This post contains major spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2. Turn back now if you haven’t finished the game.
Red Dead Redemption may have received an excellent Xbox One X enhancements update a while back, but for those of you who’re hoping for proper remaster, a new glitch spotted by some players in Red Dead Redemption 2 (via ResetEra) might be hinting at just that. Before we proceed, heed the spoiler warning above. You’ve been re-warned.
Still here? Alright then. One of the many new features Rockstar introduced in Red Dead Redemption 2 was to greet (or antagonize) every single NPC in the game- the game’s epilogue sees us playing as John Marston, the protagonist from the first title. The glitch, which you can see below (courtesy of YouTube users Reel and Elemeno Peah) sees Marston greeting NPCs, but when he does so, he does it with the voice of an adult Jack Marston, who’s his son, rather than with his own voice.
Jack, as you know, is featured in Red Dead Redemption 2, but only as a child (later on, a teenager), and never an adult. The epilogue of the first Red Dead Redemption, however, sees players playing as an adult Jack Marston. There’s a couple of reasons why these files might be in the game. The first, of course, being that it’s tied to Red Dead Online– but Red Dead Online also takes place before the first game, while playable characters also don’t have voices. The other reason is that Rockstar simply had these files in the game as placeholders, and nothing more. And of course, there’s a third reason, which is that Rockstar are planing to release a remaster of Red Dead Redemption 1 as DLC. Or perhaps a single player expansion that features Jack as the lead, and takes place after the events of the first game (Undead Nightmare 2?).
It’s worth noting that the ability to greet NPCs with the press of a button isn’t a feature in Red Dead Redemption 1, so these audio files with Jack’s adult voice being present in Red Dead Redemption 2 is even more interesting. Red Dead Redemption 2, of course, also has the map of the first game included, completely remade, while even Mexico is accessible through glitch (though that area in particular reuses the first game’s assets rather than being remade entirely).
Given Rockstar’s history with single player post-launch content in the last few years, it’s a little unlikely that they’d be focusing on something like this instead of continuing to update Red Dead Online. But it’s not impossible, right? All we need to do is have some goddamn faith.