Why I Think Red Dead Redemption 3 Already Exists Inside Rockstar

Red Dead Redemption 3 may already exist in some form. I am convinced it already exists, and I am convinced Rockstar is working on it right now without saying a word. I know that sounds like pure speculation until you remember what happened with Grand Theft Auto 6. Just weeks after Grand Theft Auto 5 launched in 2013, former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies said the studio already had ideas for Grand Theft Auto 6.

That does not mean hundreds of developers immediately abandoned Grand Theft Auto 5 and started building Vice City, but it proves Rockstar begins thinking about its next massive game before the current one has even finished printing money. Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018, so it has now been almost eight years. If Rockstar was already discussing Grand Theft Auto 6 ideas immediately after Grand Theft Auto 5, which they confirmed by saying they started work on it in 2013, are we supposed to believe nobody inside the company has spent the last eight years thinking about Red Dead Redemption 3?

What Rockstar has actually confirmed about Red Dead Redemption 3

I want to be clear before anybody runs off saying Rockstar officially announced Red Dead Redemption 3. They did not. Rockstar has not confirmed the title, the setting, the protagonist, or a release date. There is no official logo, no trailer, no secret countdown. This is my own theory, not a confirmed report.

But Take-Two has called Red Dead a permanent franchise, and Red Dead Redemption 2 sold an absurd number of copies. This is not some abandoned cult series that Rockstar might revisit if the stars align, the way Bully has lingered. Red Dead is the most valuable franchise in gaming aside from Grand Theft Auto. The real question, in my view, is not whether Rockstar wants another one. It is when it is coming and what it is going to be.

How Grand Theft Auto 6's scale points to a small team already building Red Dead Redemption 3's foundation

Rockstar does not develop games like a normal studio anymore. Grand Theft Auto 6 has become a monster that seemingly absorbed the entire company. Every Rockstar studio is contributing, the game has been built across multiple console generations, and from what we have seen, it looks less like another open world game and more like an attempt to simulate an entire state.

But large games begin with small teams. For full production, somebody has to decide what the game is. Writers develop characters, artists establish the world, designers explore the mechanics, and research teams study the historical period, locations, clothing, weapons, and architecture. A small group could spend years creating that foundation while the majority of Rockstar finishes Grand Theft Auto 6.

That, in my view, is where Red Dead Redemption 3 sits right now. It is not in full production, and we are not looking at a complete map with forty finished missions, but it is not sitting idle either. I would be shocked if there are not story documents, concept art, and several possible versions of what the next Red Dead game will be floating around somewhere inside Rockstar, because they have one enormous decision to make: where in the timeline do they go next.

Why moving the timeline forward from Red Dead Redemption 2 creates a problem

Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899 with its epilogue in 1907. The original Red Dead Redemption begins in 1911, and by the time Jack Marston's story concludes in 1914, the traditional Wild West is dead. We could follow Jack after he kills Edgar Ross, but that pushes toward World War One, automobiles, machine guns, and a much more modern America.

That could be interesting, but at some point Red Dead stops feeling like a western and starts becoming early Grand Theft Auto with horses parked outside of cars. I do not know if that is the best direction.

Why I think going backward to the 1870s or early 1880s is the smarter move

The obvious move, to me, is to go backward. Red Dead Redemption 2 told us constantly that the age of outlaws was ending, that civilization was spreading, that the government was closing in, and that the gang no longer had anywhere to run. For the next game, show us the world before that. Take us back to 1870 or the early 1880s, when the frontier was wild, outlaw gangs had real power, and the law could not immediately send fifty Pinkertons into every county.

That would give Rockstar a much different world. Instead of watching the west die again, we get to experience it at its peak. Towns could begin as muddy collections of tents gradually becoming permanent settlements. Railroads could be constructed across the map while we play, connecting regions that were previously isolated, with native nations, settlers, ranchers, prospectors, and lawmen all fighting over land that does not yet have a clear owner.

The map could change over time in ways Red Dead Redemption 2 only hinted at. Imagine spending the first half of the story in a nearly untouched frontier, then returning months later to discover a railway cutting through the valley, forest being cleared, and a town growing where your gang once camped. You would physically watch civilization destroy the freedom your character depends on. That is Red Dead to me.

Whether Red Dead Redemption 3 should revisit the Van der Linde gang or start fresh

The biggest story question is whether Rockstar returns to the Van der Linde gang or starts over with completely new characters. A young Dutch story almost writes itself. We know they all met while trying to rob each other, we know they built the gang around a warped idea of freedom, loyalty, and family, we know they found Arthur when he was a teenager, and we know Dutch was not always the monster he eventually became. Showing young Dutch at his most charismatic would make his collapse even more tragic, beginning with him as a small-time criminal who genuinely believes he is fighting an unfair system, taking in Arthur, building the gang, and even falling in love with Annabelle amid the conflict with Colm O'Driscoll.

The problem is that we already know where that goes. We know Arthur survives, we know Dutch and the others survive, and we know the gang continues until the Blackwater disaster, which removes some of the danger from that story. Rockstar could solve that by giving us a brand new protagonist who helps create the gang but disappears before Red Dead Redemption 2, somebody Arthur once considered family, whose death or betrayal helped transform Dutch into the man we eventually meet. That would preserve the familiar characters while giving the story a mystery and an ending we do not already know.

Personally, I think the braver move is an entirely new cast. Give us a new outlaw in a different part of America during the height of the frontier, connect the story to the Van der Linde gang only through rumors, side missions, or maybe one major crossover, but do not build the entire game explaining every line of dialogue from Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead Redemption should be bigger than one family tree. That new protagonist could be a lawman who becomes an outlaw, a former gunslinger, or something else entirely. Whatever Rockstar chooses, the story has to remain personal, because Red Dead Redemption 2 worked because the world was enormous but the heart of it was Arthur realizing Dutch had lied to him his entire life.

How far the technology could push after everything Grand Theft Auto 6 is showing

Grand Theft Auto 6 is, in my opinion, insane. The detail, the density, the crowds, the animations, all of it is wild, and I do not even know where to go with it beyond saying the stuff we are seeing is phenomenal. So imagine where Rockstar could be by the time Red Dead Redemption 3 arrives. I would not even know where to start. It is going to evolve to the point of being pretty much real.

My realistic guess for when Red Dead Redemption 3 could actually launch

Grand Theft Auto 6 is Rockstar's focus. Once it launches in a couple of months, Rockstar is going to spend years supporting Grand Theft Auto Online, probably a decade, fixing problems and producing updates. So if Red Dead Redemption 3 enters full production only after Grand Theft Auto 6, we are not playing that game until probably 2030, and that is being very optimistic. More realistically, I would guess 2031 or 2032, maybe more likely 2033 to 2035.

I know that sounds extreme, but we already waited thirteen years between Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto 6. Red Dead Redemption 2 took years to build with Rockstar's global studios working together, and a next generation Red Dead Redemption 3 designed to surpass both Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 6 is probably a decade long project. There is also a possibility Rockstar alternates differently, jumping to a new intellectual property, reviving Bully, or concentrating on Grand Theft Auto Online instead of immediately building another Red Dead. I hope not. I want Bully revived, but I also want Red Dead Redemption 3.

So yes, I am super confident a small team is already working on Red Dead Redemption 3 in some capacity. Are we going to see a trailer this year or next year? Absolutely not, and probably not for a long time. That does not mean Rockstar is not working on it.

Do you want the origin story of Dutch and Arthur, a sequel following Jack, or an entirely new cast at the height of the Wild West?