Red Dead Redemption 2 and its Red Dead Online sister mode are suddenly back to life. As Rockstar shifts its focus onto GTA 6, the studio has just confirmed that several new Telegram missions are on the way for RDO. The Strange Tales of the West Volume One update also marks a spiritual return for Undead Nightmare, as zombies (or at least something very close) arrive in RDR 2 for the first time.

Back in 2022, Rockstar made it clear it was moving on from Red Dead Redemption 2. The studio said it had “been steadily moving more development resources towards the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series,” as the team began properly working towards the GTA 6 release date. But it turns out that Red Dead Online is not, well, red dead after all.

Strange Tales of the West Volume One has just gone live and it introduces four new Telegram missions, each offering double and triple cash and XP rewards. ‘Strange Tales of the Plague’ is the headliner, for sure. A bizarre infection has spread among the people of Armadillo and your job is to recover a handful of corpses for scientific evaluation. That sounds simple enough, but a local cult is on the rise, and some of them seem to have caught the plague themselves, turning them into…if not zombies, then something pretty darn close.

‘Strange Tales of Modern Science’ tasks you with tracking down and destroying a violent automaton that is stalking the grounds near Braithwaite Manor, while ‘Strange Tales of the Bayou’ sends you to Lagras to recover a mythical swamp creature.

Lastly, ‘Strange Tales of the Wilderness’ takes place in Tall Trees, where a cadre of survivalists having been preying upon foresters and settlers. All told, this feels like a return to the twisted, upside-down, Halloween-themed world of the original – and brilliant – Undead Nightmare DLC. You can play the new Red Dead Redemption 2 online missions right now.

If you fancy diving back into the Old West, make sure you check out all the Red Dead Redemption 2 cheats. We’ve also got all the best story games on PC, if you’re looking for even more to play.

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