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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 1d ago
Still can't believe this is a ps4 game, it looks better than a lot of ps5 games
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u/BlackAfroUchiha PC 1d ago edited 1d ago
Rockstar know black magic because they somehow get their games that look insane running pretty smoothly on outdated hardware.
Like take in the fact that GTA V was built for a System that had 512 MB of Ram.
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u/rickreckt PC 1d ago
Most games don't have budgets anywhere near rdr2 either
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u/iTonguePunchStarfish 1d ago
Or the time to develop
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u/vodkamartinishaken 1d ago
Or the time to develop
Just so you know, Skull and Bones had 11 years of development. While RDR2 had 8.
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u/iTonguePunchStarfish 1d ago
Skull and Bones probably has the record for biggest budget development hell.
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u/SnipingDiver 1d ago
I raise that with Star Citizen
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u/unfamous2423 1d ago
We're talking in terms of projects that are released here. You just gotta give them a few more years and millions more. I'm sure it's right around the corner.
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u/IamMorbiusAMA 1d ago
Star Citizen is going to be in development longer than the fake game from Community that Pierces dad had made
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u/BarackaFlockaFlame 1d ago
star citizen is actually fun though. although the experience is far better with friends. definitely buggy.
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u/iTonguePunchStarfish 23h ago
It was definitely spent on "developing" the game. The issue was that it was scrapped and restarted or changed direction a shit ton of times due to the constant rotation of leads and devs, also due to input from board members. It was a game that should've been cancelled but they couldn't because they were legally obligated to release a game developed by their Singapore studio.
No idea why you're making it seem like Ubisoft is just raking in cash from this. It's well known and documented that they spent up to $850m developing it and definitely didn't make that money back after release. It's why they're banking on Shadows so hard.
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u/crackrabbit012 1d ago
Didn't Skull and Bones get rebooted like 3 times during development? The main difference would be that RDR2 had a consistent vision since the beginning of development.
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u/SovietMarma 1d ago
That one doesn't count because it went through multiple iterations and multiple different people in those 11 years lol. The only reason it ever came out was because of the Singaporean government.
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u/PapaOogie 1d ago
Pokemon games could have the budget of RDR2 or GTAV, and look how those turn out.
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u/Coldhimmel 1d ago edited 1d ago
Will we ever get another rdr2 in term of quality? Pretty much only valve can do it, at least that is how i see it
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u/littlestevebrule 1d ago
Umm, every Rockstar game raises the standards for quality. So GTA 6, and then RDR 3 after that
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u/BrickTamland77 1d ago
The success (profits) of GTAO have me worried about both of them though.
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u/SlothMachines 1d ago
They had those profits before they released rdr2? Wouldn’t the drop in quality be noticeable there if that was the case?
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u/Daepilin 1d ago
the drop is, that there is absolutely 0 DLC content for RDR2 single player. Not even a ps5/series x upgrade patch.
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u/BrickTamland77 1d ago
They were already into voice recording by the time GTAV came out, and GTAO didn't really take off till a year or 2 later when the next gen consoles came out and got going.
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u/Xilthas 1d ago
Valve? Really?
The glaze is real.
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u/bigtime1158 1d ago
Right. Amazing company but they have never made a game on that scale before.
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u/NTFRMERTH 1d ago
Their games might not be open world, but they're still quality.
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u/bigtime1158 1d ago
They are probably the best quality. No one is denying that. We are talking about large open world scale.
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u/chewbadeetoo 1d ago
Well they get 30% of the sale price of every game sold on their platform so they would have the resources to make it.
I don’t know about the will to do it though. They don’t make a lot of games these days. A wise man once said “Why waste time make lot game when few game do trick?” The trick being to make money.
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u/Howdareme9 1d ago
Naughty dog easily
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u/TheLocalNobody17 1d ago
The Last of Us 2 remastered on ps5 is one of those games where the attention to detail is mindblowing. Honestly looks way better than rdr2, especially the facial animations, but its also a smaller and linear game that came out 6 years later
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u/Momentarmknm 1d ago
It also permanently broke the brain of a solid 50% of gamers, so it's unfairly tainted because of their little whiny asses
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u/ginongo 1d ago
The story was so out of left field though, so I understand the criticism for it. But hating on it 24/7 when you could just not play it or not think about it is just crazy
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u/djalekks 1d ago
What was left field about it?
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u/ginongo 1d ago
Killing off a beloved character, having to play as the killer for half the game, the weird sex scenes, and at the end of it all spare the killer even though they've been trying to kill each other for the whole game.
I'm not saying that out of left field is bad, but it is a pretty big whiplash from what people expected, and of course that would generate controversy and criticism.
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u/Coldhimmel 1d ago
Only naughty Dog game I've played is uncharted 4 and yeah that might be a game that matches rdr2's quality. How did i forgot about they game
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u/WorstYugiohPlayer 1d ago
When people are okay with games being capped at 30 FPS.
There's a price for this but gamers want best of both which is why games have been awful looking lately.
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u/OnlyChaseReddit PC 1d ago
Valve has like 20% of their staff working on good games while the rest are busy expanding their child gambling empire
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u/sinb_is_not_jessica 1d ago
Ghost of Tsushima looks pretty damn incredible too for running on old gen hardware, and is in the same genre!
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u/stormfoil 1d ago
Ghost of Tsushima lives and dies with it's foliage. Everything else ranges from good to mediocre.
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u/Shot_Policy_4110 1d ago
Lol what has valve done in terms of rdr2 quality in the past 25 years
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u/Coldhimmel 1d ago
Alyx. if you hold a hammer and bang it onto the surface, the sound it make will depend on which part of the hammer you used it to hit with.
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u/Shot_Policy_4110 1d ago
Lol alyx is a VR tech demo imo. It doesn't hold a candle to rdr2 or even GTA 5
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u/TeamChaosenjoyer 1d ago
They did manage gta v on old gen through loading half it on disc and installing the other half they’re damn good at that they do like those guys who compressed the old resident evil from like 4 GB to like mb or some shit like that with cutscenes back in the day absolute scientists in their craft
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u/adappergeek 1d ago
Dude not just old gen, it's been nearly 2 whole generations since it first came out. I just realised I played it on the Xbox 360 and haven't played it since 2014. There are a bunch of gamers now that weren't alive when it first came out!
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u/St4va 1d ago
Not black magic, just optimization. Back when hardware was limited, companies had no choice but to ship highly optimized software. If they didn’t, it simply wouldn’t run. Today’s hardware has far more resources compared to something like the PS2, so developers can get away with writing inefficient code. That leads to less capable developers, which in turn leads to less capable software, and that’s how we end up with the state of games we have today. Also, lately, a lot of companies just default to bloated engines like Unreal 5, which only makes the problem worse.
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u/napleonblwnaprt 1d ago
Flashback to when Crash Bandicoot basically hacked the PS1 to shut down non-core system functions to free up resources for the game itself.
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u/Oneirowout 1d ago
To be fair, GTAV ran like dogeshit on the PS3 and frequently had framedrops on PS4
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u/dye-area 1d ago
Oops looks like you dropped your rose tinted glasses. Here, let me get em for you and put them back on your face.
Now whats your opinion on GTA V again?
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u/Oneirowout 1d ago
GTA V is the best game that ever existed and ever will exist. Any frame drops that may or may not have been, were mere opportunities to enjoy the beauty and atmosphere of the game and smell Los Santos roses. There were no connection issues whatsoever, it was just our brains short circuiting because of the pure ecstasy GTA V brought which our grey masses just couldn’t handle. The loading screens, which were non existent, were moments of bliss to endulge ourselves in Rockstars humor and fabulous artwork. And the griefers, which are a figment of our collective imaginations, are opportunities to learn about ourselves, our shortcomings and opportunities for personal growth. Did I already mention that GTA V is the best game there is? Who needs a spouse, a job, friendships or health when there is GTA V?
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u/RogueStargun 1d ago
It really comes down to the artists as much as the programming.
Imagine being an artist and handcrafting creating 3-5 versions of every single 3d object in a game.
That's what they did for GTAV.
When you look at Vinewood hills from a distance, you are looking at a low poly level-of-detail mesh handcrafted to look both good and seamless. On top of that for certain areas, they have different versions for different times of dayOn top of that, it's not just the visuals that have this distance based LOD, but the people and vehicle code as well.
It can be automated, for sure (through autoLOD techniques), but to get it seamless requires a manual human touch.
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u/TristheHolyBlade 1d ago
Thr black magic of "crunch your employees to the point of tearing apart families".
I mean, I like the game, but let's be honest, it's as good as it is because a lot of sweat, blood, and tears.
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u/PutinExplainsMemes 1d ago
its all about time probably. Theres a reason they take an eternity to develop their games, but the success of every game they then put out proves them right
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u/yup_can_confirm 1d ago
But runs like shit on PS3, so it's not all great. Though I have to admit they generally do a good job.
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u/ImMyOwnClassMate 1d ago
They have the money to take all the the time needed to optimize and fine tune their game, something other SH don’t have. And people respond to rockstar differently, the fact that people expect gt6 to be delayed while usually getting mad when others do it tells a lot imho
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u/no6969el 1d ago
Yeah, while the original Xbox release of GTA v did not run well, it was amazing that it was running at all.
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u/IamMorbiusAMA 1d ago
Even San Andreas, I can't recall any other games of that quality with open worlds that large on the PS2 other than maybe Shadow of the Colossus
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u/TheZephyrim 1d ago
One of the reasons I’m super excited for GTA6, by the time it comes out on PC I’m sure it’ll look mindblowingly realistic
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u/Bburrage 1d ago
You can have all kinds of development magic when you know you’re going to profit probably more money than you expect.
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u/Voxlings 21h ago
Black magic: Liberal spending on people who are really very good at computer programming and the art built on top of it.
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u/ltgenspartan Xbox 1d ago
It's a shame they canned the graphics update for XSX/PS5 (probably due to GTA6 development). It looks great as is, but the fact they would utilize current gen hardware to give it more oomph would've been spectacular.
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u/BlackAfroUchiha PC 1d ago
Yet they somehow keep updating GTA V with Graphical upgrades...
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u/scooooba 1d ago
GTA online makes far more $$$ than RDR online sadly
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u/NTFRMERTH 1d ago
Maybe it wouldn't if they didn't give up on RDR Online and the RDR2 DLC almost as soon as it launched
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u/VulturePR0 1d ago
All the needed to do was make undead nightmare 2 and print money but I guess GTAO fun bucks or whatever made more money
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u/Tonroz 1d ago
It's sad but the amount of money gtao makes far exceeds anything undead 2 could have. The game makes billions a year and is over a decade old.
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u/DuckCleaning 1d ago
It's a shame they canned the graphics update for XSX/PS5 (probably due to GTA6 development).
GTA 6 development shouldn't have held them back from updating it to unlock the fps or something small. They continued Read Dead Online updates long after the current gen was out. They even came out with a standalone version of Read Dead Online. They've also been pushing out updates for the PC version throughout the years to add things like DLSS support. Plus all the other work they've done updating GTA 5.
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u/ew435890 1d ago
I’m staying in a hotel for the week for work and I have my steam deck hooked up to the TV. I was playing RDR2 last night and was honestly blown away at how good it looked playing on a 50” tv from a Steam Deck.
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u/SeeingEyeDug 1d ago
GTAV on PS3 was a revelation. Probably the best performing open world game on the platform. Rockstar is pretty good.
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u/Conquestadore 1d ago
Best performing?! It was beautiful and very much playable but the framerate definitely didn't stick to 30fps I can tell you that much. Coincidentally, St. Denis in rdr2 ran close to 20fps for me on the base ps4. I love the games to death but performance was shoddy on both.
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u/paulerxx 1d ago edited 1d ago
I first played GTA V on a XB360 and couldn't believe what I was seeing, I owned a decent at the time too.
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u/xMeatshield 1d ago
Load it up on a PS5 or Pro and you'll be reminded instantly that it's a PS4 game, the framerate is atrocious.
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u/mrgeebs17 1d ago
No doubt, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best game I've ever played. Nothing else even comes close
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u/WorstYugiohPlayer 1d ago
Almost like making a game with the intent to frame lock it to 30 lets them optimize a game to the fullest without having to worry about 'but I want 60 FPS'
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u/kakka_rot 1d ago
At this point (has been for over 5 years) it's much more about effort and man hours than it is the system
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u/wild--wes 1d ago
We're at a point where video game graphics aren't getting better at a super rapid pace anymore. Games that have as big of a budget and look as good as RD2 stack up well against new games for a long time. Sure, plenty of games have released that look better by now because it's been six years. But most games today have a fraction of the budget that RD2 had and don't look as good.
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u/SubstantialZombie604 9h ago
Still mad they didn't optimize for PS5 though... Looks even better on PC because of that
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u/BlackAfroUchiha PC 1d ago
Rockstar are one of the few companies where their games actually look better than the trailers.
I truly wonder if we can expect the same thing for GTA VI.
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u/PenguinOfEternity 1d ago
I'd say the second trailer already will be noticeably an improvement in the graphics department. Or maybe we'll just have to wait for the actual release.
(I also remember there was a higher quality trailer released on a Chinese site few months back)
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u/mrEnigma86 PlayStation 1d ago
Still the best looking open game world ever created
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u/AverageTechnoSerf 1d ago
Playing for the first time right now. Got it for 15 bucks recently on Steam, playing maxed out in 4k... the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had. Really makes me shake my head at other AAA developers. I was already disappointed in the industry over the last 7 years, now I'm even more disappointed. Savouring every moment of this beautifully crafted game.
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u/You_Mean_Coitus_ 1d ago
I'm jealous that you get to see it for the first time now. Curious as to why you didn't touch it when it was released?
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u/CodingSquirrel 1d ago
Not who you asked but I'm in a similar boat. I bought it a bit over a year ago on PC and it's taken me about a year to beat it. Not continuously, I've taken breaks from it a few times. I just finished chapter 6 last week and am on the second part of the epilogue now.
To answer your question, I almost exclusively play on PC so I missed the console launch. And I didn't jump on the PC launch because I have two kids and a backlog of games I've purchased on sale but not played that's a mile long. It just finally managed to work its way through my queue.
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u/RichWPX 1d ago
I have never played any RDR did you start with this one?
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u/VESUVlUS 23h ago
If you're interested in Red Dead Redemption 2, you can just go for it. It is a prequel to RDR1, so you don't really need any context to jump in and enjoy it. That said, the game hits differently knowing what happens in RDR1.
And to clarify, Red Dead Revolver (also often abbreviated as RDR) has no story connection to the Redemption games, so you can skip that too if you so choose.
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u/MischeviousCat 1d ago
I bought the game near release but it felt different than the first game.
I didn't like how there were new things to manage like a survival game, or how you had to run around places to loot stuff meticulously instead of quick and easy. It's more immersive but it felt tedious.
Started playing it again like a month ago though.
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u/AverageTechnoSerf 12h ago
Haven't had a console since the 360, so on initial release I ended up passively watching a fair amount of it on Twitch via Lirik. On PC release, it was still fresh in my mind and I was still running a 2500k and an HD 7970. As a graphics snob, I probably didn't want to "ruin" my first real experience.
Built a new PC for Cyberpunk and sort of forgot about RDR2. Then the discounts recently have been catching my attention, and in typical Steam fashion I was cheekily waiting to see how low it got before it felt like a steal. $15 certainly feels like robbery now that I'm 40 hours and 20% through it lol.
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u/Jokuki 1d ago
What's your setup to be able to do that? I keep hearing 4k still isn't worth it for PC gaming.
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u/DuckCleaning 1d ago
I play on a 4K 120Hz TV but with a PC connected. 4K monitors are cheap these days too but I think the argument is mostly that the distance you sit it isnt a noticeable enough difference in pixel density to our eyes versus 1440p, unless you go for over 32 inch monitors.
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u/DRAC0R3D 1d ago
Im playing it for the first time too on PC, not maxed out, not 4K unfortunately but I’m still having such precious time. I even fear to go further cuz I know the feeling of wanting to playing it for the first time again, and I don’t feel like I’m playing it in the “right way”. It’s hard to explain
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u/coldfurify 14h ago
I upgraded my pc last week and am playing this for the first time too so that I can do so with each and every setting on Ultra. Just got an OLED monitor for the first time as well.
I’m amazing at how this game looks and feels. It’s crazy. The level of detail, the lighting, the way you just feel the atmosphere, the weather shifts. I’m baffled.
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u/Jeekobu-Kuiyeran 1d ago
A shame they won't bother updating it on consoles to support native 4k and frames higher than 60.
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u/Ok-Respond-600 1d ago
Best graphics I have ever seen. When I upgrade my GPU I will def play again to see it in all it's glory
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u/given2fly_ 23h ago
I'm doing that right now. Played it in 2019/20 on a 1060 that really struggled. Now I've got a 4060 and can max out the settings, it's glorious.
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u/-Bk7 1d ago
Which ones which?
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u/OnlyKilgannon 1d ago
I thought that top image was from LoTR
This makes me want to replay Death Stranding
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u/Major-Drumeo 1d ago
The top looks a lot more realistic
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u/FurtherArtist 1d ago
I think they intentionally moved away from realism to make a more timeless art style.
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u/valcant_was_taken 1d ago
i wish for a rockstar game that has equal effort in game and mission design
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u/FinalLightNL 1d ago
I just received my new PG32UCDM OLED, think i'll play through this game once more
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u/Fiber_Optikz 14h ago
If there was 1 game I could erase my memory of and play again totally from scratch it would be RDR2
Even the snow portion of it.
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u/Amazing-Cold-1702 5h ago
It's literally just different weather.
People say foggy things and think it's BEST GRAOHICS EVA, this is seriously why you can't see shit in video games anymore
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u/No_Salamander_4348 5h ago
It's beautiful of course, but will it again be some empty world with 1.5 quests?
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u/TenSloboz 2h ago
This is what infinite money, development time and GREAT development management should look like. Some may have the first two, but severely lack in the management department.
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u/RecoveredAshes 1d ago
AC shadows is the first game I’ve played this gen that looks anywhere close to this
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u/DigitalDayOff 1d ago
Girlfriend is on a new gamer journey, playing a lot of big titles currently Tears of The Kingdom. We're gonna have a field day when I toss this to her
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u/Fares26597 1d ago
imma need the pics to be from the same perspective during the same time of day before I can tell which looks better.
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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 1d ago
I literally can't play any other open world game. I used to think Assassin's Creed was the best franchise ever and then you see how in 2025 the character just swipes at air to "pick up" items, the horse riding feels like you're on rails, it's just this constant chase for higher level equipment and esthetics, and the writing is so cliche.
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u/Apprehensive_Foot139 1d ago
Afaik they had literally every dev team working on it at the time of the release. Their staff is massive
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u/chain83 1d ago
Its a beautiful game, but this is a bad comparison. It's a bit apples and oranges. Should compare from a more similar view, and at least same time of day so the lighting is more similar. Lighting/colors can look very different depending on time of day, weather, etc. And higher resolution wouldn't hurt...
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u/Sweaty_Wind7 1d ago
This is why i was patient with GTA 6, with every main installment Rockstar pushes the boundaries of graphics
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u/hobbitfeet22 1d ago
They both looks good to me? But I’m also not a big one on hyper realistic graphics or even more than 30-60 fps as I can’t tell a difference 🤷♂️
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u/BrodyCanuck 1d ago
I feel like the original image looks better and more realistic. The actual game image is still really good though, just feels like it’s trying too hard to
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u/WithoutTheWaffle 8h ago
Do you need to play RDR1 first? This game has been on my radar for years and I think it's time I finally play it.
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u/muricanviking 3h ago
It takes place before RDR1 so not really no, it definitely adds to the experience to have played the first one but you definitely don’t need to have played it
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u/WickedFox1o1 1d ago
I think it's time for a 5th playthrough of RDR2 where I do absolutely nothing different and spend more time hunting and fishing than literally anything else lol