You may have spotted our recent coverage of a pair of AMA / “ask me anything” sessions on 4Chan, hosted by someone claiming to be a primary developer at Rockstar Games. The main subject of the leak threads was the unannounced but inevitable Grand Theft Auto 6. Amid all the alleged details this person knew, they casually dropped news of a Red Dead Redemption remaster that will be released before GTA 6. Since the leaker also stated that October 2023 is the projected release window for the GTA title, that means this Red Dead Remaster will saddle up sooner - provided this isn’t a hoax, that is. The beauty of this leak is that is doesn’t even need to be legitimate for this prediction to come true. Considering how frequent AAA remasters have become nowadays, a Red Dead Redemption remaster just seems like a good business decision no matter how you slice it - especially if it finally brings the game to PC as well - so there very well may such a project in the works, regardless of how true this particular leak is. Red Dead Redemption is a classic open-world wild west adventure game, following John Marston’s journey to, well, redemption. The characters and story became memorable hits and the series built a major fanbase, with an even bigger blockbuster prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, having been released recently. There are quite a few arguments in favor of a Red Dead Redemption remaster. On the one hand, it can feasibly done with relatively little effort, depending on how many assets Rockstar still possesses from the original. Since Red Dead Redemption 2 features many recurring characters, as well as almost the entire RDR map - with the rest being accessible via glitch - a lot of the work is already done, so to speak. A remaster would also give Rockstar the chance to fulfill a decade old wish of many fans: bringing Red Dead Redemption to PC. The 2010 game only ever launched on consoles, while the prequel is available on PC too. Fans have been trying to overcome this obstacle for years now, but even the best emulators can only offer a buggy, broken experience at best. Technically, there is an official way to play the game on a PC - if you subscribe to the PlayStation Now streaming service, and have a Dualshock controller, you can stream a laggy version of the game that is capped at 30 FPS and is prone to crashing. Yay? Considering the fact that newer, less beloved games have also received the remaster treatment, it would be an odd gap in the Rockstar library to leave such a seminal classic in the past. On the other hand, it is true that Rockstar hasn’t really dabbled in remasters in the past - you can bet that there is a strong business case for remakes of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas, but then again the originals are still available and have even been ported to mobile devices, so maybe the company thinks a remaster isn’t necessary in those cases. While a lot of the GTA 6 related leaks from those AMA threads are suspect, we’re cautiously optimistic about the prospect of a Red Dead Redemption remaster - not because we believe the leaks, but because this is something that just makes sense on its own.
