Red Dead Redemption review for PC

It’d be easy to look at Red Dead Redemption finally making its way to PC 14 years after it originally debuted on PS3 and Xbox 360 and only find faults. Much like the game’s debut last year on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, you could argue that it’s a little expensive for a 14-year-old game, or that it’s missing multiplayer, or, most obviously, that it’s not as good as its sequel, which itself is now six-years-old.

All of those things would be true. But having sunk many, many hours into the game’s PC debut, I’d counter all those with: so what? This is still one of the best games ever made, and getting a chance to play it again is totally worth it.

In fact, returning to this game again has given me a chance to appreciate it on its own terms. Yes, Red Dead’s world is a little emptier than that of its successor, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. There’s something meditative about riding around the huge open world of New Austin and not coming across another soul for endless minutes at a stretch. It’s just you and your horse and wide open spaces, and it helps you appreciate the vastness of this game’s scope and scale. In particular, there’s something almost magical about riding across the plains at night with the moon hanging high overhead and the stars twinkling all above you. There are plenty of games that have come out this year that can’t match Red Dead Redemption for its enormous landscapes, or in the way it makes its world feel alive.

To be sure, it helps that when you do come across people – or when you’re focusing on the story itself – Red Dead Redemption shines. John Marston is still remembered as a character for a reason, and it’s because RDR did such a phenomenal job of balancing his quest for revenge with his humanity and his decency. The game may not be as jam-packed with content as its successor, but there’s still lots to do here, between the story, the many side quests, and all the movies and gambling and other little attractions to give you a taste of life in the Old West.

And, of course, to round it all out, the PC release of one of the best games ever also includes one of the best bits of DLC ever – Undead Nightmare. It’s obviously not as grounded as Red Dead Redemption, but it’s still a lot of fun in its own right (even just playing solo), building on the familiar world of the base to add in fun new elements like unicorns, sasquatch, and, obviously, zombies. It’s a lot less weighty than Red Dead, which is good – both because it’s a nice palette cleanser after a couple of dozen hours of RDR, and because a story about shooting zombies in the Old West doesn’t need to get too complicated.

Again, it’d be easy to nitpick Red Dead Redemption, and wonder whether, 14 years later, it’s still worth playing. As its long-awaited Steam debut shows, the answer to that is an unqualified yes.

Rockstar Games provided us with a Red Dead Redemption PC code for review purposes.