Rockstar Games is one of the biggest known video game developers of our time, releasing some of the most prolific and commercially successful titles of all time. But their tendency to focus on consoles over PC hasn’t gone unnoticed by fans, with PC ports coming out years after their console release. But there’s one game which has gone the longest time without a proper PC port: the original Red Dead Redemption.

Rockstar used to be a machine when it came to developing video games, coming out with a new release almost every year. Now the studio has slowed down a little after the overwhelming success of Grand Theft Auto 5, and it really could go either way as to why that is (maybe we’ll explore that in a future Up For Debate?).

But now their release schedule is slow, or at least much more spaced out between each other. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but why has RDR1 never made it to PC? Players have been asking that question for years, but it’s been so long now that Rockstar couldn’t just release it as is, and instead would be expected to remake it - or at the very least come out with a very good remaster.

So now the question isn’t should Rockstar release RDR1 on PC, it’s whether they should just remaster it (potentially a quicker release) or remake the entire game with brand new graphics and gameplay (potentially a much longer wait).

I’m assuming we’re all well versed enough now to not have to explain the difference between a remake and a remaster, the former taking a much longer time but would come with it’s own benefits, and the latter taking a much shorter time but being closer to the original game that was released on consoles.

If Rockstar did end up remaking Red Dead Redemption for PC, it would probably be in their latest engine that was used for Red Dead Redemption 2. They certainly have all the resources at their disposal in order to do such a task, but could potentially take years to develop even if they already had a lot of the raw data and infrastructure of the original game.

They could always do a 'light' remake, a somewhat hybrid of a remake and remaster, with brand new graphics but the same original game systems and audio. Or they could go the full remake and completely redo everything from the ground up, including the audio and motion capture.

Either way, the bottom line is fans want RDR1 on PC, and it may never come at all (at least not officially). But if Rockstar did find the time and energy to bring it to PC, what would be the best way to do it?

What do you think? Should Rockstar remake, or remaster Red Dead Redemption 1 for PC? What are the pros and cons of either? And how long would each take if they started now? Let’s debate!