With the immense popularity that Red Dead Redemption 2 has gotten ever since it was released it's not a surprising idea to say a 3rd installment might be in the works at Rockstar. So that leaves my question; What would you want Red Dead Redemption 3 to be about? Here are some of my ideas:
1 - A sequel to the first game that follows Jack Marston after he kills Edgar Ross. We don't really have any conclusion on how Jack spent his life after avenging his parents, so that leaves open many possibilities for how his life after 1914 would go. I think it would be interesting to see Jack become a Dutch-like figure and start his own gang similar to the one he was born into, consisting of mainly orphans and other misfits. However, I don't think this plot would really work as the Wild West era was just about done by 1914, and as I haven't played the first game yet, I don't know if it would fit with Jack's character at the end of RDR1
I think it would also be cool to see a plot where Jack goes to fight in World War I and use his skills in the war, like a combination of the Red Dead and Call of Duty series. However as this series is mainly in the Western genre, a war videogame in the series might not be too favorable with what the series' audiences want.
2 - A prequel to RDR2 where you play as either Dutch or Hosea that's about the Van Der Linde Gang's origins, where Hosea and Dutch meet each other, take in Arthur and John and recruit all the other characters we know like Bill, Javier, etc. This premise could also be good to expand on things mentioned in RDR2 like Hosea's wife and Dutch's lover Annabelle. It could also explain as to why Dutch has the ideologies that he does, and maybe even the origins of Dutch's and Colm O'Driscoll's relationship. However I don't think Hosea would be a great playable character as he's not as "cowboyish" as John and Arthur are, and I think Dutch works better as an antagonist that a playable protagonist.
3 - For my final and most most preferred idea: A more direct prequel to Red Dead Redemption 2 that goes from the mid to late 1890's up to the Blackwater Massacre. There have been some ideas I've seen floating around about Mac Callandar being the main protagonist of RDR3. From what we hear of Mac, he doesn't really seem like a good main character as he was always described as rough and rowdy. However a dialogue from Bill in RDR2 that he was "A heartless son of a bitch, but he had a heart" suggesting there could have been another side to him that the rest of the gang never knew about. Mac would also be a good choice for main character since we don't know much about him and don't even know what he looked like, leaving it good and open for the story and players customization of him.
Mac having his brother Davey in the gang also could have a good dynamic, possibly starting out on good terms with his brother but philosophically drifting apart just like the whole gang eventually did in Redemption 2. We don't know too much about Davey either which also leaves his character open for possibilities too. Having a game set close before the events of RDR2 could also expand upon people and events hinted at in that game, such as the character of Jenny and the one gang member that Dutch had to kill for betraying them, as well as events mentioned, like John leaving the gang and his family for a year, or the trouble Mac caused in a town incident that Hosea mentions.
I also like the idea of having Mac's fate being determined by the players honor, just like Arthur's in RDR2. For instance, if he has high honor, the reason for Mac staying behind and getting captured in Blackwater could be to distract the Pinkertons and save the rest of the gang, or if the player has low honor Mac abandons the gang to steal the Blackwater money for himself and gets captured and killed by the Pinkertons in the process.
If done correctly in the theoretical 3rd game, The Blackwater Massacre, Davey's death, and the eventual revelation of Mac's death could have a deeper emotional level in Redemption 2 as we would have known more about them.
If you made it this far into this post, thanks for reading through all my ramblings. What I want to know is what are your ideas for the story of Red Dead Redemption 3? What do you think of mine? Or do you think Rockstar should leave well enough alone and not release a third installment? I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Thanx!
