Red Dead Online's latest expansion will once again make you wish it was singleplayer DLC

"Experience civilized crime in Frontier America!" Yes! "Robberies, shakedowns, and more new lawless activities!" YES! "In Red Dead Online: Blood Money!" Dagnabbit it.

OK, I'm being a little harsh. Blood Money is a fairly major (and free) update to Red Dead Online that's now live, and adds a bunch of new story missions to the multiplayer component of the game. Players work for the NPC Guido Martelli to amass a currency called Capitale in robberies, shakedowns and increasingly tough crime contracts that lead to 'Opportunities'—the expansion's showpiece events.

There are three 'Opportunities' to come for Blood Money but it launches with one. In this you'll be "in pursuit of the Covington Emerald, an ill-gotten heirloom coveted by black hats far and wide, being transported by rail on a heavily guarded train."

The expansion further adds a set of passes to earn cosmetics with, called The Quick Draw Club, each of which costs 25 gold bars but will ultimately reward the same if completed.

The press release also includes this promotional image of a horse that looks like it should be advertising eau de cologne.

Red Dead Online's Blood Money expansion. — (Image credit: Rockstar Games.)

Finally, the update will add Nvidia DLSS support for anyone with the appropriate graphics cards. Here's what our hardware bods make of that.

It is kind of sad that Rockstar just doesn't 'do' singleplayer DLC any more. We're a far cry from the days when the studio released GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas over an incredible three years, and the insane production values that Rockstar's games are now known for means the gaps between each of their titles is bigger than ever. When it's done singleplayer DLC in the past, it's been excellent. But now the online modes are the long tails of these games and where the money is, so instead of GTAV getting something like The Ballad of Gay Tony you get dozens of cosmetics a week in update cycles that it's hard to care about.

Rockstar may even have misgivings itself. It's notable that the Cayo Perico expansion for GTA Online was sold very much as 'this is almost like singleplayer content, honest.'

I'd kill for something like Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare DLC, which flipped the tone of that world completely and leaned into the silly stuff. But even something less ambitious would do, any reason to return to Red Dead 2's wonderful singleplayer experience. It's a pity that, the way things look, the Capitale will always dictate otherwise.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."