Red Dead Redemption remaster seemingly cancelled in favour of port

New evidence indicates that Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption re-release was originally planned to be a remaster, before being turned into a port instead.

Fans seemingly haven’t forgiven Rockstar Games for its recent re-release of the first Red Dead Redemption game, which is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (via backwards compatibility) and Nintendo Switch.

Missed the announcement? Check it out below.

In the months prior to its announcement and release, leakers and industry insiders suggested Rockstar was working on a full remake of the original game for current-gen platforms. The remake would have used the same engine Red Dead Redemption 2 used, meaning better graphics, increased framerates and possibly some new bonus content.

While the rumours always had to be taken with a pinch of salt, optimistic fans were still left disappointed and angered when the re-release was announced, and that it wouldn’t have any improvements compared to the original aside from some cleaned-up visuals. The lack of improvements and new content caused more criticism for the company when fans realised they’d be selling the re-release with premium pricing.

While the controversy has died down for the time being, fans are still lamenting over what could have been, many of which are creating their own remakes of the first game’s content in Red Dead Redemption 2. Now though, new evidence is suggesting a remake was originally on the cards but was scrapped in favour of the lacklustre port instead.

Twitter user NationalPepper shared a screenshot of the game’s code, saying, “It seems that RDR conversion made by Double Eleven Studios was initially called ‘RDR Remaster’. At least this is what we see in the leaked symbols from the Switch version. The executable is called ‘rdrremaster.exe’. Yikes.”

Rockstar Games has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the remake, probably due to the company putting all of its focus into Grand Theft Auto VI, but the leak does seemingly imply a remake was at least considered, even if just briefly.

The whole situation has unfortunately been a huge let-down for fans, and many have claimed they’re officially done with Rockstar and its future titles.

The Red Dead Redemption re-release is out now for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.