Red Dead Redemption’s remaster shows signs of life, and might be closer than expected

Good news for fans of John Marston. It seems like the Red Dead Redemption remaster is back in Rockstar Games’ plans. The South Korean rating organization has listed a new version of the game for consoles, and it presumably refers to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S (hopefully PC users, who couldn’t enjoy it back in the day, are also included).

Far from a simple rumor, as it may seem, the Korean GRAC (Game Rating and Admnisitration Committee) has a long history of leaking games that are yet to be announced, and they are almost always right. In addition, between their registrations and the release date, very little time usually passes. Will we see it in 2023?

In fact, the news is not even about the existence of that Red Dead Redemption remaster, but that it shows signs of life again after last year. Because a few months ago it also seemed like an open secret and there was even another Rockstar remaster in the cards, that of GTA IV, but the company put both in the freezer after the disastrous launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition.

What happened to the last Rockstar remaster?

Far from being the tribute that the series deserved, the Definitive Edition ended up being more disappointing than definitive. Our colleague Francisco J. Brella from MeriStation Spain spoke harshly of the title in MeriStation’s review, where those three games, often considered masterpieces, did not exceed a collective 6 out of 10. In the remasters not only did they remove legendary cheats and they had lost their most iconic musical themes, but on top of that the title was unplayable for days at launch due to the crash of Rockstar’s own launcher. As usual in the 21st century, this led to the corresponding review bombing by angry early adopters, which was so heavy that the developer was even forced to remove the game from sale, something that had only previously happened with Cyberpunk 2077.

All this was accompanied by technical problems, bugs, and legal disputes for various expired licenses that were still on file for the titles. It should be noted that at least Rockstar listened to the feedback from the community, agreed to bring back the originals to digital stores, and even gave them away for free to GTA Trilogy buyers. A peace offering with which they smoothed things over and started a long road to redemption, which happened to include not doing more remastering and focusing on what they have right now… at least for a while.

Source | GRAK