Looks like you can take your clown makeup off – for now – as Red Dead Online has finally released a significant update, one that introduces legendary animals, a new naturalist role, and a fresh Outlaw Pass.
As detailed in the extensive patch notes, the biggest addition provided by the update is the new naturalist specialist role, which opens a path around “tracking, studying and hunting animals”. The role introduces two new free roam events, two naturalist role-related stores, a wilderness camp that lets players create a temporary campfire, a Gypsy Cob horse breed and various new clothing items.
Like the other frontier pursuits, you’ll need to splash a bit of Red Dead Online’s premium currency, Gold Bars, in order to buy the item required to unlock it. In the case of the naturalist role this will set you back 25 Gold Bars (the same as the moonshiner role added in a previous update). If the hippie life appeals to you, visit the Welcome Center in Strawberry and talk to Harriet Davenport to get started.
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Something that many players wanted to see added to the online mode was legendary animal hunting. Starting with today’s update, players can now hunt seven different animal species – each with three different subspecies – either by purchasing maps from Davenport or by progressing through the naturalist role, which may net you some rarer subspecies. On the flipside of this, there are now some new missions to protect animals from poachers, which can be picked up by talking to Davenport (or may appear dynamically as you progress through the naturalist role).
Red Dead Online: The Naturalist Watch on YouTube
More generally, the patch notes detail “five new dynamic events” for the world of Red Dead Online, new sets of weekly collections for Collector role players, several new daily challenges, and a bunch of new clothing items, tonics, animal trinkets, crafting recipes, hair styles, emotes and weapon variants. A couple of new weapons have been introduced, including the Elephant Rifle and Improved Bow, and you can also pick up an Advanced Camera with improved manoeuvrability and the ability to identify animals… and use filters. I’m calling it Snaphat.