With how culturally relevant the firstRed Dead Redemptionis, it’s surprising that the game wasn’t readily accessible on modern platforms up until only recently. Rockstar’s gunslinging action-adventure epic was first released in May 2010, but back then, it was only available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game and itsUndead Nightmareexpansion were trapped on those consoles for several years. Eventually, though,Red Dead Redemptionwas made backwards compatible on Xbox One in 2016. It was also added to the PlayStation Now cloud streaming service in the same year, though the game wasn’t natively playable on PS4 at the time, like it was on Xbox.
Red Dead Redemptionwas finally ported to PlayStation 4, in addition to Nintendo Switch, on July 22, 2025. However, the game did not make its way to Windows PCs until July 21, 2025, a whopping 14 years after its original launch.A PC port of the originalRed Dead Redemptionwas highly-requested throughout the years, perhaps even more so than the PS4 and Switch versions, so it’s almost hard to believe that it is currently available on storefronts like Steam. These modernRDRre-releases are all fairly solid on a technical level, especially on PC, but they have some benefits and downsides compared to the game’s Xbox version.
Given how old the game is, it should come as no surprise thatRed Dead Redemptionruns really well on PC. On a decently-powerful rig, it can run at 60 to 120 frames per second at a native 4K resolution. It even plays smoothly on Ultrawide and Super Ultrawide monitors, with high draw distances and enhanced shadow quality settings enabled.Red Dead Redemptionwas only playable at 30 FPS for quite some time, so the fact that players can now experience the game with these features on PC is a pretty big deal.
Red Dead Redemptioncan currently run at 60 FPSon consoles, but only on PlayStation 5. The PS4, Switch, and Xbox versions of the game are still capped at 30 FPS. The lack of 60 FPS support on Xbox Series X/S is especially disappointing, considering the current-gen system is more than capable of running such an old game at above-average frame rates. Perhaps the main reason whyRed Dead Redemptioncan’t run at 60 FPS on Xbox Series X/S is because the console doesn’t have a native port of the title. Rather, the version ofRDRfor modern Xbox systems is basically just the 360 port of the game running through an emulator. Some backwards compatible games on Xbox consoles do have FPS Boost support, but this one doesn’t, which is unfortunate.
Despite its limited frame rate capabilities, the Xbox version ofRed Dead Redemptiondoes have some advantages over the PC, PlayStation, and Switch ports of the game. For one, it’s considerably cheaper. On the official Xbox store, players can grab Rockstar’s acclaimed action-adventure title for only $30, but the game tends to go on sale for far lower prices, both physically and digitally.Red Dead Redemptionfor Steam and other platforms, on the other hand, costs $50. It’s important to note, though, thatRDR’sUndead Nightmareexpansionis included with the recent ports of the game, whereas on Xbox it costs an additional $10.
Red Dead Redemptionon Xbox also has multiplayer support. The original version ofRDRon PS3 and Xbox 360 had a significant multiplayer component that included various PvP and PvE modes. These were unfortunately removed in the modern PS4, Switch, and PC ports of the game. Because of this, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S are the only modern platforms where players can still experienceRDR’s multiplayer. This alone would normally makeRed Dead Redemption’s Xbox port the definitive version of the game, butthe lack of 60 FPS support on Microsoft’s consolesdoes hinder it a bit.
Red Dead Redemption
WHERE TO PLAY
America, 1911. The Wild West is dying. When federal agents threaten his family, former outlaw John Marston is forced to pick up his guns again and hunt down the gang of criminals he once called friends. Experience an epic fight for survival across the sprawling expanses of the American West and Mexico, as John Marston struggles to bury his blood-stained past, one man at a time.Red Dead Redemption is a Western epic, set at the turn of the 20th century when the lawless and chaotic badlands began to give way to the expanding reach of government and the spread of the Industrial Age.