That Red Dead Redemption 2 will be a stunning beast – in several ways, but visually in particular – has never been in doubt, right from the very first piece of footage we saw of the game. Everything we’ve seen of it has suggested that Rockstar’s open world epic will be among the best looking games ever made, and as per Digital Foundry’s incredibly detailed two-part analysis of the game and its tech, that definitely seems to be the case.
You can view both videos below, but here are the main takeaways. The Xbox One X version of the game, it seems, is the most impressive. It was announced some time back that the game would run in native 4K on the system, and that is indeed the case. There are a few frame rate drops even on the One X, according to Digital Foundry, especially when you’re in towns (which makes sense, since these are the most populated areas).
The PS4 Pro is more or less on the same level, in terms of frame rate, with some drops in towns, but a solid and stable performance otherwise. In terms of resolution, it’s not quite at full 4K, and instead renders at 1920 x 2160. Other than performance and resolution, however, Red Dead Redemption 2 has visual parity across all consoles, with the same assets used on each platform.
That, in fact, applies to the base PS4 and Xbox One as well. Though these, as you can probably imagine, take a hit on resolution. The PS4 version of the game runs in HD, of course, at a 1080p resolution. The base Xbox One version is at the bottom of this pack in this regard, with a resolution output of 864p.
Of course, those are just the main talking points, and Digital Foundry goes into great detail on various aspects, as expected. I’d recommend watching both videos for a full breakdown. We did our own three part series on Red Dead Redemption 2 as well, where we took a look at the game’s tech used in pre-release coverage- you can check it out here, here, and here.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is out tomorrow for the PS4 and Xbox One. You can expect our review of the game by Sunday- in the meantime, head on over here to find out what other critics are saying about it (spoiler: they love it).