Waiting is the hardest part —
PlayStation Store page bizarrely leaks "now on PC" promo message.
Enlarge / He's gesturing towards a PC port that's just out of frame. Trust me.
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games fans who don't traffic in game consoles have been waiting over 5,200 days to play the original Red Dead Redemption on PC (even as the PC port of its sequel approaches its fifth anniversary). PC gamers' long wait for a port may soon be over, though, as some promotional copy for the PC version of the game has been briefly leaked online.
The suggestive verbiage comes from the PlayStation Store of all places, which as of Tuesday morning described Red Dead Redemption as "now on PC for the first time ever" on the page for the game's 2023 PS4 rerelease. While the language has now been reverted to a more generic description, archived copies of the site from just hours ago include some details of what we can expect of the jump from console to PC:
Featuring the complete single-player experience of both games [RDR and Undead Nightmare, from previous context], 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, multiple displays, and other accessories, plus spatial surround sound.
Red Dead Redemption does not feature multiplayer content.
Enlarge / The PC port promo copy that appeared on the PlayStation Store page for Red Dead Redemption Tuesday morning.
It's hard to know exactly why a description of a PC port would show up on a Sony store page, but it's easy to picture someone in the PR chain pasting in the wrong platform's promotional copy when updating something on the back end.
The PS Store leak comes a few months after data miners noticed hints of a Red Dead Redemption PC port on the official Rockstar Games Launcher. JSON data buried in the launcher's file invited players to "journey across the sprawling expanses of the American West and Mexico in Red Dead Redemption, and its zombie-horror companion, Undead Nightmare, now playable on PC."
Rockstar has historically prioritized console releases of its major titles, with PC ports generally appearing a few months to a few years after their console counterparts. Red Dead Redemption 2 hit PC 375 days after its 2018 console release, while Grand Theft Auto V's PC players had to wait through numerous delays for a release 574 days after that game hit consoles.
Last December's announcement of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI only confirmed that the game is "coming to PlayStation 5 computer entertainment systems and Xbox Series X|S games and entertainment systems in 2025."
"The reason why a PC port comes later and not the first thing that comes out is because they want to prioritize what sells," former Rockstar developer Mike York said in a video following the GTA VI announcement.