Latest ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ Update Reportedly Downgrades Graphics

After a massive and very successful launch in October, the Red Dead Redemption 2 hype train steamed along all the way until the end of 2018, but recently it’s starting to slow. After players began to finish the lengthy single-player campaign, most either left the open-western all together or transitioned to Red Dead Online once it hit at the end of November. And since players began migrating to the online portion of the game, Rockstar has struggled to keep them satiated with new content and sometimes even enraged the community with certain updates.

That said, while it’s struggled to get Red Dead Online right, players of the single-player haven’t had anything to complain about other than trying to find a three-star moose to skin. Well, until the game’s most recent update that is.

According to players, the game’s latest update has seemingly chopped ambient occlusion from the game, resulting in a noticeable downgrade. The change in visuals was first noticed by Twitter user Darealbandicoot, who shared a side-by-side look at the game from launch and the westerm with the latest update:

As you can see, the downgrade isn’t substantial. In fact, you may not even notice if you don’t know it’s there. But once you see it, it’s pretty difficult not to constantly notice it.

For those that don’t know: ambient occlusion is some pretty fancy stuff that essentially renders lighting based on the actual dimensions and properties of the space. In other words, it’s more realistic, and is a substantial reason why the game’s lighting is as good as it is.

Of course, it’s possible the lighting issues may have nothing to do with an accidental downgrade, but rather in-game factors such as weather and time of day. The latest update doesn’t make any mention of lighting changes, and Rockstar Games wouldn’t remove ambient occlusion willingly, so it’s unclear what’s going on.

At the time of publishing, Rockstar Games has not commented on the reported downgrade.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. For more coverage on the popular open-world western, click here. And as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or hit me up Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know there. Does this look like a downgrade to you?

Thanks, DualShockers.