Update:

Sony’s Adam Boyes has dispelled rumors of a Red Dead Redemption 2 being at the company’s E3 presser, going as far as saying that nothing was cut from the conference at all (no, it wasn’t a Neo announcement either, for those who believed that). In other words, even talks between industry professionals of content being cut seems to be just a rumor at least in Sony’s case (we can’t speak for other companies). So there you have it, folks. All cleared out. That said, Take-Two’s “big” E3 presence (a statement which wasn’t a rumor, by the way) remains a mystery.

@RyanDungey_ no, this is not true. The length and content we showed has been locked and unchanged for months. — Adam Boyes (@amboyes) June 14, 2016

For those who are disappointed by this, it’s probably worth noting that Sony officials cast doubt over Crash Bandicoot coming to PlayStation 4 on several occasions up until recently but the game was announced at E3. So if you still believe content was cut – irrespective of whether it was RDR2 or not – we still have gamescom, Paris Games Week, Tokyo Game Show, and PlayStation Experience.

Original story:

Take this one with a grain of salt but since yesterday, we’ve heard from several sources that Rockstar and Take-Two were planning to unveil Red Dead Redemption 2 at Sony’s E3 2016 press conference but due to the unfortunate events in Orlando, the companies decided it would be distasteful to go ahead with it.

Now, this part is probably people just trying to put pieces of the puzzle together but many are of the view that the Days Gone demo at the end replaced the Red Dead reveal. What makes the rumor even more interesting is that Take-Two said a while ago that it would be at E3 in a “big way” but so far, we haven’t seen anything from the company (except Mafia III) that we would consider “big” unless Take-Two was simply talking about its presence on the show floor. Additionally, we’ve been informed by our staff on ground that the Days Gone demo shown to public was the same exact demo shown to press behind closed doors, which is unusual. Press usually gets to see an extended demo or something entirely different.

This rumor has been discussed by well-known people within the industry as well. Journalist Jim Sterling, while refraining from saying anything about about Red Dead specifically, mentioned in a recent video (starting around the 08.00 mark) that companies had to change their plans due to the Orlando tragedy, and then we do have some Redditors claiming to have inside knowledge (unconfirmed, however) who’ve stated the same, but also going at length to say that the Red Dead unveiling was supposed to depict a shooting scene.

Talking to people in the industry, some have confirmed that they’ve heard similar talks as well. Unfortunately though, no concrete evidence has surfaced so far. We’ve emailed Sony regarding this and will issue an update if and when we get a response.