Red Dead Redemption Improves on PS5, Xbox Series, iOS

This week's massive Red Dead Redemption relaunch has placed the 2010 open-world classic on seemingly every device imaginable. In addition to the game looking and running remarkably on Switch 2, we've made sure to document every other new current-gen port, with each offering a different, notable leap for fans of each particular platform.

The biggest improvement for existing RDR owners by far comes on Xbox Series consoles, which had previously been limited to a back-compat version of the 15-year-old Xbox 360 original. In 2018, Microsoft offered a remarkable update for RDR's Xbox 360 version on the relatively new Xbox One X, simply flicking a switch to scale its original 720p version to 2160p resolution while improving texture filtering and sticking its frame-rate much more tightly to a 30fps cap.

This many years on, that had been the best version available on Series X, with no option to uncap its frame-rate or update its visual feature set to anything approximating the 2024 PC version. Series S owners could access something similar with a jump to 1440p resolution that was also chained to a dated graphics base - a fact that became all too clear once we compared those to a native PS4 version of RDR in 2023.

This week, native hardware support finally comes to RDR on Xbox Series consoles along with PS5. Each still operates at the same high pixel counts - 4K on Series X and PS5, 1440p on Series S - but now Xbox performance jumps to 60fps, and all console versions enjoy visual settings much closer to ultra settings on PC. This is not a remaster with remade assets, so geometry and texture quality are only equivalent to the PC version, not wholly redrawn. But we're still getting enough new boosts to even surpass the high-quality PS4 version from two years ago.

Anti-aliasing is improved from the Xbox 360's older 2x MSAA setting, but it's also apparently different from and superior to the PS4 port's FSR2 option. We're now getting a less flicker-prone, more stable pixel presentation that is highly likely to be AMD's FSR3.

The previous PS4 version on PS5 already operated at 2160p resolution, but this change in anti-aliasing coverage makes the new, native PS5 version's 4K presentation look even clearer. This week's releases no longer include the choice of FXAA or FSR2 available in the PS4 port, suggesting that Double Eleven is confident in FSR3 - and from what we have seen, we can't blame them.

Additionally, the level-of-detail (LOD) setting now draws terrain closer to the horizon, with pop-in occurring at the same cadence as on PC. Foliage and geometry do pop in a bit closer to the player than on PC's ultra setting in some scenes, measured most clearly in our tests during an opening train-ride sequence when comparing grass and cacti coverage. And shadows now benefit from a Contact Hardening Soft Shadows (CHSS) setting that adjusts shadow makeup based on an object's distance from a surface, though its final shadow resolution is a bit lower than PC's ultra preset.

There's one more series of ports to report on: RDR on iOS and Android, now available either as a $39.99 standalone purchase or as part of a paid Netflix subscription. We've begun testing RDR's mobile port by using an iPhone 15 Pro, which includes access to 30fps and 40fps modes - the same as on iPhone 16 and 17. A higher 60fps update is available on iPad M3 and M4 tablets, which we have not tested as of press time, but we are surprised not to see 60fps available on the newer iPhone models.

Going back to the iPhone 15 Pro, the fidelity mode appears to lock to a steady 30fps while rendering at a native 2304x1062, which scales up to the phone's 2556x1179 screen. While its native ultrawide ratio is a welcome perk on the 15 Pro screen, there is flicker in motion due to FXAA as an anti-aliasing solution, along with pop-in for elements like terrain and foliage that look inferior in comparison to Switch 2. The 40fps mode, meanwhile, tops out at 1521x702 resolution with more FXAA-based flicker due to the reduced resolution, but it too locks to its frame-rate cap, which we appreciate.

For more on this week's Red Dead Redemption ports, check out our look at the particularly impressive Switch 2 version.