There’s something almost uncanny about playing Red Dead Redemption 1 at 120 fps. Entombed for so long on the Xbox 360, the game has come to serve in my mind as a kind of emblem for that whole era of consoles. Seeing John Marston all razzle-dazzled up in the latest DLSS whatever and 4K HDR feels a little like someone snuck a subtle but entirely new instrument into a classic song I know by heart. Not bad, but it evokes a feeling as if you’ve quietly transitioned to an almost imperceptibly different branch of reality.
But as alternate universes go, this is a pretty good one. Don’t worry, folks, Rockstar hasn’t repeated the tragedy of the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition. In the couple of hours I’ve spent with the game since launch—mostly on my PC, but a little on Steam Deck—this is easily the best way to play the classic.
Frontier spirit
I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people reading this already know full-well what Red Dead Redemption 1 is about, so I won’t spend too long going over the specifics. But if you’re totally new, this is a dolled-up port of the 2010 game that takes place after Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s 1911 and you are John Marston, former member of the outlaw Van der Linde gang, blackmailed by the government into rounding up its surviving members. That is, when you aren’t preoccupied by any of over a dozen side-quests to become America’s greatest rambler, gambler, trapper, keeper, and a hundred other cowboy-flavoured nouns.
Or, you know, it’s GTA with horses. It really is a lot more GTA than its sequel, mind you. This is the Rockstar of 2010: It took a stab at weighty, emotional stories with 2008’s GTA 4, sure, but it was still a studio you associated more with ludicrous pastiche—San Andreas, Vice City—than serious attempts at capital-S Storytelling.
That’s one of the things that made RDR1 such a surprise; John Marston was an interesting, layered character in a morally complex setting. He was not Carl Johnson donning a jetpack and beating people to death with a dildo (although now it’s on PC, anything is possible with mods). But there is still some of that: mad, off-the-wall characters who consist pretty much of one joke repeated ad nauseum, like your graverobbing ally Seth or pathetic race scientist Harold MacDougal.
They’re characters who could slot neatly into the most outlandish GTA tale. That stuff’s still in the sequel in bits and pieces, sure, but it’s louder and more concentrated here. This is a rougher, less refined story than RDR2’s, but it’s still very much worth hearing.
The Lone High Dynamic Ranger
But enough about the story we likely all know already. How does the thing run? The short answer is: like a dream. Rockstar and Double Eleven took a light touch with the game, in contrast to the disastrously thorough tinkering that Grove Street Games gave the GTA Trilogy for its Definitive Edition, and the result is a game that I imagine will run on pretty much any device you have to hand. Hell, this thing runs on Switch, which produces roughly as many teraflops as an early modern water wheel.
But there are some pretty-fications. For one thing, there’s proper HDR now, which looked absolutely gorgeous as I roamed across the open plains around Armadillo. The sky turned such a luscious orange that, when I had to turn the setting off to take screenshots for this article, the game’s colours-as-they-looked-before seemed downright drab in comparison.
Plus, of course, the whole thing now runs at modern resolutions, avoiding the muddy, ugly experience we got with the pre-2.0 Metal Gear Solid Master Collection. John Marston is sharper than ever, spread luxuriously across every pixel of both my 4K TV and 1440p monitor. At whatever framerate he likes, too, because this is still fundamentally a game designed for the technology of 2010.
John Marston was an interesting, layered character in a morally complex setting. He was not Carl Johnson donning a jetpack and beating people to death with a dildo.
My only quibble, and it’s a real minor one, that I’ve run into so far? The DLSS. Not even the whole thing. 95% of the time, keeping DLSS frame generation (which is in itself a bit absurd to turn on for a game so old) active just makes the game run at even more obscene framerates, which is exactly what I want. But it does sometimes run into some issues with the UI, especially indoors.
I often found the game doubling up on the activity and player icons whenever I swing the minimap around, an issue caused by DLSS getting a little confused by precisely what frames it’s meant to be generating. Like I said, a very minor issue, and nowhere near as bad as I’ve experienced it in some games (looking at you, Jedi Survivor), but I’m nothing if not thorough.
As for the Steam Deck? Runs perfectly even at high settings, as far as I can see. I’ve only noodled about on my Deck for 10 minutes or so—maybe there’s some later mission or graphical thing that will trip Valve’s handheld up for some reason—but I feel pretty confident recommending it if you’re looking to pick it up for on-the-go howdy’ing. GTA Online might be busted on Deck, but who needs that when you have the classics?
Jailbreak
So, yeah, RDR1 is finally free (properly this time) of console prison, and the best way to play it is now the best way to play pretty much anything else: on PC, which you’d certainly hope for given how much they’re charging for it. It’s great to see, although it does make me feel even grumpier about the still-very-much-lacklustre state of the GTA remasters. You’ve proved you can knock it out of the park with this one, Rockstar, fancy going back and making good on those neglected classics? Just remember to put Video Killed the Radio Star back in.