation, and considering that there’s already an Undead Nightmare Easter egg in Red Dead 2, some players are hoping they won’t have long to wait.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.