Wild West Online wants a piece of that Red Dead Redemption 2 pie

Is that you, John Marston? Oh, sorry. Thought you were someone else. These screenshots aren't from Red Dead Redemption 2. They're from upcoming Kickstarter hopeful Wild West Online.

Secretly, I'm glad they're not from RDR 2. If environments had uncanny valleys, I feel like the plastic sheen and slightly off perspectives of these screenshots would be stuck plumb in the middle of that uncanny valley. Even the outfits have a slight "J.C. Penney cowboy" look and feel about them. And that lovely picture of the lake, trees, and mountain range kinda looks like their concept artist wanted to recreate the Paramount Pictures logo. Even the name Wild West Online sounds like it was ginned up for the South Korean MMO market.

I'm being unfair. For the past several months I've complaining about Rockstar's utter lack of marketing for Red Dead Redemption 2. One trailer released six months ago followed by absolutely nothing else? I'm just feeling thirsty, y'all. I don't mean to take it out on Wild West Online.

Of which, there isn't much to know yet. At the time of this writing, a countdown clock on its official site is ticking down to Noon (Pacific), Wed., May 17, when "more will be revealed." Until then, PC Gamer got the scoop on what newly formed developer 612 Games is doing. 612 has alumni ranging from Crysis to League of Legends on the development team, though Wild West Online aims to be an open-world MMO that bucks traditional MMO structures. We'll see what that means. They're still hashing it out themselves. 

Stay tuned for news on Wild West Online's upcoming Kickstarter, which will be looking for $250,000 to start. It's also gunning for a Fall 2017 launch on PC, which runs right up against Red Dead Redemption 2's schedule (though RDR 2 isn't confirmed for PC yet). Good luck. It sounds to me like the idea behind Wild West Online is going to come up a day late and a dollar short. Cute pics, though.