Make the Wild West Just a Little More Tame

Red Dead Redemption 2 has been out in the wild for a minute now (WOW! what a story), and a little bit ago we finally got to hop into Rockstar's western with our friends in Red Dead Online.

To call RDR2 a monumental achievement in game development would be an understatement. Almost every aspect of the game is pushing the envelope, but one place where the game (and most rockstar games) falls short is how the game controls. The shooting and horse riding are a little better, but Rockstar hasn't really done anything to revamp the same mechanics that they introduced in the first Red Dead. Not to mention the cover system is completely broken. Like worse that GTA 5 broken.

Playing through the single player experience is bearable with the default controls enabled. Mainly because the time to kill NPCs is way smaller. Since the game isn't in real-time, you can slow down time when going through menus or using Dead Eye. Which provides ample time to swap items or paint targets. But in online, you don't have those options.

So you're left with a 3rd person shooter in an amazing, expansive open world with a terrible cover system. At their best the controls help you pull off some seriously impressive shots, and at their worst they feel like your character is traveling through water.

As control junkies, some even call us control freaks (😏), we wanted to hop into the settings in Red Dead Online and see if we couldn't take the shooting and aiming mechanics out of the stone ages. After making some adjustments and practicing around a little bit, we were able to put together this definitive guide to mastering Red Dead Online's controls so that you can keep the opposite from happening.

So here are what we're calling the "True Gunslinger" settings for no reason other than the fact that we like coming up with badass names for things. Is that so bad?

Mastering Dead Eye in Online

Dead eye in RDR Online is slightly different. It's mechanically impossible to slow down time in a real-time multiplayer game, so that aspect of the ability is gone. This may seem like a subtle change, but it really does make you rethink your strategy. So we've also come up with a few more tips to help with your online dead eye abilities.

Paint it Black

The Paint It Black perk card is almost immediately available after you boot up Red Dead Online, and it is a must-have. It unlocks the ability to manually paint targets in Dead Eye; which as you probably already know is a very useful skill.

Practice on Wild Game

The online version of Red Dead 2's open world is still littered with animals. So every time you jump into a free roam match just take a few minutes to warm up with some target practice on a couple furry friends. They're all virtual so no need to feel guilty!

Master the "Quick Flick"

We're sure that you already do this move, but we're also the ones who finally gave it a name.

Red Dead's auto-aim is very snappy. Presumably to make up for the slow aim mechanics. The quick flick involves slightly pushing up on the right stick to move the reticle towards the head. This should all happen in about 1 second. Headshots are always guaranteed one shot kills, and if you really want to rule Red Dead Online, then you have to master this skill.

Like what you read? Awesome! Make sure to leave a comment telling us what you'd like to see next. Or if commenting isn't your thing, hop into dead eye and paint a target on some of those share buttons!