Red Dead Online’s latest update has driven the horses insane

Red Dead Online released a new update on July 13 entitled Blood Money, which for all intents and purposes should have been a pretty mild/standard expansion for the online multiplayer western RPG, i.e. new missions, costumes, passes and the like. Unfortunately, many gamers are noting some particularly unusual additions to the world — namely rampaging rogue horses, mount clones, invisible “ghost” steeds, and hovering mares. It’s... strange, to say the least.

As if bandits, lawmen, cannibals, and rattlesnakes weren’t enough to deal with in Red Dead Online’s harsh, godforsaken land, now you have to beware of evil doppelgänger horses colliding with your own trusty steed, sending you comically soaring into the air. Others are reporting “invisible” horses in the middle of rivers, airborne equine, creepy corpses, and overall just a ton of random wild horses stampeding all over the place to the annoyance of most everyone. As Kotaku and elsewhere note, many of these horses are well-equipped, implying they are player-owned despite said owners usually being nowhere to be found.

Most likely these are weird, glitched horse clones that will be rectified by an imminent patch update, but until then, Red Dead Online players are advised to keep their wits about them in the wilderness. Unless you’re dressed like Fat Albert, in which case this whole thing might work to your advantage? It’s too early for this shit on Monday, to be honest with you.

At least this time the glitches are unintentional — It’s at least some small comfort to know that these nightmarish (no pun intended) horse encounters are almost certainly just a minor, easily corrected glitch... as opposed to the utter mayhem that ensued not long after Red Dead Online’s official release. Back in January of last year, all manner of modded insanity befell unsuspecting players, from getting all the gold drained from their accounts, to creating horrifying, cosmic horror monstrosity animals, to just straight-up teleporting a bear into the middle of your camp.

That sort of chaos seems to have since died down thanks to better mod enforcement and players’ reliance on private lobbies. But hell, who knows what Red Dead Online’s next update might bring us all in the months ahead. Stay sharp out there, O’ pioneers of the West.