Rockstar reportedly halts Red Dead Redemption remaster because of GTA Trilogy mess

pcgamer.com:

Nothing succeeds like success, as the old saying goes, and nowhere is that more true than in videogames. Sequels have been a foundational part of the business for years, and more recently remakes and remasters have become big, bringing our favorite games from years gone by onto new hardware. But two huge and obvious candidates for the remastering treatment—Red Dead Redemption(opens in new tab) and Grand Theft Auto 4(opens in new tab)—have reportedly been halted by Rockstar.

The problem, according to Rockstar insider Tez2, is the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, a remastered set of Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, which was a full-on mess(opens in new tab) when it launched in November 2021. There's plenty of in-depth criticism and analysis out there if you want to get into it, but this pretty much covers it all:

What the FUCK pic.twitter.com/1tPeUAsdB7November 10, 2021

Tez2 clarified in a reply tweet that remasters of GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption were only in the "ideas and plans(opens in new tab)" stage, but they were planned—Rockstar was apparently waiting to see how the GTA trilogy panned out before going all-on on production. And it actually did quite well in terms of sales, which Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said «significantly» exceeded commercial expectations(opens in new tab) and provided a major contribution to the company's ongoing financial success. 

But it was also a lot of egg on Rockstar's previously unblemished face: The studio was forced to apologize(opens in new tab) for the mess, re-release the old versions of the trilogy games, and even give players another game(opens in new tab) for free to make up for it. They also probably had to listen to a lot of "busted nut(opens in new tab)" jokes,