This morning, several of the fine writers on PC Gamer (including myself) were staring at a store page description for Red Dead Redemption on the PlayStation website—trying to figure out just why we were looking at a proud, chest-puffed announcement of a PC port for Red Dead Redemption—a game that hasn’t seen a PC release since its debut back in 2010—because, well, it was on the store page for the PlayStation 4.
It’s been taken down now, but I luckily had the wherewithal to snap my own screenshot—mind, we were only looking at the dang thing because of quick-draw observers like the prolific, eagle-eyed industry tweeter Wario64. Still, unless we were experiencing a collective hallucination, I can absolutely confirm the store page read the following:
“Experience the epic western adventures that defined a generation—now on PC for the first time ever.” The not-announcement then goes on to describe the port as having both Red Dead Redemption’s baseline 2010 game, as well as the Undead Nightmare expansion.
“Featuring the complete single-player experiences of both games, including bonus content from the Game of the Year Edition, Red Dead Redemption features all of the 2023 console version upgrades plus PC specific enhancements including support for increased resolutions and framerates, multiple displays, and other accessories, plus spatial surround sound.”
The one exception to this glut of features is an absence of multiplayer content—which is a shame, but in-keeping with the lack of online support for the PS4 version, released last year.
The “announcement” itself is a real head-scratcher. If a PC port is in the works, why would the wires be crossed so badly its announcement copy was dumped on the PlayStation store page? Rockstar’s owned by Take-Two Interactive, not Sony, so if the studio wanted to stay tight-lipped about the announcement, I’m not sure why it’s sending press releases off to its mates. There’s also the hilarious alternative that this is something Sony drafted up being given the news—in which case, oops.
While we’ve seen datamined info in past months that heavily hint at a port, there’s no guarantee the thing’s even coming soon—it’s entirely possible someone at Rockstar, Sony, or its PR companies drafted up this copy months in advance, and it just popped its head up above the trenches on complete accident.
It’s also fascinating how this sort of thing keeps happening with storefronts—not leaks, necessarily, but weird incongruencies and snafus of all stripes. Take Silksong, which had a release date of the year 9998 on the Microsoft store for months without anybody noticing. Two-Point Campus was leaked on the same store a while back, too. I’ve gone ahead and reached out to Rockstar for comment, and I’ll update this article with any reply.