Rumours of a Red Dead Redemption remake or remaster have been swirling for months, but fans have been left disappointed as Rockstar instead announced ports of the game to the Switch and PS4. Yes, a 13 year old game is coming to ten year old hardware and an underpowered handheld, but that’s not even the worst news.
I don’t mind the fact that we’re not getting Red Dead Remastered. I think the industry’s reliance on remakes is holding it back, especially in the triple-A sphere. Why is Naughty Dog working on making The Last of Us’ leaves more leafy and puddles more wet when it could be working on a brilliant followup to the sequel? It feels like a waste of these magnificent devs’ time and effort, all so Joel has a few more wrinkles and a ten year old game can sell a few million more copies completely risk-free. The industry is risk-averse, and remasters are the worst symptom of this anti-consumer practice.
Ports are a good thing, as a rule. I like the fact that games are becoming more widely available, and I get that not everyone has been able to upgrade their PS4 to an expensive current-gen model. But surely everyone who wants to has played Red Dead Redemption by now? I’m going to reiterate that this game is 13 years old. Everyone has played it. Except for those of us on PC.
The biggest problem with the Red Dead Redemption port is the fact it’s not coming to PC. The sequel, the imaginatively titled Red Dead Redemption 2, is available on Steam, but its progenitor is not. When you’re already porting the game to vastly inferior hardware, it seems like a no-brainer to include PC as well. If nothing else, it’s a huge portion of potential sales you’re missing out on.
PC ports of PlayStation games are doing incredibly well in recent years, despite major performance issues with many on release. Still, those of us without a Sony console will splash the cash on the likes of The Last of Us, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and Spider-Man a couple of years after release. The PC port of Red Dead Redemption 2 helped it reach the 50 million sales milestone, a phenomenal achievement that shows the hunger for PlayStation’s single-player experiences away from consoles.
The other issue is preservation. This is one of the key reasons I’m so anti-remake, because many companies want their newest and best-looking version of any game to be the only option available. They’re happy for the originals to be lost in time, relegated to fetching three-figure sums in second-hand stores where you then have to wrestle with ancient hardware to even load it up. It’s getting more difficult to play old games as time goes on, and remakes and remasters exacerbate the problem.
PC is the platform that resists most hardily against the remaster problem. Old games are easier (comparatively speaking, there are still plenty of hurdles) to load up on a modern PC than trying to get an original Metal Gear game running on a PS5, which is simply impossible. If you already own the game, even better, but many old titles remain available digitally through third party sites or the age-old technique of piracy. It’s a good thing that the original game is being made available on Switch and PS4, as it makes it more accessible than ever, but it’s not enough.
It baffles me that Red Dead Redemption is not already available on PC. Especially when the sequel is already available there. Especially when it will help game preservation so much. Especially when PlayStation games sell so well on the platform. Especially when the game is being ported to other consoles already. Rockstar has every reason to port its seminal cowboy simulator to PC, and very few reasons not to. So what’s taking so long?