Content starved fans of the hit western adventure game Read Dead Redemption 2 are no strangers to waiting months on end for game updates. As recently as June 2020 online players rallied together adorning clown outfits and make up to mock RockStar developers for the lack of attention to the community. No one can be sure if that was the catalyst for what came after but Rockstar rolled out a massive update for the new Naturalist role to sated the masses. While it has been a breath of fresh “content”, taking into account Rockstars update timeline so far it could be months before the community see’s anything new. That is unless Rockstar is working on something, maybe a pandemic outbreak just in time for Halloween?

Mosey around the fantastic and breathtaking open world that is RDR2 long enough and you simply run out of things to do. So you usually find yourself in some quaint town somewhere hog tying the locals, photographing wildlife or causing trouble for law enforcement.This exact behavior led me to stumble on what could be Read Dead’s biggest update yet.

Fans of the original RDR can recall the nostalgic maps setting close to the Mexican border,the successor map being much larger actually encompasses the entire original area featuring some of the old favorites. Tumbleweed and Armadillo being two of the most prominent markers for the area. In the tiny desolate town of Armadillo players can probably recall the bleak absence of NPC’s or really anything in the area. Striving to complete a distance daily challenge I stopped in the town notating its usual Tim Burton cheer but what caught my eye was most of the towns people appeared gravely ill (sicker than usual for Armadillos residents). Some coughing as they seemed to struggle breathing, just getting up and walking around seemed painful, it’s important to mention that not all of the town exhibited these changes in behavior and appearance. You can see the dark depressions on the characters face and the absence of any color when compared to a regular NPC. The theory is that Armadillo is ground zero for a future update that will resemble the popular Undead Nightmare add for the first RDR. Not convinced, did I mention that  as you follow these poor souls around they respond with unique dialogue like, “ I wouldn’t get too close to me if I were you” the foreshadowing if essentially overflowing.

You can argue that the whole area of Armadillo is surrounded in legend and cursed by a prominent character from the first title, the “Strange Man”. What you can’t argue with is residents lying on benches wearing face masks, the detailed in-game weather effects are well known but to this date I’ve never come across an NPC using a banana in rain or snow. Again it could simply be a symptom of an upcoming dust storm but plague seems logical if not more exciting. What is most interesting is the graves around Armadillo seem to now be littered with diseased and deformed bodies. One of the take away pieces of evidence is featured below, deformed corpses that seem actually give an option to pick up and de spawn after being shot in the head.Before taking the screenshot I did get a little trigger happy and decided to shoot most of the corpses in the head this confirmed they are not just deco.

 Will this be another un dead outbreak, a pandemic that sweeps through the map crippling players stats, are these the ramblings of a conspiracy gamer who hasn’t seen the light of day in few days, that’s rhetorical don’t answer go ahead and leave your thoughts theories and comments  below.