Red Dead Redemption 2 is widely considered Rockstar’s best game, and I’d agree with that ranking. But anyone who’s put fifty-plus hours into it knows the combat was never its strongest part, especially next to a story and open world this good. GTA 6 combat has a real chance to fix that gap, and the bigger question isn’t whether GTA 6 will follow RDR2’s formula.
The real question is what Rockstar should leave behind this time, what’s already confirmed to be changing, and what older systems might or might not make a comeback.
| ⚠️ Disclaimer: Most of this article is analysis and prediction based on past Rockstar games, not official confirmation. The only confirmed detail below is dynamic passenger shooting, revealed in GTA 6 Trailer 2. Everything else, including the core system and weapon access, is unconfirmed and clearly marked. |
Is The Combat Different From RDR2?
Yes, at least partly, and this is the one confirmed detail in this whole piece. Rockstar revealed dynamic passenger shooting in Trailer 2, something neither RDR2 nor GTA 5 had.
What it doesn’t show is how far that rebuild goes. RDR2’s combat, under all the gore and visual detail, ran on the same skeleton as GTA 5 and even the original RDR. Cover, aim, shoot, repeat. It worked. It just never stood out the way the story or open world did.
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Why Max Payne 3 Matters Here?
If you want proof Rockstar can build combat that feels great and not just functional, go back to Max Payne 3. The way you move in and out of cover, the weight of the aiming, the way a firefight escalates, none of that has been matched in a Rockstar open-world game since. It’s a linear, twelve-hour shooter. But the foundation underneath it is some of the best Rockstar has ever made.
That’s the real comparison worth making, not “will it copy RDR2.” Will Rockstar finally bring that level of polish into an open world? Arthur Morgan diving through windows in slow motion would feel wrong for a grounded western. But the responsiveness, the feel of every shot landing, doesn’t need slow-motion gimmicks to improve.
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Will There Be a Stamina or Core System Like RDR2?
RDR2 used a core system: dead eye, stamina, and health all drained and refilled through food, tonics, and rest. The idea was interesting. The execution had a clear flaw. Tonics let players refill dead eye mid-fight with almost no downside, and Red Dead Online’s PvP scene built entire playstyles around that exact exploit.
Leaked 2022 builds, unconfirmed and never released by Rockstar, reportedly showed dedicated item slots for painkillers, health kits, and body armor, closer to GTA 4 and GTA 5’s inventory system than RDR2’s core and tonic mechanic. If that’s accurate, Rockstar may be stepping away from the core system rather than fixing it.
Both directions have tradeoffs. Classic health items are simpler and harder to exploit. A refined core system, with a cooldown on healing items during combat, could keep the immersive layer without the abuse. Neither is confirmed right now.
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Will Online Weapons be Locked Out of Single Player?
This is about access more than mechanics.
Several RDR2 weapons, like the Navy Revolver and Elephant Rifle, never made it into single player and stayed exclusive to Red Dead Online. GTA 5 went the other direction. Single player kept receiving new weapons alongside GTA Online for the first couple of years, then that stopped for good after the Lowriders update in October 2015. Every weapon added since has been GTA Online exclusive, a restriction that’s still in place over a decade later.
Given how much post-launch support is expected this time, the same question applies. Single-player-only players make up a large part of the audience. Whether those weapons stay locked to online or eventually reach the main story is something to watch once post-launch content starts rolling out.
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Smaller Fixes Worth Making
A few smaller frustrations from RDR2 shaped how the game actually felt to play day to day, even if they never made headlines.
Weapon sway applied to almost every gun except scoped rifles, the one category where sway arguably matters most. The inconsistency was the actual problem, not the mechanic itself.
Dismounting near a scripted shootout in RDR2 often auto-equipped a weapon players didn’t choose, and it also tipped off players that a fight was coming, killing any surprise. Fan-made fixes exist for exactly this reason. The next game is expected to use a similar vehicle-based weapon system, so getting this right the first time would save players a years-long workaround.
Movement inside RDR2’s larger camps, like Clemens Point and Shady Belle, was locked to a slow walk, which got tedious fast in bigger spaces. GTA 6 likely won’t have camps that large, but normal movement speed in any safe zone seems like an easy fix.
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Conclusion
None of this makes RDR2 a worse game. If anything, it’s the opposite. When the biggest complaints I can come up with after fifty-plus hours are weapon sway on scoped rifles and not being able to jog around camp, that tells you how little Rockstar actually got wrong.
Most of this list isn’t really about fixing mistakes. It’s about taking something that already worked and giving it the same care Rockstar clearly put into Max Payne 3’s gunplay, just inside a much bigger world this time.
If GTA 6 holds onto what made RDR2’s writing and world feel alive, and finally lets the combat catch up to everything else, this won’t just be a good follow-up. It’ll be the first Rockstar open-world game where the shooting feels as good as the story sounds.
FAQs
It’s expected to. Trailer 2 confirmed dynamic passenger shooting, a mechanic absent from both RDR2 and GTA 5, which suggests Rockstar is actively reworking the gunplay instead of reusing the same system across titles.
This hasn’t been confirmed. Unverified 2022 leaks pointed to a return to a more traditional health and item system similar to GTA 4 and GTA 5, rather than RDR2’s core and tonic mechanic, but Rockstar hasn’t addressed this officially.
There’s no confirmation either way. RDR2 kept some weapons online-exclusive, while GTA 5 eventually opened similar content to single player for a period, so the pattern has gone both ways before.
Rockstar hasn’t detailed this directly, but GTA 6 is expected to build on systems introduced in RDR2, including world interactivity and NPC behavior, while adding new mechanics like dynamic passenger shooting that RDR2 didn’t have.
Still think RDR2’s combat was fine as it was? Or are you convinced GTA 6 is about to be a completely different kind of shooter? Either way, let us know in the comments. There’s no definitive answer here until Rockstar actually shows us the game, so the debate is genuinely open.
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