For the last 15 years, the rumor has been that the code in Red Dead Redemption 1 was so incredibly incomprehensible, that a port from the PS3 to PC would be practically impossible, and Rockstar Games has said little to nothing to refute the rumor. However, on October 8th, 2024, seemingly out of the blue, when gamers least expected it, Rockstar Games announced that Red Dead Redemption 1 would finally be coming to PC alongside its Undead Nightmare DLC just two days before Halloween.
Red Dead Redemption, released May 18th, 2010, is a spaghetti western game set in a fictional yet mostly historically accurate North America. The game takes place in 1911 in the fictional States of New Austin(US), West Elizabeth(US), and Nuevo Paraiso(Mexico). The protagonist, John Marston, a rancher up in Beecher’s Hope, has his family taken from him by the Beuro of Investigation and is forced to hunt down and tie up loose ends from his past life as a ruthless gunslinging outlaw.
Most of the characters that John interacts with do not care about helping him get his family back, and humorous and obnoxious characters like the Snake oil dealer and the Irish arms dealer, test John’s patience as they constantly put him in dangerous and cartoonish situations that always benefit them rather than John. Other characters like The Mexican General and the Leader of the Mexican Rebels, tested my own patience as I watched them constantly disrespect the people they claimed to be protecting.
The game came out in 2010 and it definitely feels like it. It’s not a remastered version with fancy graphics and better controls, it’s just a one to one port of a 14-year-old PS3 game. The gameplay felt clunky at times, and the graphics did not meet the expectations I had for Rockstar if they were ever to release this game on PC. To be clear though the graphics are not horrible. The early 2010’s were about the time that games started mastering graphics in video games. They started to look like more than a few polygons strung together by a 64 bit processor. It is my firm belief that games that released in the 2010’s, such as RDR1, Skyrim, and Space Marine 1, may not have next gen graphics, but they still hold up visually because the developers of these games got the Stylization right. Rather than feel outdated, the graphics in these games feel intentional, like art. It feels stylized rather than limited.
But a stylized video game is nothing without a story to back it up, and Rockstar Games has always been good at confirming my stance on video games that the graphics and gameplay can be the worst imaginable, but as long as it’s remotely playable and the story is where the heart went, a game can be game of the year. And that’s exactly what Red Dead Redemption 1 did back in 2010, beating God of War 3 and winning game of the year.
Rockstar games always have a special charm, whether its a Grand Theft Auto Game, A Max Payne Game, or L.A. Noir, their stories are always some of the best in gaming. And Red Dead Redemption 1 is no exception, and neither is its sequel-prequel game for that matter, but that’s another article for another day. The Story of Red Dead Redemption 1 is beautifully crafted. While playing I grew connections to the characters I was playing with, and came to love John Marston even more than I did in RDR2. Every moment was impactful, and the death of yet another beloved character, was heartbreaking to play through.
For PC exclusive gamers, this is a must buy, and a must play.
