A little while ago Rockstar Games debuted its official PC launcher and everyone sort of got the feeling that it wasn't just to give away copies of GTA San Andreas. And sure enough, the company had something a little bigger on its mind: it just announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming to PC starting November 5.
The exclusivity surrounding this is a little hard to parse, but the good news is that it's coming to a wide range of storefronts with only moderate exclusivity. Basically, it will only be available for pre-order on the Rockstar Launcher from October 9-October 22, but after that it will open up to the Epic Games Store, Greenman Gaming, Humble, GameStop and other retailers. It won't be available for purchase on Steam until December, however, which is a blow for Valve's storefront.
There is candy in the mix for anyone that wants to order from Rockstar, however. You can choose one of these games for free:
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Bully: Scholarship Edition
- L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition
- Max Payne 3: The Complete Edition
Plus, you get access to the premium addition and some extras for Red Dead Online in the package. This means there's no real reason not to order direct from Rockstar so long as you're aware the Rockstar Launcher exists.
The PC Port is also coming to Stadia, which is a big deal for Google's somewhat confusing streaming system. Not many people have gaming PCs strong enough to take full advantage of what Red Dead Redemption 2 will ring to the table, and that makes it an ideal place to showcase streaming, so long as it works. Which it should do a little better than some other Stadia launch titles: unlike other launch titles like Mortal Kombat 11 and DOOM Eternal, Red Dead Redemption 2 should have no problem with a small amount of latency. The game had input lag even when running on local hardware, so what's a little bit more?
I'm looking forward to seeing what this thing looks like on a souped-up computer, especially once modders get their hands on it. Rockstar likes to stagger its PC releases with console releases, but we all sort of assumed this game would be coming to PC soon enough. Now all I want is a modder to get rid of the story restrictions but keep the rest of the single-player game intact.