In the current state, if you want to play Red Dead Redemption, you have to use a PlayStation 3, since PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 are not backwards compatible with PS3 games. It is possible to use an Xbox One or Xbox series to play the Xbox 360 version, which is backwards compatible. It’s not ideal, and this is a case where a remastered version of the game for current systems might work quite well, but it won’t come out due to the poor performance of the GTA Definitive Collection of classics. At least GTA IV is on PC, but it could also use a remaster to optimize it.
The GTA Definitive Collection put Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas in one package. They are three very good and much loved games that, if they had had a good remaster, would have revitalized the series. But its poor end result is the reason why there will not be a remaster of Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto IV, until the release of GTA VI.
Bad decisions lead to cancel GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption Remaster
First of all, it must be made clear that it is not about the GTA Definitive Collection, it sold very well, about ten million copies in its first days. These are very positive figures, wherever you look, but since everything is in the details, the reality is that it was one of the worst releases of RockStar Games at the media level. The work of remastering PS2 games to current consoles and PCs was done by Grove Street Games, a company dedicated to making mobile versions of Rockstar classics, given that being a more restrained project than GTA VI, it was not feasible to dedicate a large part of the main team.
The Grove Street Games team brought all of the game’s resources to Unreal Engine 4, using artificial intelligence to improve polygons and textures. That caused a lot of the original visual style to be removed and a lot of graphic jokes to be lost because there was no check. There have also been many bugs such as a rain that did not allow to see anything that was happening on the screen because the drops of the rain effect had the opacity to the maximum.
Overall, Grand Theft Auto: Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was a shoddy product resulting from having to outsource development to a small studio and without realistic development times or resources. Given that if they had to make remastered versions, they would most likely have to use the same team because Rockstar is focused on GTA VI, they have canceled the Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV remasters. Their development is not ruled out in the future, but they will not be considered until at least the release of GTA VI.