✦ The Complete Rockstar Universe ✦
Red Dead Redemption
📅 Last updated:
Your guide to every Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead game, with tips, cheat codes, rankings and the best deals. Pick a game, dive in.
Red Dead Redemption
Released 2010 · PS3 · Xbox 360 · PS4 · Switch · PC
Red Dead Redemption is the 2010 open world western that made the series a landmark. You play John Marston, a former outlaw whose family is taken by federal agents and held until he tracks down the men he used to ride with. It is set in 1911, at the point where the American frontier is being closed by law, railroads and machinery.
Official Trailer
The End of the Frontier
The central idea is that Marston is already out of time. Cars appear, telephones ring, and the men still living by the gun are being hunted down one by one. Almost every mission pushes that theme, and the ending is one of the most discussed in the medium precisely because it refuses to let him escape it.
Dead Eye and the Honor System
Dead Eye slows time so you can tag targets and fire in sequence, and it upgrades as the story progresses. Running alongside it is an honor meter that shifts with what you do: helping strangers, sparing enemies, robbing or killing. Honor changes prices, dialogue and how towns react to you.
A World Worth Riding Through
Between missions the map fills with random encounters: ambushes, hangings, wagon breakdowns, animal attacks. Hunting and bounty work give the open world a reason to exist beyond travel. This is where Rockstar worked out the systems that Red Dead Redemption 2 would expand eight years later.
Where to Play It Now
The original launched on PS3 and Xbox 360. In 2023 Rockstar released a port for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and a PC version followed in 2024, which finally made the first game playable on modern hardware. For today’s key prices on every platform, see where to buy Red Dead Redemption.
Frequently Asked Questions about Red Dead Redemption
When is Red Dead Redemption set?
In 1911, during the final years of the American frontier, as law enforcement and industry close in on the last outlaws.
Should you play Red Dead Redemption before Red Dead Redemption 2?
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel set twelve years earlier. Playing the 2010 game first preserves the order the story was written in and makes the prequel's ending land harder. Playing chronologically also works, but it spoils a major part of the first game.
Is Red Dead Redemption on PC?
Yes, since 2024. Rockstar released a PC version after the 2023 PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch port, fourteen years after the original launch.