Total War: Three Kingdoms has been a huge success for Sega and Creative Assembly, from both a sales and critical reception point of view. In fact, it may even have been bigger than originally thought. We got a look at the first ever weekly digital chart sales for the UK, and it paints a much different picture than its physical counterpoint– and Total War rules the roost.

GamesIndustry got a look at the first weekly digital UK chart, the GSD, and it puts Total War: Three Kingdoms on top, with Grand Theft Auto V in number 2. It’s a startlingly different picture than the physical sales chart. For instance, number 1 there at debut, Team Sonic Racing, didn’t even crack the top 10. According to GamesIndustry, it was number 13. It’s worth noting that the chart did not include statistics from Nintendo (along with Bethesda and Konami opting out), and that could help explain the huge disconnect without the Switch version.

Still, it is quite a difference between the two lists, but it just goes to show there’s still a pretty big difference between how people purchase games physically and digitally, and that discounts can play a big impact in digital charts, as seen by the presence of Cities: Skylines, Uno, and Monopoly Plus.

You can see the top ten for the week ending May 26th below.

1. Total War: Three Kingdoms
2. Grand Theft Auto V
3. Monopoly Plus
4. Minecraft
5. FIFA 19
6. Cities:Skylines
7. Red Dead Redemption 2
8. Uno
9. F1 2018
10. Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 is now available, having garnered numerous positive reviews from several publications. It’s also helped raise stocks for Take Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company. After closing at 9:19 AM (GMT-4) on October 26th, the company’s stock was $120.70 USD on NASDAQ. It opened at $117.26.

Though it doesn’t reach the company’s high of $138 – which it experienced last month – it’s still very good, especially following the controversy of Rockstar’s crunch. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser would clarify comments about crunch only being limited to senior writers on the project, himself included.

However, since then, more stories have come out regarding the studio’s mandatory and “encouraged” overtime periods, especially in Rockstar Lincoln, which is largely QA-centric. For now, the success of Red Dead Redemption 2 may make those months, if not years, of crunch seem worthwhile. But it remains to be seen how sustainable this model is, especially since companies like Ubisoft seem to be doing pretty well without it.

Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 is officially out tomorrow for Xbox One and PS4. As one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year (if not the past few), there’s a tons of expectations from the game. The embargo on reviews is now up. What did critics from different publications think about this open world epic?

GameSpot scored the game a 9 out of 10. “Red Dead Redemption 2 is an excellent prequel, but it’s also an emotional, thought-provoking story in its own right, and it’s a world that is hard to leave when it’s done.” A few quibbles mentioned in their review include some systems being frustrating, along with predictable mission structure. Otherwise, the game’s story, characters, writing, and structure have been highly praised.

IGN gave the game a 10 out 10, saying, “This is a game of rare quality; a meticulously polished open world ode to the outlaw era. Looking for one of this generation’s very best single-player action experiences? Here’s your huckleberry.” Every aspect of the game, from the visuals and story-telling to the overall world-building, has been praised in their review.

Game Informer gave it a straight 100, stating, “Rockstar Games has outdone itself again with Red Dead Redemption II. The up-close portrayal of the outlaw Van der Linde gang’s unraveling is a compelling companion story that blends seamlessly with the original game, and depth and breadth of the open world is a technical triumph that every gamer should experience.”

The game’s Metacritic score is currently 97 out of 100 based on reviews from 77 publications. Overall, this is pretty much par for the course for what most of us expected, and the development team should be very happy with their efforts. Red Dead Redemption 2 arrives on October 26th. Our own review will be going live soon, so stay tuned.

There are few games that have been getting as much buzz this fall as Red Dead Redemption 2. That’s true despite the fact that the game isn’t going to be coming out until next fall. The people who might be most excited about the game are people who are very devoted to Rockstar Games, and most of those devoted players are playing GTA 5 while they wait for the new open world western to arrive.

In order to show their love for the game, one YouTuber went out of his way to remake the reveal trailer of Red Dead Redemption 2 in the Grand Theft Auto 5 world. Youtube user Freddy Los Santos has done a rather good job of recreating the scenes we saw in that first trailer, with just a few rather obvious changes that bring the wild west, to the modern era.

Not only did he release the recreation, but he also released a video showing the original video alongside the recreation. Check out both below.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Red Dead Redemption 2 was unofficially confirmed as being a project way back in 2012, though the development team certainly wasn’t willing to talk about any details. Back then, it’s likely the game was aimed at the PS3 and Xbox 360 rather than the Xbox One and PS4 solely. It wasn’t until June of 2016 that rumors of Red Dead Redemption 2 started to heat up, with talk of images from inside the game leaking just before E3.

The most talked about image had been stamped with Red Dead Redemption but was of a setting that was never seen in the 2010 game. The image came from the porfolio of a developer that had been working with Rockstar for quite a while and for that reason, it appeared the image was for real. Rockstar stayed silent on whether this image was indeed hinting of a new game until October of 2016 when they first teased the possibility of the title on the company’s official Twitter page.

Four days later, on October 20, 2016 Rockstar officially confirmed Red Dead Redemption 2 was in development and would arrive sometime in 2017. While the company has not said exactly when the game is going to be coming, they have said it will likely be released sometime in the fall of 2017. The company also confirmed this upcoming title will be a direct follow up and there will be an line multiplayer mode that is similar to Grand Theft Auto 5‘s GTA Online component.

While there hasn’t been a ton of details about how the game is going to shape up, as far as what the story is going to be, the development team has made comments about how they want the game to progress their efforts of a “truly living world” when it comes to open world games. The company also said they are only planning for the game to come to the Xbox One and PS4, that means no PC, Wii U or Nintendo Switch support is planned.

Alongside the announcement of the game, Rockstar did release a trailer which showed off what the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 would look like. The trailer shows off expansive valleys and prairies, as well as some kind of city setting where people can get into all kinds of trouble. While the entire video was shot using in-game footage, there wasn’t a clue as to what characters will specifcially be in the game. There was a voice over by one character fans of the series believe they have identified, but the only real action shown off is a very short clip of what looks to be a posse of horse riders dashing off after someone.

The company also announced a deal that will be bringing “select” online content to the PS4 version before it lands on the Xbox One version.

Story

Very little is known about the story in Red Dead Redemption 2. From the teaser image that was released, as well as the trailer, it appears there will be a group of heroes that will either be playable, or work in some kind of partnership with the main character. At this point, it isn’t yet known who the main character will be, though there has been speculation that Marsden from the previous game could once again be the central person.

Gameplay

While we don’t know a great deal about just what will be included in Red Dead Redemption 2, there are a few things people have been able to guess at thanks to the reveal trailer. There are also a few aspects Rockstar has specifically confirmed or can be easily assumed based on previous games the company has put out in recent years. There is going to be a single player campaign that can be played in an entirely linear way or there will be side missions, as is the case with most open world games.

Rockstar has also said there will be an online multiplayer mode that will be similar to what we have seen from them in GTA Online. The mechanics of notoriety have been rather constant in the company’s games over the last few years, with the previous Red Dead games having a kind of bounty put on players’ characters if they decide to go rogue and kill innocent people. Rockstar allows players to shoot and/ or kill whoever they want in the game, though the backlash from in game characters becomes more intense depending on just how much killing of innocent lives is done.

Characters

While none of the characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 have been officially revealed,  the poster showing the outlines of the characters has led to people on the Internet deducing the crew that appear to be at the center of this game. Marston,  Jack Swift,  Dutch van der Linde,  Dutch van der Linde, Bill Williamson, Landon Ricketts and Shadow Wolf are all characters from previous games in the series and they are all characters that many people have said they have been able to matchup to the shadowed, outlined characters that are shown in the promotional poster.

It’s worth pointing out that it’s possible none of those characters are going to be in Red Dead Redemption 2 and the poster is just a way for the creators to get people talking about the people they want in the game. Because we don’t yet know what kind of story we’re going to see in this game, its impossible to know what other NPCs might make an appearance.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.