Red Dead Online on Steam: What's Included

24 August 2026 · 6 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — fact-checked against the Ukrainian original; not proofread by a native speaker

Yes, Red Dead Online exists on Steam as a standalone app with its own page, which went live on 1 December 2020. It isn’t DLC and it isn’t a mode tucked inside Red Dead Redemption 2 — it’s a separate product in the catalogue that you can buy without buying the full game.

Here’s exactly what’s in that purchase, what’s deliberately left out, and how to choose between it and the full edition.

A separate page: what that means in practice

On Steam, Red Dead Online has its own app listing, distinct from the Red Dead Redemption 2 listing. The release date shown on it is 1 December 2020.

Two straightforward things follow from that:

• you can buy the online portion on its own, as a separate entry in your library;
• it installs and runs without the full game being present.

In other words, a player who only wants the multiplayer isn’t obliged to buy everything else.

The main catch: there’s no story here

This is the key point, and Rockstar put it right on the standalone page: the Red Dead Redemption 2 story mode is not part of this purchase and has to be bought separately.

The wording is deliberately unambiguous, because this is exactly where people trip up. Buy standalone Red Dead Online and you do NOT get:

• the single-player campaign with Arthur Morgan;
• the story missions and everything tied to them;
• anything that depends on the campaign’s script.

If you came to Red Dead specifically for the gang’s story, the standalone version simply isn’t for you, and no setting changes that. We’ve covered the gang and its role in the story separately: the Van der Linde gang.

The flip side matters too: buying the standalone version doesn’t lock the story away forever. The page states that the story mode is bought separately — meaning it’s a separate item, not something unavailable to you.

Disk space doesn’t shrink

The most common expectation of a “stripped-down” version is that it takes up less room. That doesn’t hold here.

The system requirements for standalone Red Dead Online list 150 GB of free space. That’s the exact same amount the full Red Dead Redemption 2 edition asks for.

We won’t guess at why — Rockstar hasn’t said, and speculation about shared resources would stay speculation. What matters is the fact itself: saving disk space is not a reason to pick the standalone version. If that was your plan, it won’t work.

Comparison: standalone Red Dead Online vs. the full game

The table is short on purpose: it only lists what the Steam pages themselves state. We’re not adding rows about content, updates, or plans, because there’s nothing on those pages to verify them against.

What the full game’s page says

The Red Dead Redemption 2 Steam page describes Red Dead Online as the multiplayer portion of the game, where you can play solo or team up with a posse.

There’s one practical takeaway for anyone who already owns the game: you don’t need to buy the online part separately. It’s already included with the full game. If you spot the standalone app in the store and wonder whether you’re missing something, you’re not.

If you already have access to the online mode and aren’t sure where to start, we have separate guides for that: getting started in RDO and how to make money in RDO.

About Steam tags — being honest about the limits of our data

The topic of tags and labels on the store page looks simple, but it needs care here. Our verified data for this page covers the release date, the story-mode warning, and the 150 GB line in the system requirements. It doesn’t include a list of tags.

So we’re not listing tags or counting them. If you specifically need the tags, open the app’s page on Steam and check them there directly — they’re visible on the listing and can change over time. Making them up on your behalf would be worse than simply saying we didn’t record them.

The same goes for the rest of the listing’s fields: genres, update dates, bundle contents. Anything not in our verified facts is deliberately left out of this piece.

How to choose: a short checklist

1. Ask yourself whether you want the story. If yes, buy the full Red Dead Redemption 2 — the online mode is already included, so there’s nothing extra to buy.
2. If you don’t want the story at all, standalone Red Dead Online covers exactly that need, and that’s its only purpose.
3. Don’t count on saving disk space. You need to free up 150 GB either way.
4. Check the page before buying. Release date, purchase contents, and requirements are all visible on the app’s own listing, and that listing is the primary source — not anyone’s advice, including ours.
5. If you’re torn between full-game editions, that’s a separate question, covered in our guide to Red Dead Redemption 2 editions and platforms.

What we’re not claiming

⚠️ Worth being direct here, since there’s a lot of guesswork floating around this topic.

• We don’t know what happens to the standalone version going forward. Whether it stays on sale or its contents change — Rockstar says nothing about that on this page, and neither do we.
• We don’t quote prices. Not on Steam, not anywhere else. Prices change, and we don’t compare or recommend third-party key resellers as a matter of principle.
• We don’t suggest any workarounds for buying. Regional pricing tricks aren’t the subject of a reference guide.
• We don’t summarise reviews. Whether the online mode is “worth the money” is someone’s opinion, not a fact from a store page.
• We don’t describe the online mode’s content beyond what’s on the Steam pages. Modes, roles, activities — none of that is covered in this particular piece.

In short, everything we’re asserting here comes down to four facts from the Steam pages: the date, the absence of the story mode, the disk space, and the fact that owners of the full game already have online access.

In Brief

Red Dead Online really is sold separately on Steam — a page dated 1 December 2020, with no story mode (that’s bought separately) and the same 150 GB of disk space. If you already own the full Red Dead Redemption 2, there’s no need to buy it: the online mode is already part of the game.