

But in Red Dead Online the world doesn't just feel alive: it is alive. In singleplayer, Red Dead's world feels wonderfully alive, with random events, the ability to interact with any NPC, and all manner of impressive reactivity. And, of course, no zombies to worry about. A big, beautiful world populated by real people who are interacting with each other and creating stories. The feeling of being in a lawless place where encountering a stranger on a dark road at night feels dangerous. And while Red Dead Online is a wildly different game, its Free Roam mode captures the anarchic spirit of DayZ's glory days. It was a fascinating social experiment and a terrifying glimpse at how people would behave if the world ever became a post-apocalyptic wasteland. These things happened to me more than once. Or, in the standalone version, handcuffed you and fed you a rotten banana so you got food poisoning and died. Well, at least until they shot you in the back and stole your beans. It might just be a passer-by helpfully warning you about bandits up the road, or someone you actually end up hanging out with, looting towns and military bases together. But there were friendly players out there in that bleak post-Soviet wilderness too.
