Check out this theory that says Red Dead Redemption’s follow-up could be a prequel

Rockstar Games set the world ablaze simply by tweeting two blood-drenched images in a 24-hour period.

The company is teasing the Red Dead Redemption  follow-up , its beloved open-world Western from 2010, and while Rockstar has yet to confirm even that much, the two teasers alone have kicked off wild speculation across the internet.

Upon the exciting news of this new game we all gonna binge on, we found a theory that believes to the game could be a prequel to its predecessor.

Let’s take a closer look.

THE SILHOUETTED SEVEN

The Rockstar-logo-on-a-red-canvas image wasn’t very interesting on its own, but the artwork released yesterday provides much more fodder for discussion. Seven armed men — or at least, they appear to be men — are walking over a hill, with a fiery sunset illuminating a mountain ridge behind them.

Here’s a close-up of the silhouetted figures without the red background, so it’s easier to examine them.

Well, that sure looks like a mean, wild bunch of outlaws. And the guy in the center looks familiar, doesn’t he? Enhance …

Sure, the silhouette’s cowboy hat has a dented crown instead of a flat one. But notice the prominent holster on his right thigh, and the Winchester rifle that’s held in his hand rather than slung over his back. The John Marston we know from Red Dead Redemption doesn’t have mutton chops on his face, but there’s definitely some hair on his jaw line. And in general, the shadow figure’s build appears to be similar to Marston’s stature.

Now let’s check out the man directly to the right.

Rockstar Games/Polygon

There’s not much to go on here — we can’t tell if Williamson is wearing a long coat in this screenshot, although he is holding a rifle. Having said that, one detail appears to be a dead giveaway: Williamson sports a distinctive cowboy hat with the left side of the brim turned up, and the silhouette’s Stetson looks identical.

The other five figures don’t easily map onto characters we know from Red Dead Redemption. But the presence of the group, and the silhouettes’ apparent connections to Marston and Williamson, give us some food for thought.

Red Dead Redemption told the story of a man being forced to reckon with his violent past. Years before the events of the game, Marston was a member of the notorious Dutch’s Gang, a group of criminals that also included Williamson, Javier Escuella and ringleader Dutch van der Linde. Just prior to Red Dead Redemption, U.S. government agents — looking to put an end the outlaw culture of the Wild West — capture Marston’s wife and teenage son in order to compel Marston to do their bidding. Marston thus spends the majority of the game tracking down his former associates, hoping to free his family and put his past behind him once and for all.

Let’s presume that the aforementioned figures in the teaser image are indeed Marston and Williamson. Extrapolating from there, it’s not too much of a leap to suggest that the seven silhouettes are members of Dutch’s Gang. (One wrinkle to this theory is that Marston’s wife, Abigail, also hung around the gang — she was a prostitute before the two of them got married — and it isn’t obvious that any of the figures is a woman.)

If the teaser image indeed features Dutch’s Gang — which has disbanded by 1911, the year in which Red Dead Redemption takes place — then it stands to reason that the next entry in the franchise will be a prequel.

ODDS AND ENDS

We don’t know anything for sure about this new Red Dead title — assuming it even is a new Red Dead title — but this past spring, an image purporting to be the game’s world map showed up on NeoGAF. The leak was corroborated by TechRadar, which cited “a source close to the development of the new Red Dead game” in reporting that the game would take place before Red Dead Redemption.

TechRadar

Evidence solidifying the prequel theory included the fact that part of Red Dead Redemption’s game world appeared on the map. The northeast portion of Red Dead Redemption’s setting — the West Elizabeth territory, which consists of the Tall Trees and Great Plains regions — sit in the southwest corner of the leaked map. TechRadar also noted that the prequel’s map did not feature the railroad that existed in Red Dead Redemption, lending further credence to the idea that the follow-up will take place before that game.

There’s one more curious detail in the leak, and this one is geographical rather than chronological. In the Bayou NWA territory of the map, along the Lannahechee River, sits a city called New Bordeaux.

POKING HOLES

We should note that there are a couple of major caveats to all this theorizing.

Rockstar Games titles tend to introduce different protagonists with new entries in a franchise. For instance, no two Grand Theft Auto titles feature the same playable characters. The only exception to this Rockstar rule is the Max Payne series, where the title character stars in all three games.

[Note: SPOILERS AHEAD.]

Secondly, people who have finished Red Dead Redemption know that John Marston dies shortly after the climax of the story. During an epilogue set three years after the events of the game, the player picks up the tale as Marston’s 19-year-old son, Jack Marston. Jack tracks down and kills Edgar Ross, the federal agent who betrayed and murdered his father. So it’s certainly possible that the next Red Dead title will simply continue Jack’s story.

Again, we’re just extrapolating from the scant few clues we have to go on. Either way, hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for Rockstar to fully reveal the new Red Dead game.