I managed to procure a gaming PC earlier this year, and instead of exploring the massive library of PC-only titles that is now open to me, I’ve mostly just been using it to play a second character in Red Dead Online.
The thing about the PC version of Red Dead Online is that Rockstar doesn’t seem all that interested in keeping hackers in line. So you’ll be riding along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden something really bizarre will occur. For example, a carriage might drop out of the sky on top of you, or all the players on the server will be drawn into a tornado-like vortex of wagons and terrified horses.
One of the stranger things I’ve seen is a hot air balloon randomly parked outside of Tumbleweed. I don’t know why someone decided to place a hot air balloon in the middle of the desert, but they did, and I stumbled across it while hunting pronghorn and lizards to keep my trading business stocked with animal parts.
More recently, I was ambling around Rhodes — which is pretty far from Tumbleweed — when I came upon another hot air balloon… or the same one — who knows? There’s a part of me that likes to imagine there’s a balloon traveler roaming around the Wild West, taking in the sites and having all sorts of adventures.
I decided to walk closer to investigate, and that’s when things started getting really weird. All of a sudden, the residents of Rhodes were screaming and running for their lives. As it turns out, there was a player with a maxim gun set up near the butcher’s stall, indiscriminately mowing down passersby.
Allegedly, there was a point at which hackers were spawning treasure chests into the world of Red Dead Online, and there were players who would open them and then find their accounts banned by Rockstar. So when you see objects that aren’t supposed to be there, it’s not a bad idea to mosey on out of there.
I made my way to the post office, because that’s where the fast travel post is, careful to wind my way around the railroad side of the building (where the lunatic on the maxim gun couldn’t spot me). I peered around the corner and I thought I had an opening, so I made a quick dash toward the fast travel post. Suddenly, out of freaking nowhere, a cougar jumped me. Game over.
There are folks for whom this curious turn of events might be seen as a sign from on high. Mayhap it’s time to leave the Wild West behind for a while, maybe play something else. I’m not one of those folks.
I respawned, immediately making a second dash for the fast travel post. I had a close encounter with another cougar (or maybe the same one), but I made it this time. And once you have the fast travel menu open, you are unable to be killed. I sat there for a moment, menu open, laughing at the bullets whizzing by my head and the cougar nipping at my heels.
And then I fast traveled out to Tumbleweed to hunt more pronghorn and more lizards, because what else was I going to do after such a sequence of events?
