Rockstar did a pretty good job of keeping RDR2 a secret during development, even thought everyone knew it was more or less inevitable. They’re not a studio that’s known for rushing out an inferior product, and they do a good job of controlling when information about their games gets publicized… most of the time.
Retailers generally have a good idea when they can expect a new product, and sometimes wires get crossed. A British online store named Littlewoods recently added Red Dead Redemption 2 to their site as a pre-order, but inadvertently included an actual release date.
According to Littlewoods, if you pre-order Red Dead Redemption 2, you’ll have it set for delivery on October 2nd, a monday (Interestingly enough, not a Tuesday, as is often standard for game releases.) This could very well be a placeholder, but it’s an oddly specific date. It’s not unusual to see other sites have “December 31” as a release date for a TBD game. Could retailers have received advance notice about the release date to prepare themselves, but Littlewoods have not gotten the memo that they weren’t supposed to include the release date yet?
They’re a large store that sell a variety of items, definitely not focused on gaming, so it’s possible that whoever adds new items to their online store accidentally included some information that shouldn’t have been included.
So, why is this date gaining traction? Because all we really know about RDR2’s release date so far is “Fall 2017”, so it’s a fit. People have been pre-ordering the game in big numbers. Even if you just know in your heart of hearts that a game is going to be amazing, and it’s from your favorite developer, why pre-order? You’re always going to be able to get a copy, and pre-ordering is a vote with your wallet for games to be rushed out when they’re not quite ready.
Here’s how the internet has been reacting to this leaked release date for RDR2:
“Honestly the time frame is off. I was leaning more towards a late september releases myself, Rockstar generally keeps to a pattern for release dates. It would be weird to release a huge title like this before E3 in June.” – Dustin from Facebook
“Everyone knows the first release date is always changed with these bigger games” – Chad from Facebook.
“Still not on pc though” – Elias from Facebook.
There were some secrets in the trailer. Did you catch them?
