An eye-catching Steam sale has seen Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 hit new heights on Valve’s platform.
With 67% off, Red Dead Redemption 2 saw an all-time peak concurrent record of 77,655 players over the weekend, four years after the game launched on Steam.
Of course, much of this rise in popularity is due to new players who have made the most of Red Dead Redemption 2’s sale price, but in truth the wild west open world epic has enjoyed sustained popularity in recent months — despite much of its core community feeling it lacks support from Rockstar.
Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in 2018 on PS4 and Xbox One and in 2019 on PC, and is considered by some to be Rockstar's greatest game. Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold 57 million copies — a monster success by any metric — but Rockstar has focused mostly on Grand Theft Auto 5 cash cow GTA Online over the last five years. Now, with the debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 imminent, Red Dead Redemption 2 feels even further from Rockstar’s thoughts.
September’s explosive Xbox leak sent shockwaves throughout the community after a Red Dead Redemption 2 next-gen update was found listed by a Microsoft executive in a planning email.
In an email chain between Microsoft executives dated May 2022 was a list of third-party games earmarked as potential day-and-date Game Pass titles. One of the games mentioned was Red Dead Redemption 2 “D&D for gen9”, which Microsoft expected to come out during the second quarter of its 2023 financial year (October to December 2022).
“Gen9” refers to the ninth generation of consoles, aka the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. Rockstar has yet to announce a next-gen update for Red Dead Redemption 2 despite the many calls from fans. IGN asked Rockstar for comment at the time but failed to receive a response.
It’s worth noting that even if Microsoft’s listing for this apparent Red Dead Redemption 2 next-gen update was accurate at the time, Rockstar’s plan for the title may have changed. It may have been delayed or even canceled. Rockstar released a PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch port of its predecessor, Red Dead Redemption, in August, and is of course currently working on Grand Theft Auto 6.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
