How will modding in RDR 2 work?

Red Dead Redemption II will, just like GTA V, be powered by the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE).  As such, it can almost be said for certain that much of the technical aspects of the game will be similar to GTA V.  Most importantly, it's expected that RDR 2 will share the same scripting system as GTA V (which is what the game's missions and most other things are controlled by).  This is good news for us, as it means that we won't have to familiarize ourselves with a new scripting engine, and will allow us to apply some of our existing knowledge.

Similarly, we also know that RDR 2 employs a similar file format to that found in other RAGE games, although likely with one key difference which could prove to be a bit of a headache.  While we're unable to confirm that this is the case on the PC version due to an additional layer of protection on the pre-loaded files to prevent them being used before the game launches, it is very likely based on other analysis that RPF 8 files (RDR 2) employ a stronger method of encryption than RPF 7 files (GTA V), which in all likelihood will make modding, and even just reading them more difficult.

Preparations

Aside from freeing up masses of disk space, stockpiling pizzas and ensuring copious amounts of caffeinated beverages are at hand, we've also been making some more technical preparations for RDR 2 on PC, too.  To better understand our current tooling and how we will need to adapt, we've spent some time recently revising an older Rockstar Games title, also powered by RAGE: Max Payne 3.

Max Payne 3 is interesting for many reasons (and is also a phenomenal story-driven game that's well worth a try - especially when you can get it for free with a pre-purchase of RDR 2), but specifically is intriguing to us in the following ways:

• The RDR series isn't GTA, and neither is Max Payne 3.  We expect there will be some significant differences between RDR and GTA, just as there are between Max Payne 3 and GTA.
• RDR and RDR 2 were developed by Rockstar San Diego, who also developed Max Payne 3.

With a lot of help from MulleDK19, we were able to play around with Max Payne 3 and inject our own code at runtime, doing silly things like spawning otherwise unobtainable police cars and disarming all enemies.  For your viewing pleasure, I've included a screenshot of our shenanigans below.

You're not really meant to be a cop in Max Payne 3.

Timeline

Probably the thing that everyone's dying to know: how quickly can we expect mods for RDR 2 to come out.  Unfortunately, there's no way to give a clear cut answer on this just yet - we'll have to wait to get our hands on the game first.  With that being said, there's a couple of things that we do know:

• Memory modifications, which are necessary for us to inject code into the game (e.g. for things like LSPDFR, etc.) are ultimately inevitable in some shape or form.  While there's a lot of methods that Rockstar can and have used in the past to prevent against such mods, it's highly unlikely that this kind of modding doesn't come to fruition.  The key here is how easily the game's code can be analysed.  As GTA V on PC progressed as a game, additional levels of protection called obfuscation were added to GTA V to make modding more difficult, we presume as part of an effort to combat online modding - which we don't support or condone.  If high levels of obfuscation are used, it'll be much harder (or even close to impossible) to analyse the game's code, and this will have a big impact on how quickly script mods (like LSPDFR) could be released.  Ideally, other methods to prevent online modding might be employed which don't affect our ability to mod the single player game.  In this case, script mods (especially simpler ones) could appear within a couple of days.

• File modifications, which as the name suggests, change the game files, are a different can of worms altogether.  As explained above, these are largely dependent on the protections and encryption employed within the RPF 8 format (which is new to RDR 2 and has not been seen on PC before).  It's fairly safe to assume that these sorts of modifications, which can include things like custom vehicle models, won't be seen for a little while until after the game is released.

Note that we originally shared a preview of this insight to our Community Insiders on Patreon.  If you'd like to be the first to know about what's going on, please consider supporting our work - which we do for free - by becoming a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/lcpdfr