This Isn’t the Red Dead We Wanted

gamesreviews.com:

The original Red Dead Redemption is making its return – and I kind of wish it wasn’t.

That’s not entirely fair. It’s fantastic that the barebones remaster of the original game is coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch. The fantastic Xbox backwards compatible version is good enough that it makes sense to re-release the game where it isn’t available. PC could use some love, but there we go.

Still, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. No sooner than I had finished talking about remasters we need, Rockstar monkey paws itself into being the subject of another article about the state of its legacy releases.

For those who haven’t played them, Red Dead Redemption 2 acts as a prequel to Red Dead Redemption. It builds new stories and characters that should be vitally important in the original game, but aren’t because they didn’t exist at release. It takes personalities that were previously two-dimensional and weak, and turns them into fully-fledged companions. And this re-release is going to do nothing to fix that disconnect. That will be especially jarring for those who never played the original and will now get the chance to do so.

To add insult to injury, the PlayStation version is for the PS4. But, it is noted multiple times, it will be playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility. It is 2023. There shouldn’t be PS4-only releases anymore.

I’ve written before about the potential for a Red Dead remake. And there really is one. On top of that, much of the original game’s map is in the sequel. Does that make it easy to recreate? No, but it makes it easier. If the will was there, it would sell. Although to be fair, the sequel did only sell 55m units, so I can understand why Rockstar is being cautious.

A remaster with no changes will