Red Dead Redemption Re-Release May Have Almost Been a Remaster, According to Leak

Red Dead Redemption may have originally been planned as a remaster.

August 19, 2023, 12:16am

Apparently, the new Red Dead Redemption re-release was almost a proper remaster. Over the last decade, there has been a huge rise in remasters and remakes. A ton of classic games from the 2000s have been brought to modern consoles in various ways. Some of these have seen the game remade from the ground up with new gameplay mechanics, changes to the story, better graphics, and much more. Some have been more remasters that give the game a new coat of paint and make them more attractive to the modern player. However, some fans were a bit disappointed to see that Rockstar Games did neither for the new version of Red Dead Redemption.

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The new version of the 2010 western brings the game to PlayStation 4 (backward compatible with PS5) and Nintendo Switch, but has very few significant upgrades. This version of and it costs $50, which makes it a tough sell to players. It also came as a surprise that Rockstar was calling it a “conversion” as opposed to a “remaster”, as leakers claimed a “remaster” was on the way for almost two years. However, it was pointed out by Twitter user @NationalPepper that the files of the Nintendo Switch version of Red Dead Redemption references the game as a “remaster”. It’s possible that this is just what it was labeled as internally as shorthand and nothing more, but it could suggest there was more planned here and things were changed.

It seems that RDR conversion made by Double Eleven Studios was initially called "RDR Remaster".

At least this is what we see in the leaked symbols from the Switch version. The executable is called "rdrremaster.exe". yikes.

P.S. Not sure why the engine needs to know its name.🤔 pic.twitter.com/LawR9gkB5K
— Vadim M. (@NationalPepper) August 18, 2023

It’s been heavily speculated that Red Dead Redemption‘s remaster/re-release had its plans heavily changed following the GTA Trilogy debacle. After that didn’t go over so well due to a very rough release, fans speculated that Rockstar Games pulled back on its plans to do more significant remakes/remasters for its other games. Unfortunately, we’ll likely never really know if there was more to it than that, but maybe some insiders can shed some light in the future.

Red Dead Redemption is out now on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Would you still want a remake or remaster for the game? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.