We present observations of the unusually luminous Type II supernova (SN) 2016gsd. With a peak absolute magnitude of V = -19.95 ± 0.08, this object is one of the brightest Type II SNe, and lies in the gap of magnitudes between the majority of Type II SNe and the superluminous SNe. Its light curve shows little evidence of the expected drop from the optically thick phase to the radioactively powered tail. The velocities derived from the absorption in H α are also unusually high with the blue edge tracing the fastest moving gas initially at 20 000 km s-1, and then declining approximately linearly to 15 000 km s-1 over ∼100 d. The dwarf host galaxy of the SN indicates a low-metallicity progenitor which may also contribute to the weakness of the metal lines in its spectra. We examine SN 2016gsd with reference to similarly luminous, linear Type II SNe such as SNe 1979C and 1998S, and discuss the interpretation of its observational characteristics. We compare the observations with a model produced by the jekyll code and find that a massive star with a depleted and inflated hydrogen envelope struggles to reproduce the high luminosity and extreme linearity of SN 2016gsd. Instead, we suggest that the influence of interaction between the SN ejecta and circumstellar material can explain the majority of the observed properties of the SN. The high velocities and strong H α absorption present throughout the evolution of the SN may imply a circumstellar medium configured in an asymmetric geometry. ; MF acknowledges the support of a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship. The JEKYLL simulations were performed on resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Parallelldatorcentrum (PDC). PL acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council. MS is supported by a generous grant (13261) from Villum Fonden and a project grant (8021-00170B) from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (IRFD). NUTS2 is funded in part by the Instrument Center for Danish Astronomy (IDA). This work is based (in part) on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, Chile as part of PESSTO (the Public ESO Spectroscopic Survey for Transient Objects) ESO program 188.D−3003, 191.D−0935, more ESO acknowledgements. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen's University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST−1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The SCUSS is funded by the Main Direction Program of Knowledge Innovation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KJCX2−EW−T06). It is also an international cooperative project between National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA. Technical support and observational assistance from the Bok telescope are provided by Steward Observatory. The project is managed by the National Astronomical Observatory of China and Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. Data resources are supported by Chinese Astronomical Data Center (CAsDC). SD and PC acknowledge Project 11573003 supported by NSFC. This research uses data obtained through the Telescope Access Program (TAP), which has been funded by the National Astronomical Observatories of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Special Fund for Astronomy from the Ministry of Finance. SJS acknowledges STFC grant ST/P000312/1. This work has made use of data from the Asteroid Terrestial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) Project. ATLAS is primarily funded to search for near earth asteroids through NASA grants NN12AR55G, 80NSSC18K0284, and 80NSSC18K1575; byproducts of the NEO search include images and catalogues from the survey area. The ATLAS science products have been made possible through the contributions of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, the Queen's Univeristy Belfast, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the South African Astronomical Observatory. OR acknowledges support by projects IC120009 'Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS)' of the Iniciativa Científica Milenio del Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y Turismo de Chile and CONICYT PAI/INDUSTRIA 79090016. JH acknowledges financial support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Some data were taken with the Las Cumbres Observatory Network. GH and DAH are supported by NSF grant AST-1313484. GH thanks the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, which is funded by LSSTC, NSF Cybertraining Grant #1829740, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation; his participation in the program has benefited this work. LG was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work also makes use of observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programme 0103.D-0338(A). CPG acknowledges support from EU/FP7-ERC grant no. [615929].
