Many rumors about a remastered version of Red Dead Redemption were making the rounds until Rockstar officially announced a port for PS4 and Nintendo Switch recently.
While the port brought a higher resolution and new additions like FSR, fans were understandably let down by the release. The announcement trailer on Youtube was flooded with dislikes, gathering nearly 80K dislikes in the first 24 hours.
However, the game’s files appear to suggest that Red Dead Redemption was initially a remaster for Nintendo Switch and PS4, potentially hinting that Take-Two ditched the idea after the GTA Trilogy’s failure.
Why it matters: The GTA Trilogy received universal backlash for poor treatment of classic Rockstar titles since an inexperienced developer’s work on a somewhat ambitious remaster turned out to be a disaster at release.
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
The user’s finding supports earlier leaks that Take-Two and Rockstar Games were working on a remaster or remake for Red Dead Redemption.
It is possible that the idea of a remaster was ditched after an inexperienced developer was unable to improve the GTA Trilogy for modern platforms. This may have encouraged Take-Two to take a safer approach with the latest release.
The $50 price point may have also been a remnant of the potential remaster, but it is surprising that Take-Two did not lower the price if this was indeed the case since this price point became a massive point of contention after the announcement.
On the other hand, it is possible that Take-Two believes that the current ports are equivalent to remasters due to enhancements like higher resolution support. This is not completely far-fetched since the definition of a remaster can vary wildly from release to release.
The user also suggests that this port may hint toward more direct ports like GTA 4 for last-generation consoles.
Nonetheless, the game is now available on the Nintendo Switch and PS4. Despite the controversial price, Red Dead Redemption became the best-selling title on PS4 one day after its launch.
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