Review: Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC is the definitive version

DISCLAIMER: A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Platform: Windows PC via Rockstar Games Launcher (reviewed), Epic Games Store, Steam (December)
Developers: Rockstar Games
Publisher: Rockstar Games
MSRP: $59.99

The long-awaited arrival of Rockstar’s console sensation Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC is finally here. After an excruciating waiting period of one year, PC gamers are now able to experience the genre-defining adventure of Arthur Morgan and his raggedy crew of outlaws and criminals. It is no understatement that with Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar not only set the gold standard in terms of what an open-world game can be but the studio also eclipsed their previous games in pretty much all aspects. After having spent about two weeks in the expansive world of RDR2, I can now understand why this game still stands at the top of highest-rated games on both the PS4 and Xbox One.

Masters of the craft show how it’s done:

As the practical inventors of the modern open-world genre, Rockstar still remains at the top of the pack when it comes to understanding what the popular gameplay setting is able to offer well beyond traditional, linear games. While many games featuring a large game map often fall into the trap of offering little more than unnecessary long traversal to missions coupled with nice vistas at times, the hodgepodge of unique and diverse areas in RDR2 enable wildly different gameplay styles. It’s vast enough to feel like the package includes several games at once. And we wouldn’t be entirely wrong with that train of thought.

For the first time, Rockstar has included meaningful and deep survival mechanics into one of their premiere franchises. It’s thankfully not as complex or demanding of attention, unlike competing titles who are firmly set in the survival genre. You won’t need to micromanage all aspects of your player’s bodily functions, needs, or ailments. By giving extra depth to how the player’s three stats or cores (Stamina, Health, and Dead Eye) work and can be influenced, we get a rare occurrence where the player’s actions and the player character’s world align into one cohesive block. Eating food, drinking elixirs and clothing according to your surroundings are logical and important factors in maximizing Arthur’s potential. It would be easy to half-heartedly implement these mechanics into menus but Rockstar went the long way and created deep hunting, fishing and crafting mechanics. Accompanying these is a living flora and fauna that spans the entirety of the world. Collecting specific plants and roots to cook a potent meal that can fill up your cores in one go, make the extracurricular activities never a drag.

Of course, there’s also a much easier way to attend to these needs for players who aren’t into immersive side activities in form of purchasable elixirs, medicine and food at the many general stores in the world. This way, players can focus their entire attention and time on the more cinematic and action-filled parts, of which there are plenty. Expect a wild ride through one of the best Wild West adventures ever imagined, video game and cinema. We don’t want to rob you of the enjoyment of experiencing these first-hand, so we’ll refrain from going into further detail at this point. But rest assured that Rockstar has once again surpassed their illustrious track-record of past blockbuster campaigns of GTA V and the likes. Jaws were dropped in amazement many times.

Rough Rider

Before we come to the meat and bones of the PC review, we’ll direct you to our original review of Red Dead Redemption 2 for consoles. You can get a more in-depth overview about the game’s mechanics and story there. Since the PC version is essentially the identical game, we’ll rather use the opportunity to focus on what makes the PC version, in particular, stand out.

In case you remained in a self-imposed media blackout for all things RDR 2, first of all, respect for your year-long patience, but here is what you need to know about Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC. The launch of the game for PC on November 5th was immediately followed by large numbers of gamers complaining about various technical difficulties. Many of these weren’t even due to the game itself but Rockstar’s mint PC storefront and client, the Rockstar Games Launcher (RGL).

Since it is a very new client, bugs were to be expected but crashing upon launch on arguably the biggest PC game launch of the year is just an unfortunate acid test. The developers have already issued several updates to the RGL which solved the issues for many but there are still users who simply cannot even start up RDR 2.

Besides the launcher, the game itself also proved unusually crash-prone to a number of gamers. We luckily aren’t in either one of these camps, with the game running very stable even on our dated gaming rig with the following specs. For the CPU we have an Intel i5-4690, 16GB of DDR3 RAM coupled with a five-year-old Nvidia GTX 970 GPU. Hardly an enthusiast monster rig. Like many other PC titles, the unlimited number of PC configs makes it very difficult to say what kind of hardware causes crashes or doesn’t let the game start. Rockstar has until now released multiple patches for both the launcher and the game, so we are confident that any remaining issues will soon be ironed out.

For the Glory of Choice

Once you can actually start and play the game, you’ll be welcomed by an exemplary PC port. Unlocked framerates, ultra-wide and multi-monitor support, HDR display support and a swath of game settings gives a smile to my PC gamer face. Whether it’s 60fps above all else or pristine image quality at +4K, Red Dead Redemption 2 continues Rockstar’s previous excellent PC port of GTA V by offering massive amounts of settings that let you customize both the technical and gameplay aspects just the way you want it. Before going into the technical side, let’s take a look at some other choice PC centric features.

As a console port, playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC with a controller works expectedly flawless. For an incomprehensible reason, Rockstar is not offering button customization when using them though. We hope it’s an oversight that is going to be added with an update very soon. Thankfully, when it comes to mouse & keyboard users have full control over button assignment. And you’ll need it, as the game’s many mechanics and more immersive ambitions have led to a laundry list of commands you can issue to your player character at any moment. Context-sensitive deviations only make the beginning that much more complicated. It’s nothing a few play sessions didn’t trim into my muscle memory but I’m reminded of the good old days of PC gaming when many titles would come bundled with keyboard overlays.

Playing with a controller on PC is perfectly fine but with the landing of RDR2 on PC, we feel that mouse and keyboard add so much to the gameplay experience that we at least offer our heartfelt advice that you try it. It truly changes the way how you play and more often than not, for the better. It won’t come as a surprise that with the usage of a mouse any kind of activity that requires smooth and pinpoint movement ends up not only being achieved easier but it simply is more fun to blast criminals like a true gunslinger with a snap of the wrist.

The ability to switch into first-person mode was available on consoles already and it becomes a natural fit on PC with a mouse. Combat and hunting feel at home from this viewpoint on the PC. I ended up enjoying cutscenes, horse riding and melee combat in third-person while switching quickly in-game to first-person when getting in a shootout or going hunting. Adjustable field-of-view sliders elevate the experience above consoles even further.

The console versions of RDR2 infamously were targets of criticism for their unusual long input lag (the time it takes between pushing a button and the game recognizing the command) but are improved in this port. This welcome improvement is the result of the naturally lower latency computer monitors have, higher framerates impossible on consoles and the more fluid mouse movement. With adjustable auto-aim, there’s the best of both worlds for fans of any input device.

Worth the Wait

It wasn’t entirely true when I said that Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC is identical to its console counterparts earlier. PC gamers receive a great new addition with a wonderful Photo Mode. With a press of a button, players can freeze the action on-screen which opens up an intuitive UI. Here, you can freely move the camera with either your mouse or controller around a set area of Arthur. To create awesome snapshots Rockstar has included a plethora of features into the Photo Mode. You can zoom in or out, use different lenses, roll the camera for additional spectacle, and even adjust the exposure to either lighten up the image or darken it.

This way, you can create dramatic scenes with very little effort. Topping off all these tools, there are dozens of post-effect image filters that give your shots a wide array of extra atmosphere. Once you’re satisfied, you can take a photo and upload it on the Rockstar Social Club. Images shot with the in-game tool are not saved locally on your PC, but you can of course also use any other program to take a screenshot in Photo Mode and share it however you desire. All in all, I spent hours just trying to capture the perfect moment or enhance the atmosphere with this deep toolset. There’s no question that enthusiastic users will be able to capture and share awe-inspiring photos.

For a Fistfull of Frames

When it comes to the technical makeup of Red Dead Redemption 2, we are witnessing the first true next-gen iteration of the RAGE engine, flexing its muscles on the computer. Since then GTA IV, Midnight Club LA, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 and GTA V have all been using the RAGE engine.

After playing RDR 2 on PC, GTA V’s roots on last-gen systems stick out and that’s despite it making an appearance on the current-gen and PC. It’s the first and seemingly only RAGE-powered game that has been developed with current-gen console’s power and features in mind. Playing on PC, it’s the first time we get to see RAGE’s true potential without the shackles of low-cost fixed-hardware constraints of the PS4 and Xbox One.

Just as on consoles, Red Dead Redemption 2 exhibits gorgeous models with extremely detailed texture work. The lighting system is a generation leap from even GTAV with volumetric lighting shading every scene in utmost fidelity. When your PC is up to the task, that is. When GTA V landed on the PC belated in 2015, the console generation it originally was developed for, already came to a conclusion that led to the game being rather well-performing on modest hardware at high framerates and resolutions. RDR 2 is a whole other bag as it came out in the middle of the current-gen where both the PS4 and Xbox One offered very high price-to-performance value.

To put it simply, RDR 2 on PC can be a much more demanding PC title than GTA V ever was, even for top-of-the-line hardware. If you go into the settings menu with the mindset of turning ever dial to High or Ultra, you’ll end up with compromised performance around the 30fps mark. And that’s with a beefy CPU+GPU combo costing more than the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro combined. Be prepared to dial some settings to at least Medium to improve performance exponentially at a relatively low visual loss.

The silver lining here is that even only Low, the game still manages to look beautiful – apart from one choice setting. Texture Quality. Anything below Ultra is a step down even below console versions, which is a real shame for any GPU with low VRAM. You’ll want at least 4GB of VRAM in your graphics card. This lets you not only use ultra textures but also enable improved shadows, texture filtering, draw distances and lighting than even the mighty Xbox One X.

Achieving the gold standard of 60fps is also in the realm of possibility even on moderate hardware. The concessions here naturally end up higher but that’s why there are so many dials to begin with. While improving the visuals only marginally, most settings can be easily dialed down to medium or low without encountering any significant loss in visual quality.

Some notable settings that inappropriately tank performance are reflections, MSAA, water quality, and volumetrics. We highly suggest keeping them either off or at low for massive performance gains. The Temporal Anti-Aliasing implementation (TAA) is already highly effective at ironing out jaggies at low-performance cost. In conclusion, getting the game to run at 60fps at native resolution with respectable visuals is very doable. You just have to accept that unlike many other games, Red Dead Redemption 2’s settings can go way beyond what is on the market.

For a very close look at what each setting costs in terms of performance versus visual quality gained, I advise taking a look at Digital Foundry’s excellent featurette video.

The Verdict:

To recap my time with Red Dead Redemption 2, it feels that claims of it being a horrible PC port are vastly exaggerated and often simply not true. Whether it is the broad customization options, modern technical feature set or the deep, the epic story, and immersive gameplay, RDR 2 is a must-play title on PC for fans of open-world games. Factor in the large and passionate modding community on the platform, there’s no doubt Red Dead Redemption 2 will become a mainstay in PC gamer’s libraries for the foreseeable future. We can only imagine in glee what modders will create for the already top-notch game.