Rockstar Games has had a big laugh recently, what with them essentially porting over 2011’s Red Dead Redemption onto the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch consoles for $50 and without multiplayer functionality.
Consumers have just about had enough of Rockstar’s cancerous antics, with so much hype regarding the potential for a polished remastered port to all modern platforms and PC effectively being shot dead within the span of a minute.
PC players and those who wish to experience Red Dead Redemption in a more modernized tone with higher quality textures, models and visual effects continue to suffer with the fact that Red Dead Redemption will only ever come to PC in the form of either the Xenia or RPCS3 emulators.
The performance of Red Dead Redemption on PS3 / XBOX emulators is acceptable enough for PC players to at least slightly enhance their experience via upscaling but that doesn’t necessarily make it look and feel like a remastered title, with the lack of increased texture quality and or draw distance it still looks and feels as if you were playing a game made in 2011.
Thankfully the games made by Rockstar Games have a very large and dedicated audience skilled enough to essentially overhaul the likes of Grand Theft Auto V into a game that looks akin to a tech demo, DXVK has fixed the absolutely garbage PC performance in Grand Theft Auto IV.
Dedicated fans of Red Dead Redemption have come together in producing their own extensive visual and performance overhaul mod for the game for the Xenia emulator alongside its Nintendo Switch emulated derivatives.
Dubbed “Reality Redemption” this is more than your typical texture replacement mod, as you can see from the GTA Forums of the overhaul mod itself they have devoted themselves into providing a true remaster for Red Dead Redemption that’s accessible for all, for absolutely free mind you.
Reality Redemption aims to not only increase performance but also quality as well, increasing the amount of vegetation across the ground alongside increased draw distances in-game to boot and very soon Reality Redemption aims to provide a native PC control scheme, though why you’d want to play a game such as RDR on mouse and keyboard is beyond me.
The overhaul project began back in late March and is already over half completed, estimation varies of course but I believe at the current pace that they are going everything should be completed by around July 2024, so fingers crossed Rockstar and Take-Two don’t get anal and DMCA these guys into oblivion.
This video comparison showcases the visual differences between the standard Red Dead Redemption and the Reality Redemption overhaul, take notice of the enhanced and more vibrant lighting effects and increased saturation that finally adds more color to the game than various shades of grey.
But of course not everyone likes things overly saturated and you’re entitled to your own opinions on that matter, and of course it goes without saying that this isn’t a bug free experience either with users reporting bugged out textures for grass and powerlines while the video also depicts a lighting bug at nighttime.
The Reality Redemption mod has still yet to actually enhance the game visually, outside of marginal behind the scenes improvements one would hardly recognize, a new revised camera perspective from that of the games sequel RDR2 among alleged AI and physics improvements.
Only John Marston currently benefits from high resolution textures as that is an aspect that they are currently working on at the moment.
But nevertheless this is one project to keep your eyes on and hopefully we will all be able to experience a higher quality emulated experience of Red Dead Redemption, shoving it into the faces of Rockstar Games and their heinous antics sometime over the next six months.
