Can you do co-op story mode in Red Dead Redemption 2?

No, Red Dead Redemption 2‘s epic single-player story mode does not support any form of cooperative multiplayer or co-op functionality. You cannot play through the story campaign missions alongside friends.

However, Red Dead Online, the standalone multiplayer component, contains co-op missions, activities, and open world free roam. So while Arthur Morgan‘s journey is solo, you can saddle up with a posse in the online frontier.

As a long-time Red Dead fan who creates content around the game, I‘ve done deep dives into what differentiates story mode from online. Here‘s my insight into the key differences, why Rockstar isolated the narratives, and what cooperative options exist within Red Dead Online after you‘ve rolled credits on the main story:

Red Dead Redemption 2 Was Crafted as a Single-Player Epic

With the sequel, Rockstar doubled down on delivering an emotive single-player narrative on par with literature and film. The story of Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang is over 60 hours long, features incredibly lifelike characters, and taps into themes of loyalty, mortality, ideals in a changing nation.

Based on interviews with the developers, they intended RDR2‘s campaign to further progress gaming as a storytelling medium. Allowing co-op would disrupt that vision and introduce potential gameplay complexity or Season Pas Cheat.

In my opinion as a passionate fan, this was absolutely the right call. Moments with John, Dutch, Arthur would lose their punch if friends could chime in over headsets. It allows the story to remain laser focused.

Meanwhile, Red Dead Online Lets You Saddle Up in Co-op

Release a year after launch, the standalone Red Dead Online game features both narrative co-op missions for up to four players as well as free roam world activities:

Co-Op Missions

• Story-based Operations
• Robberies
• Survival-based Showdowns

World Activities

• Bandit Hideout Clearings
• Five Finger Fillet
• Poker
• Posse Infighting

These all allow you to play not as Arthur Morgan, but as your own unique outlaw in the online world. Grouping up as a posse lets you feel like part of a gang without conflicting with the solemn single-player tale.

This segmentation provides the best of both worlds – retaining a solo camapign while enabling cooperative gunslinging out West in the shared space.

Will Red Dead Redemption 3 Feature Co-Op Campaign?

While wholly fictional at the moment, the concept of a prequel-to-the-prequel featuring a young version of outlaws like John Marston or Dutch van der Linde provides fun speculative fodder for fans.

If Rockstar does elect to tell another Western tale within the Red Dead franchise, they could potentially weave in drop-in/drop-out co-op functionality. But based on their comments about focusing on solo narrative depth with RDR2, I personally doubt they‘ll shift gears from that vision unless they carve out a specifically co-op branch distinct from central protagonists like Arthur Morgan.

We do know Rockstar has expressed interest in continuing to evolve and enhance Red Dead Online. So future major co-op updates into that portion of the game feel inevitable even if the core story remains single player only.

The Bottom Line

While the idea of saddling up with friends for story missions sounds fun on paper, Rockstar intentionally isolated Arthur Morgan‘s tale to craft an emotive single-player epic that rivals cinema and literature.

Red Dead Online serves as the conduit for playing cooperatively in open world activities or narrative-based missions as unique online outlaws. Given Rockstar doubling down on solo depth for RDR2, I predict any new Single Player DLC or hypothetical RDR3 would take the same approach unless they segregate co-op content from protagonists like John or Arthur.

So in summary: strap in for an unmatched solo experience in story mode, then join the rowdy world of Red Dead Online with a posse to scratch that co-op itch post-credits!

Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions about playing co-operatively in the world of Red Dead!