Update 09/27/2023 4:00 p.m. ET: The Brazil Ratings Board has removed the Nintendo Switch from its list of consoles for Red Dead Redemption 2, suggesting that it was mistakenly added. Original article continues below.
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A Brazilian rating board listing suggests Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to Nintendo Switch, five years after the original game launched for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
A new listing for Red Dead Redemption 2 on the Brazilian Ministério da Justiça website (their Ministry of Justice and Public Security), which was first spotted by Twitter user Necro Felipe, now includes the Nintendo handheld as one of the consoles it’s playable on.
The news comes as a surprise to fans given the lukewarm reception the original game received back in August, with many saying it was a barebones port with performance issues that was missing content. Chief among the complaints was its lack of multiplayer, graphical downgrade, and its struggle to run at 60 frames per second. These shortcomings were further accentuated by the fact that Rockstar Games’ port of the 13-year-old game had a full $50 price tag for the Switch. Given the Switch’s recent struggle to run NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat 1, it’s understandable that fans are feeling a bit nervous about how poorly RDR2, which is bigger and longer than the original game, might play on the Switch.
Kotaku reached out to Rockstar Games for comment.
Should the listing be true, chances are Rockstar Games could officially announce the Red Dead Redemption 2 port by the end of October to coincide with its fifth anniversary (the game released on October 26, 2018). Video game companies tend to mark these kinds of occasions with some sort of big announcements involving merch and new game info, so it’s not completely outside of the realm of possibility here.
Read More:Take-Two CEO: $50 For Red Dead Redemption On Switch, PS4 Is ‘Great Value’ Buy Red Dead Redemption 2:Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
But Rockstar Games has not officially announced RDR2’s release on the Switch, just yet, though the official Brazilian MSRB rating board listings have scooped game announcements in the past. In fact, in 2022, the very same ratings board was where the world first learned that Final Fantasy XVI would be the series’ first rated M title for its depiction of sexual themes, nudity, and hate crimes.
Time will tell whether the Red Dead Redemption 2 port is a real thing, and if it will be yet another port whose gameplay performance won’t warrant the price tag.
While the rerelease of Red Dead Redemption via a new port on August 17 of 2023 was great news for fans of the original and those who missed out when the game originally shipped 13 years ago, it was missing some desirable features. At $50 bucks with no option to run at a more modern 60 frames per second, the rerelease felt a little lacking. After a recent update, however, the PS5 version of the RDR port now offers the option to play at 60FPS.
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Fans of Rockstar’s open-world Western have long wanted a more modern way to play the game on current hardware. Originally on Xbox 360 and PS3, the game released in 2010 and unlike its celebrated sequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, had not seen a release on PC or more modern consoles until the recent digital rerelease on PS4 and Switch in August. That rerelease sells for $50 (a physical version is expected on October 13) but lacked the option to run at a higher framerate, and also doesn’t include the original release’s multiplayer modes. The rerelease doesn’t seem to be headed to PC or Xbox consoles, and only works on PS5 via backwards compatibility as a PS4 title.
Buy Red Dead Redemption:Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
In 2010, console performance often hovered around 30 frames per second (though more demanding games often brought that number far lower on Xbox 360 and PS3). Today, cutting-edge games like Starfield, for example, still aim to hit a reliable 30 frames per second, but rereleases and remasters of older games frequently include options to run at higher framerates. Red Dead Redemption’s lack of an option to take advantage of the higher processing power of more recent consoles set it apart from other such rereleases.
Of course, it wasn’t long before hardware enthusiasts were able to demonstrate that it very well could have included such an option. Running on a hacked Nintendo Switch, Red Dead Redemption was more than able to reliably reach 60 frames per second.
Thankfully, getting such performance out of John Marston’s epic adventure isn’t limited to those with cracked consoles anymore. The game’s recent 1.03 patch on PlayStation includes an option in the game’s settings for 60FPS on PS5.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any indication of more features or future releases for the 2010 open world classic.
You remember Gigantic, don’t you? The hero shooter from Motiga that was released in 2017 and, uh, died a year later? Well no worries if not, because Gearbox is bringing the ill-fated hero shooter back for a limited-time event from October 5 to 7, 2023.
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A free-to-play hero shooter for the Xbox One and PC, Gigantic was announced all the way back in 2014, with playable alphas and betas leading up to the game’s eventual release on July 20, 2017. A third-person shooter with a cartoony art style, a 5v5 setup, and 20 different heroes, it had players competing to power up their team’s respective “Guardian” to defeat the opposing players, injecting some MOBA vibes into the hero shooter format. Unfortunately for Gigantic, its servers were shuttered on July 31, 2018, meaning players had a little over 365 days to enjoy it. Now Gearbox, which has ownership over Gigantic by way of Embracer Group’s acquisition of the game’s publisher in 2021, is giving fans of the game good reason to celebrate, as emails inviting players to jump into the hero shooter once more have hit inboxes.
Check out some gameplay of Gigantic from its launch trailer:
Motiga Inc.
Arriving on October 3, the email reads, “You’re invited to play Gigantic (Again!) during our limited time throwback event.” Available by invitation only, the “throwback event” also requires the “Arc Launcher,” which, um, much like Gigantic, you are forgiven if you’ve never heard of (though somehow I happened to have an account there?).
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If you haven’t gotten an invite, don’t fret. Some users determined that simply signing up for an account will get you in, and I can personally confirm that it works.
Interestingly, this limited-time event isn’t just a matter of an old game getting the power thrown back on for a few days. As spotted on Windows Central, the game will also have some “never-before-seen features that have been added just for this event.”
Fans over on r/gigantic are, as you’d expect, quite excited and hopeful that this indicates some kind of potential revival. “Do everything you can to show support!” reads one such comment, “we can revive Gigantic if there is enough interest!” Another states, “I’m fucking losing it right now they better revive this shit.” Elsewhere on social media, others are expressing their hope that this isn’t just a one-time thing.
Given that many folks might not remember Gigantic, this sentiment for now seems to be unique to its loyal fanbase. Still, it’s nice to see an old, largely forgotten game get some attention.
Konami’s Silent Hill franchise has been dormant for over 10 years. The last mainline game, 2012’s Silent Hill: Downpour,received mixed reviews, with most players put off by its messy combat and scares. It was up to Silent Hill: Ascension, the first new installment in a decade, to help nudge the series back to the greatness of 1999’s Silent Hill and 2001’s Silent Hill 2.
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But Ascension, the interactive series made primarily by “massively interactive entertainment” company Genvid, has already failed to impress fans with its very first episode.
What is Silent Hill: Ascension?
Ascension blends Silent Hill canon with audience-led decision making like a Twitch stream. It’s more a grafted plant than a “game,” though its interactive horror might remind you of Until Dawn or Telltale’s The Walking Dead.
Like the latter, Ascension unfolds over multiple episodes—they’re spaced out over the next few months—centered on two families slowly ruined by death and mysticism. The first premiered October 31 on the Ascension mobile app and the ascension.com website. Players have a 24-hour window to weigh in on story decisions, re-watch the series’ typically 15-minute long episodes, and solve puzzles to earn “influence points,” an in-game currency that makes fans’ decisions more important.
Genvid CEO Jacob Navok emphasizes to Kotaku that the most important aspects of Ascension are free. “The live streams, on-demand experiences, interactive endurance sequences, the ability to influence story outcomes—all free,” he says over email. But, yes, unfortunately, this thing has a battle pass.
You can earn influence points for free, like with the puzzles I mentioned, but the $20 Founder’s Pack (available through November 14) nets you “over 100 tiers of rewards and Influence Points plus additional exclusive cosmetics,” a recent press release says, which lasts through “the remainder of the Silent Hill: Ascension season or approximately six-months worth of content.” That doesn’t, however, account for the other microtransactions Ascension has, including $20 for a “large” pack of Influence Points.
How does Ascension really work?
$20 is what I pay for movie tickets, so the Founder’s Pack price alone doesn’t bother me much. But those who watched Ascension’s first episode say the game’s unpleasant user experience and abysmal live show aren’t worth the price.
I watched parts of the first episode on its ascension.com archive, and found that—while the monsters look admirably repulsive—it’s difficult to connect with Ascension’s characters when their mouths don’t move. I also noticed that, when switching tabs for a few minutes, the Ascension website would automatically kick me out of its video player and reset my watch time.
These minor frustrations seem pervasive, partially because Ascension isn’t prepared for the traffic volume it received, Navok says.
“We’re thrilled by the response and far exceeded expectations. We saw 1M pre-registrations before we turned the streaming app live and significantly more concurrent users than we forecasted,” he shared. “The flip side to such unexpected volume is several systems were strained or unavailable for periods of time but our team has been working to fix the problems and scale.”
On October 31, players reported trouble downloading the Ascension app, logging in, and chatrooms wrecked by barely-there spam filters.
“There’s just no filter at all on chat huh,” one popular Reddit comment said. “People are able to spam ‘Hideo Kojima cummy in my tummy’ and boost it so it gets pinned to the top of chat. This is so fucking bad.”
Navok attributes inadequate moderation to unprecedented traffic, too. “Like several other systems, moderation was strained by overwhelming volume on premiere night and, yes, [it] is a critical priority already underway to improve and scale,” he says. “Several blocklists that we had uploaded well in advance were not being respected by the system we used, or were being respected arbitrarily, and moderators who were there were finding that their moderations were taking 10 minutes to go through. We’re working with the company that develops the chat to fix this.”
“You guys are not getting it,” a Redditor said sarcastically. Ascension “is a full Silent Hill experience in which you get to feel the psychological aspects of monetization abuse, which affects lifes [sic] of both the game’s characters and players.”
“Ascension will go down in history as the most hated Silent Hill experience,” another Reddit poster prophesied.
Interestingly, Konami seems to understand how important Ascension is to the series. In the game’s latest press release, Konami Silent Hill producer Motoi Okamoto said that “[October 31] is special because Silent Hill: Ascension is the first project in the resurrection of the Silent Hill franchise.” Navok confirms to Kotaku that “Konami Digital Entertainment and Genvid have collaborated closely to find ways to expand the story, characters and monsters of Silent Hill.”
“We feature a diverse cast of characters in new locations—firsts for the franchise,” he says.
“I am very proud of this project,” Okamoto said. Ascension’s immediate flatlining feels even more depressing now, especially for series fans like me, who are already a little skeptical about the forthcoming Silent Hill 2 remake and ninth main game, Silent Hill F.
Kotaku has reached out to Konami for comment on the reactions to last night’s episode. It did not respond to Kotaku’s request for comment in time for publication.
Update 11/1/2023 4:15 p.m. ET: Updated article text to include Genvid CEO Jacob Navok’s statements to Kotaku.
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