Red Dead Online has been updated with a new role, after a long period of silence from Rockstar Games. This should be a moment of great joy, and some players are having fun with the new naturalist role. But there is a downside that no one expected: this patch has turned the western border into an idyllic place to ride a pretty horse in a murder zone where cougars and bears will find and destroy you quickly.
A pain point in Red Dead Online for the past year was animal spawns. The desert is meant to be filled with deer, elk, bear, fox, beaver, and other animals that the player can hunt and skin. This is one of the main game loops, and an important part of the merchant profession. Hunting animals is also a good way for the player to get an orderly profit. But despite all these benefits, the game often failed and generated far fewer animals than necessary. It would be common to summon the merchant’s hunting chariot and then walk unsuccessfully, desperately searching for any kind of prey.
But the new naturalistic role is highly dependent on animals, so once again they are generating in abundant quantities. The naturalist has two quest seekers: the killer hunter Gus and the kind-hearted scientist Harriet. Players have to track, reassure, and study animals for Harriet, or kill them and bring their skins to Gus.
On the first day of the update, as soon as they jumped into the world, players sniped merry deer and hunted moose, picking up three-star skins to sell or trade. But the solution also means that there are also more cougars and bears roaming around, and that they will absolutely destroy you the moment you leave Armadillo or head to Tall Trees.
“I definitely noticed it and it’s really scary,” says Alex, a player I spoke to through a Red Dead Online Discord community. “I was jumped by a cougar near Tumbleweed and I screamed during one of my girlfriend’s Zoom meetings, so I’m in the doghouse.”
If you manage to kill the animals first, it is not always for your benefit. Harriet, one of the missionaries, has sound principles. She reacts to the player’s actions; For example, if they wear legendary skins near her, she makes sarcastic comments about the player’s moral character, given her willingness to skin innocent animals and make them fashionable.
Harriet got mad because we were writing animals in rdo. WE HAVE A MERCHANT TO FILL WTF DO YOU THINK YOU WERE TO DO? I’m going to go work for GUS
– Justin platinumed part 2 (@tIoulev) July 29, 2020
Harriet also seems to have a sixth sense about animal murder. If the player has recently killed an animal, Harriet sprays it on the face with drugs. I’m not even sure how she knows what I’ve been up to, though she does vaguely allude sometimes to “spread the word quickly in the woods.”
To make his strange aggression worse, he not only attacks you by animals that are killed and skinned by Gus; is apparently any animal for any reason. She doesn’t care if you have to fend off a pack of wolves in self-defense, if a rodent jumped in front of your car, or if you just killed that cougar so they wouldn’t rip your face off! She is furious despite everything.
In no time, it’s easy for an average Red Dead Online cowboy to feel like Sideshow Bob stepping on an endless field of rakes. Except instead of rakes, they are giant killer cats.
Perhaps not surprisingly, for many Red Dead Online players, peace no longer feels like an option. The process involved of reassuring and carefully studying an animal is not easy in these early days, if a player can fly the creature and eventually win an elephant gun for its troubles. So far, the update is chaotic, and doesn’t necessarily fuel the fantasy of being an outlaw … but that’s because the cowboys are too busy fending off killer animals, or an angry Harriet and her tear gas.
