It’s amusing that I get to play Red Dead Redemption yet again, this time on my PS5. After trying it out on both my old PS4 and PC in the past couple of years, I was certainly curious to see if the game’s PS5 debut came with any bells and whistles that might have tempted me to pick up a copy for my library, old time’s sake, and all that.
It is the experience that leads into Arthur’s story in the second game, after all, and there’s so much of it that shows up in that prequel that makes it a very interesting precursor to a title that continues to be among the very best of modern gaming’s best titles. That made me quite excited to finally have it playable on a current-gen console.
“The valleys in front of you now look all the more enticing, while rays of sunlight bathe it all with a welcoming, warm glow.”
But issues crop up quite early on, making me question whether releasing it as an “enhanced” port was even worth the effort. Rockstar is definitely busy with GTA VI and perhaps even the beginnings of Red Dead Redemption III, but does that mean a version of one of its best-sellers should compromise on the value it offers?
Perhaps I’m coming down too hard on the game, as there are a few things that really made it stand out during my time with it. For instance, revamped textures and lighting make the game’s world all the more immersive. Red Dead Redemption was quite a good-looking game when it came out back in 2010, and its current-gen makeover does very well to give it a fresh coat of paint.
The valleys in front of you now look all the more enticing, while rays of sunlight bathe it all with a welcoming, warm glow. Those rays also dance off your clothes and the faces of characters you’re conversing with, lending the experience a sense of realism that wasn’t as pronounced in the original, thanks to technological limitations of the time.
The framerate’s another plus, with both exploration and combat feeling very smooth. Loading times and performance are also excellent, with barely any time for a stretch before you’re loaded into the settlement or location you wanted to fast travel to. I barely needed to activate my Dead Eye when I got into a firefight, with the improved framerate letting me pull off headshots with ease.
“Furthermore, the excellent textures and lighting only serve to underline how dated the character models and facial animations are.”
However, despite how these improvements make an already great game even better, there are issues to be had. For all of the visual splendor that the PS5 has enabled, the lack of graphical options does rankle a little. Even on the PS5 Pro, you’re stuck with what you get, which is annoying even though what you get is a nearly perfect version of an excellent game.
Furthermore, the excellent textures and lighting only serve to underline how dated the character models and facial animations are. No amount of warm sunlight is going to change the fact that your character and the people they’re talking to look and move like they come from an era of gaming that should be long-forgotten by now.
Lip-syncing issues and a distinct lack of movement on character faces during conversations are also issues that break the game’s spell. While these issues may have been acceptable losses or even par for the course back in the day, they’ve no business being in a 2025 release, even if it is an enhanced port of the original experience.
But they aren’t really game-breaking, and I was able to forgive them for the most part. But the opening cutscene brought up an issue that really annoyed me, considering how it made me miss out on bits of conversation. The game’s audio sometimes chooses to drown out any other audio output, relegating conversations to the background. It happened more than a few times and often at a very inconvenient moment, making it quite an annoyance.
“A few QoL changes to the game’s menus and controls could have gone a long way in presenting an experience that seemed optimized for current-gen hardware.”
My DualSense controller remained painfully quiet in my hands thanks to a distinct lack of integration with its haptics and adaptive triggers, an omission that I think deserves a comment, thanks to how immersive it could have made so much of the experience for me. Some of my annoyances from fifteen years ago are also a part of this new version. My horse’s sprinting inputs were decidedly finicky, while John resolutely refused to sprint to cover during one firefight, choosing to soak up a few enemy bullets instead.
Balancing these weaknesses against the game’s improvements has me wondering if Rockstar couldn’t have done more to bring a more polished, current-gen experience to the table. A few QoL changes to the game’s menus and controls could have gone a long way in presenting an experience that seemed optimized for current-gen hardware as opposed to an enhanced port that underlines the game’s age.
It’s a testament to Red Dead Redemption’s quality that it has managed to withstand the test of time and even remain relevant despite the overwhelming success of the title that followed it. There aren’t a great many titles today that have aged as well as it has, and the fact that this version’s its third release in three years is telling. It’s a solid story that comes with some brilliant examinations of life in the Wild West, and the redemption it promises as a result might not be the kind any of us was expecting at the end of John’s journey.
But all of its strengths only serve to showcase the fact that the current-gen version of this game should have been more than what it is. Given the game’s pedigree, a full-blown remake should have been the way to go if Rockstar wanted to truly keep one of its best titles alive through the ages. For starters, this one’s popularity is a great argument in favor of it.
“But if you’re a franchise newbie, dive right in and enjoy a title that’s sure to tempt you into continuing the adventure with its next instalment.”
Secondly, all of the tech that the studio needed to give the aging experience a new lease of life has now been around for a while. The latest generation of consoles and the ones that are going to follow are now potent vehicles for remakes that give a fresh new spin on familiar titles.
Third, remakes of older titles like Demon’s Souls and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater prove that there is a market for them, with great ones being successful enough to justify a similar effort for Red Dead Redemption.
As it stands, the latest version of the game feels more like a cash grab rather than an earnest effort to bring a classic to a new generation of players, or perhaps reward veterans with a brilliant version of a game that’s quite close to their hearts. As such, it’s quite hard to recommend to those of you who’ve already played the game unless you’re itching for another stab at it.
But if you’re a franchise newbie, dive right in and enjoy a title that’s sure to tempt you into continuing the adventure with its next instalment. Although it should have been more, this version of Red Dead Redemption is the one to beat today.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
