Red Dead Redemption 2 finally allowed some of its players to try the beta version of their online modes this week, and if you’ve tried GTA Online then you probably know exactly what it is.  Admittedly, I haven’t had a lot of time to play much of the online stuff, but from the hour or so that I’ve put in, it’s basically GTA Online with horses.  Although that might be a little harsh.

You start out by creating a character that looks vaguely human.  The customization options are pretty good, giving you a sizeable amount of choices to make a unique looking character.  As you can see below, I’ve created some sort of Wild West Luigi thanks to that powerful mustache of his.

What happened next had me wishing that this wasn’t an online mode, but just another campaign for me to play through.  My character was an inmate at the Sisika Prison, and today he was selected for a work detail out in the desert.  Big surprise, a mysterious benefactor has hired some men to bust him out of prison so he could help solve a murder or something.  I might have not been paying the best attention.

From here I did some missions that involved me finding some people, shooting them, finding some treasure, keeping it, and stealing some horses with some random folks I was matched up with.  It all worked surprisingly well and matchmaking was pretty painless.  It wasn’t until the end of that horse theft mission though, that I was greeted with the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a game.  I had to buy Horse Insurance for my horse.  I laughed about that for a while and eventually turned the game off.

I’ve heard that progress might not carry over to the full release of the online mode, which isn’t really shocking, but considering I was already tepid on the online to begin with, this makes me wonder if I’ll put anymore real time into it.  RDR2 Online seems super interesting, but familiar.  I really hope it isn’t just GTA Online in The West, but I’m getting the feeling that it is.  I would prefer a more cooperative, laid back online mode personally, and hopefully I’ll get that should I continue with it.