About the game
Red Dead Redemption is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. A successor to 2004's Red Dead Revolver, it is the second game in the Red Dead series. It is set during the decline of the American frontier in the year 1911 and follows John Marston, a former outlaw who sets out to bring three members of his former gang to justice after his wife and son are taken hostage by the government in ransom for his services as a hired gun.
The game is played from a third-person perspective. Players roam a fictionalized version of the Western United States and Northern Mexico, mainly by horseback and on foot. Gunfights use a mechanic called Dead Eye that lets players mark several targets in slow motion. A morality system means the player's actions affect their honor and fame, and how other characters respond. An online multiplayer mode is included with the original release, allowing up to 16 players to play cooperatively and competitively in the single-player setting.
Development lasted over five years and it became one of the most expensive video games ever made, with analysts putting the combined development and marketing budget between 80 and 100 million US dollars. Rockstar improved its proprietary RAGE engine, and the team made field trips to Washington, D.C. and studied classic Western films. The 1,500-page script was written in two years. Professional actors performed the body movements for motion capture, and the score is by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson.
Rockstar announced the game on February 3, 2009. It missed its projected late 2009 and April 2010 dates and came out on May 18, 2010 in North America and May 21 internationally. Downloadable content followed: Outlaws to the End on June 22, 2010, Legends and Killers on August 10, Liars and Cheats on September 21, Hunting and Trading on October 12, and the zombie campaign Undead Nightmare on October 26. A free pack, Myths and Mavericks, came out on September 13, 2011. A Game of the Year Edition with all the DLC was released on October 11, 2011 in North America.
The game received universal acclaim from critics, with praise for its visuals, music, performances, gameplay and narrative. It is among the highest-rated games on review aggregators and ranks as the sixth-highest rated PlayStation 3 game and the seventh-highest rated Xbox 360 game. It won Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications.
It was the best-selling game of May 2010, selling over 1.5 million copies according to NPD Group figures, and sold over five million copies in its first three weeks. It shipped 8.5 million copies in its first year, and 65 percent of UK first-week sales were on Xbox 360.
Microsoft added Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare to the Xbox One backward compatibility list in July 2016. A prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, came out in October 2018, and the original was later released for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in August 2023 and Windows in October 2024.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 95 out of 100 (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360). Individual reviews: IGN 9.7/10, GameSpot 9.5/10, Game Informer 9.8/10, Edge 10/10, Eurogamer 8/10, GamePro 5/5, GameSpy 5/5.
Extra content
Six packs came out between June 2010 and September 2011, and the Xbox 360 list adds 47 achievements across four of them. The Xbox 360 store closed on July 29, 2024, so the packs can no longer be bought there, but the Game of the Year disc has all of them.
- Outlaws to the End: Six cooperative multiplayer side missions, with 10 achievements (100 gamerscore).
- Legends and Killers: Multiplayer characters from Red Dead Revolver, new map locations and a Tomahawk weapon, with 10 achievements (100 gamerscore).
- Liars and Cheats: Competitive multiplayer modes, minigames, characters and a weapon, with 15 achievements (100 gamerscore).
- Hunting and Trading: A jackalope in the world and some extra outfits.
- Undead Nightmare: A single-player campaign in a non-canon zombie apocalypse, with 12 achievements (200 gamerscore). Also sold as a standalone pack in late November 2010.
- Myths and Mavericks: Free pack with more multiplayer characters and locations.
Good to know
- The Xbox 360 list has 95 achievements for 1,500 gamerscore: 48 in the base game for 1,000, then 10, 10, 15 and 12 across four DLC packs for 500.
- Undead Nightmare was sold both as DLC and as a standalone pack in late November 2010.
- Microsoft added the game to Xbox One backward compatibility in July 2016, and an April 2018 update made it run at 4K on Xbox One X, up from the original 720p.
- Edge first scored the game 9/10 and later changed it to 10/10.
- GameSpy hosting closed on May 31, 2014, and the game lost its Social Club stats and in-game Social Club services.
- Hunting and Trading has no achievements of its own.
- The Game of the Year Edition came out on October 11, 2011 with every DLC pack on the disc.
Made by
Producer Steve Martin, Producer Josh Needleman, Producer David Kunkler, Designer Christian Cantamessa, Designer Leslie Benzies, Programmer Ted Carson, Artist Joshua Bass, Artist Daren Bader, Artist Nick Trifunovic, Writer Dan Houser.
