Did Rockstar axe its Red Dead Redemption remaster?

13 years after John Marston first shot up Armadillo, Red Dead Redemption is back in a big way. While there was plenty of excitement about a new-gen Red Dead Redemption remaster, we were instead gifted “Rockstar Games Presents Red Dead Redemption.” 

Although the Red Dead Redemption port brings the cowboy adventure to Nintendo for the first time, it’s been accused of being another cheap cash-in akin to the GTA Trilogy. We should’ve learned to temper our expectations by now, but it seems we’ll never learn. However, did we nearly get something different?

What happened to the Red Dead Redemption remake?

Gaming leakers are currently holding that L, as the supposed Red Dead Redemption remaster we kept hearing about failed to materialise. Instead, Rockstar has been called out for slapping a $50/£40 price tag on what’s a port that doesn’t do anything to upgrade the 2010 classic.

Interestingly, dataminers claim that the mythical Red Dead Redemption remaster was once in the works. Twitter account @NationalPepper looked into the files of the Switch version of Red Dead Redemption and found references to “remaster” instead of it being a conversion. This has raised some interesting questions.

The OP asks whether it was simply an internal reference or a massive change of plans that saw Rockstar abandon a true Red Dead Redemption remake. Vadim M. found “rdrremaster.exe” and goes on to speculate that the conversion was originally going to be a much bigger affair. 

The GTA Trilogy could’ve affected the Red Dead Redemption Remake

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It’s all speculation, but according to Vadim, they think that the Switch version was once a remaster before things changed direction. This could be down to the failures of the GTA Trilogy. As it floundered, we’d already heard about it scuppering plans for a Red Dead remaster and a GTA IV remaster.

They go on to guess that we’ll still get a GTA IV port, but like the Rockstar Presents version of Red Dead, it will be the same rerelease instead of a new-gen overhaul. The RDR port is said to be running pretty well on Switch, but it’s hardly the remaster we were looking for.

It’s true that Rockstar might release a new-gen Red Dead Redemption remaster as an extra surprise, but we doubt it. Even though there was already enough hate thrown at the GTA Trilogy, that’ll be nothing compared to the outrage if it’s managed to sink the idea of remasters and remakes in favour of disappointing ports.