Rockstar’s Red Dead upgrade is great, but why neglect its sequel?

As of late I’ve been on a complete Red Dead Redemption high. Recently with Red Dead Redemption 2 reaching its 7 year anniversary, I decided to finally pick the game up on Steam. Now I could’ve played my original save file on my Xbox, but the game on all consoles (PS4/PS5/Xbox One onward) is still locked at a sluggish 30 frames per second, adding input delay on top of heavy animations. On the Xbox Series X, playing Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like I’m puppeterring a cowboy as opposed to becoming one.

That’s where playing it on PC comes in and it is a night and day difference. I may not be blowing frame rate records out of the water with my setup but even just the jump to at least 60 frames makes the game feel snappier than I remember, which makes lining up headshots feel visceral.

When I got the notification from Rockstar Games’ latest post talking about going back to the wild west my eyebrows began to rise. They then proceeded to descend as Rockstar is porting the first Red Dead Redemption to current gen consoles, not its sequel.

It does beg the question of why do I even care if I can play Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC? While that may be true, just because I can play the game on PC it doesn’t mean there aren’t hundreds of thousands of others who don’t, or can’t. There is still an active playerbase on console and they deserve to experience the game in the fidelity that modern hardware can provide and that Rockstar has brought over to their previous darling, Grand Theft Auto V.

Now mind you, I do enjoy Red Dead 1. Not nearly as much as its sequel by any means, but of course if the first game wasn’t worth a damn it wouldn’t have gotten a sequel, let alone a port to modern consoles and smartphones fifteen years after its initial release. So I understand the idea to port it for modern convenience. However, I cannot fathom why Rockstar would give the first game this treatment before its sequel which is in more desperate need of attention.

I know not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset given that the upgrades will be free across all platforms and are actually pretty meaningful. Every console will hit 60 frames per second (including the Xbox version finally), all saves will carry over, the Switch 2 version will even feature mouse controls.

It’s not as if the upgrade itself is a bad thing by any means as now a wider range of people get to play. In fact, I’m excited to check it out. If you have a Netflix account you’ll be able to access the game on your smartphone from the app. More people getting to experience Red Dead is always great. It’s just I can’t help but scratch my head as to why they’re giving the first game all this love when realistically it did not need it.

Red Dead Redemption was ported over to PC just a year ago. Not to mention also on PS4 with a 60 FPS update that came not long after launch, something fans have been begging for in its sequel ever since the PS5 has been released and GTA V was given the ‘next-gen’ makeover. History has been known to repeat itself, and once again Red Dead Redemption 2 is being neglected for seemingly no good reason.

I finally started Red Dead Online after all these years and while it’s actually a great deal of fun, you also become victim to an engrossing economy which may be accurate to the American experience, but it doesn’t make for a fun gameplay loop. I know Red Dead Online isn’t the most popular game out there, but it’s an active game that you can buy and play so that opens the grounds for criticism.

For starters, everything is just too damn expensive. Clothing items that would cost $7 in the story cost up to ten times as much online. Not to mention how level gated so many items are, including ammo which will put you at an immediate disadvantage against other players. Enemies you loot barely have a dime on them, literally.

The gameplay itself is great fun because RDR2 is just expertly made in that department. However, the fact that the game relies on P2P connections as opposed to dedicated servers leading to NONSTOP disconnecting from sessions and reforming posses can make the game frustrating when it should just be fulfilling. Not to mention you still cannot host private sessions nor can you host private game modes, leading you to wander the frontier while the game takes its sweet time to put you and your friends in a private game with your friends, and that’s if it even connects at all.

These are serious game altering problems that have not been addressed for years, and instead Rockstar is giving all the love and attention to a 2010 release when their active online tootin’ simulator is in desperate need of care. I love this franchise, and I’m glad to see it still alive and well. I just think it’s unfair to completely neglect a chunk of the playerbase of the same franchise for it. But if they won’t even provide console gamers a smoother experience in the form of framerate, I ain’t exactly holding my breath for these deeply rooted problems to get fixed.

I want this article to age like milk. Make no mistake, I'm still excited and very much so looking forward to playing the new version of Red Dead Redemption because it’s still a classic and always will be. I just know there are others like me that adore its sequel and want to see it get the same consideration. Maybe by crying on the internet I can see the announcement and swear I had a say in doing so when in reality, it’s just a coincidence.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna keep hanging out with my friend Cripps and keep bringing him animals while he repeatedly tells me about his Tennessee bank job.