Red Dead Redemption: Legends and Killers Review

How the West wasn't won.

Publishers use DLC like Viagra. Extending the length of your assets makes them more profitable; games like Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 can have long, extended lives with the proper content. However, the first of Red Dead Redemption's DLC packs will likely leave you feeling limp.

First, I can't say anything bad about Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer. It improved on GTA IV's multiplayer modes, in spades, and continues to provide hours of satisfying gunplay. Boys grow up on cowboy-lore and RDR is one big simulator of The Wild West. In light of all that, the problem with Legends and Killers is that it's not necessary in even the smallest sense of the word.

Legends and Killers opens up nine new multiplayer maps, including Thieves' Landing and Blackwater. Some of these are a blast to play, while others are complete duds. Fort Mercer in particular is a muddled mess of stairs, doorways, and passage ways that lead you in circles. I spent most matches on that map spinning my tires hooves looking for a way to the second floor. On the other hand, Blackwater as a backdrop for a city street shootout with alleyways and rooftops is invigorating. If you find a decent weapon crate and sneak up a fire escape, you'll be set for the match.

New multiplayer skins also fill in the package. Lifted from 2004's Red Dead Revolver, the Red Harlow, Jack Swift, Shadow Wolf, and more are available to players without any unlocking needed. Well, if you pay for them, you damn well shouldn't have to work for them!

The real value Legends and Killers throws your way is the tomahawk. Taking the same slot as the throwing knives, the molotov, and the dynamite, the tomahawk is great for silent kills. More often than not, landing a tomahawk throw in multiplayer results in a kill. The tomahawk even adds to the single-player game with a new set of challenges, including one that tasks the player with hitting a bird. It's pretty satisfying landing long range kills with an axe throw.

Legends and Killers does a good job offering this content without cleaving the multiplayer community in two. You can use your new skins and weapons in all the original modes, as well as free roam, while specific Legends and Killers playlists have the new maps in rotation. It would be a truly stupid mistake to separate those with and those without this DLC. And of course, it also adds new Achievements and Trophies.

This may sound like a lot of content, and in some ways it is, but in the end it doesn't add much gameplay. New maps, new skins, and a new weapon don't add up to hours of extra entertainment, and that's where the value is in DLC.

Legends and Killers is not an addition you absolutely must have. At $10, this particular pack just isn't recommendable to anyone who has already had their fair shake of the multiplayer. If you're still on RDR every night, running around in free roam or tackling the competitive modes, I doubt you've gone long without picking this particular DLC up. In the end, Legends and Killers is just the waiting period between the original retail release and the arrival of Texas Hold 'Em and Liar's Dice in Liars and Cheats.