Despite Red Dead Online not receiving updates for years and feeling abandoned in comparison to Grand Theft Auto Online, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick thinks Red Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer component has been a success by all accounts.

Red Dead Online stopped getting significant support in July 2021 with the Blood Money update, with Rockstar confirming a year later it had moved away from Red Dead Online to focus on GTA 6 and GTA Online. Regardless, RDR2 was (and still is) a huge game by all accounts, recently surpassing 85m sales and becoming the third best-selling video game release, according to Take-Two’s latest financial report.

Given the size of that audience, does the lack of an actively developed Red Dead Online constitute something of a missed opportunity? No, not according to Strauss Zelnick. “So let me be clear,” Zelnick told IGN, “there is literally nothing about Red Dead selling 85 million units that could signal a missed opportunity. And Red Dead Online has been immensely successful and long lasting.”

Zelnick also pointed out that things would be different if GTA wasn’t a part of Rockstar and Take-Two’s portfolio. “I think if we didn’t have Grand Theft Auto here at our company, then people would just talk about the fact that we have this massive franchise in Red Dead, which we do and of which we’re very proud,” Zelnick said.

Last month, hackers gained access to Rockstar data and company information, revealing, among other things, that Red Dead Online was making the developer and Take-Two around $500k per week nearly eight years after RDR2’s launch. But while that might sound impressive, GTA Online is still pushing around $9.5m on average each week. Therefore, it makes sense the older multiplayer sandbox continues to get more developer support.

Rockstar did, however, release some new content for Red Dead Online with the Strange Tales of the West update, but an official return to the open-world western’s online mode now that development on GTA 6 is nearing release is not confirmed.