I'm not gonna watch the video (going to get the game at 9 PM Eastern time), but thanks for the videos, Drift!

the reviews are in, it's scoring pretty well. 10/10 from ign. wow. good job to Rockstar.

Digital Foundry are also saying the graphics are above Horizon Zero dawn, with rich and vast drawing distance on all platforms. The XB1X Version also runs at a Naive 4k resolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mTIPXwcDGQ

Interesting news to hear. at fist glance it would seem like a typical open world game to some. but when you look at the drawing distance, day and night cycle lighting and ecosystem it does look alive and rich. which some may overlook. this was a surprising presentation from Rockstar. amazing work.

Microsoft has an interesting bundle also going on too - Forza Horizon 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2. two epic 4k Native open world games bundled together, this might be the biggest bundle yet made by them this gen. such perfect holiday timing.

Nice bundle. I think they are hoping most Xbone owner upgrades to X if they have 4K TV. I seriously can't see X making new customers though. They have to get X2 out before PS5 to be competitive next gen

Microsoft said every 4 years back in 2016. this year would have been the announcement of new hardware. but there was nothing. so no new xbox hardware launching next year. next year will be either the announcement for 2020, or on that year will be the announcement.

In the meantime running xbox one games in native 4k is the X's primary design. the next xbox would only replicate what the X is currently doing. so this would only waist resources and money at the moment.

Ray-Tracing GPUs aren't even cheap right now anyways, and they're a little underpowered to handle 4k 30fps as well. GTX 2080 dose 1080p 30fps ray-traced....so that's only going to make the X look like a better deal for 4k gaming.


Next year is when Microsoft Makes the XB1X the first 4k console to be really cheap. that's the way i see it.

as it stands right now, you need two GTX 2080s to do 4k 30fps ray-traced on PC. that's $2,200 in GPUs.

the GTX 2070 can only do 900p 30fps ray-traced and costs $450 alone. just think of it, it's going to look stupid and funny the most on console shelves. buyers are going to be spending more money while going backwards in pixels.

I can imagine the jump from 4k 60fps to 720p 30fps ray-traced. how breathtaking that will be to the average console gamer. heheh. yeah not a good idea.

DF is full of it if they think RDR2 is touching Horizon Zero Dawn in the graphics, lighting, and textures department. In fact, Red Dead Redemption 2 is looking pretty soft in the textures department.

@Driftwood:

Damn, you guys really are cursed!

See, this is why you shouldn't throw stones at churchs and affiliate yourselves with the devil, nothing good ever comes out of it. :P

Seriously, it's fine. I'm sure you guys will cover the hell out of it in the weeks to come. Also when Read Dead Online comes out. Though it really does suck, since almost everyone will be playing the game by then, which means you lost all the views and new people who would have visited Gamersyde - and hopefully would have stayed.

Still, let us be extremely happy that we are able to play one of the best pieces of art ever made. Cheers.

Actually, it's not just IGN, or even just a few outlets, it's almost unanimously praised as "the best game of the generation", with some even going so far as to call it "the best game ever made".

Currently, Red Dead Redemption 2 has a MetaCritic score: 98 (XB1) - 30 Critic Reviews - & 97 (PS4) - 88 Critic Reviews.

As it stands, RDR2 is the 3rd/4th best reviewed game of all time on MetaCritic. Though it's important to note that aside from Grand Theft Auto 4, the other 2 games were released in 1998 and 2000, so they don't have as many critic reviews, which would have definitely influenced the score down, so their value isn't as significant as those from games from the X360/PS3 era onwards.

Basically, as it stands, Red Dead Redemption 2 is tied with Grand Theft Auto 4 as "the best reviewed game of all time". Doesn't mean that people will love or won't hate the game, reviews are just opinions, however, it does mean that there's an insane level of quality that is undeniable, regardless of how one feels about it taste-wise.

On the technical side, Digital Foundry said:

"Red Dead Redemption 2 analysis: a once-in-a-generation technological achievement - The state of the art."

"The final product is technological masterpiece, matching and arguably exceeding the very best first-party efforts of this generation."

"In truth, we could spend even more time discussing the amount of effort put into the game's systems - like the excellent dynamic music score and superb use of surround sound - but I think the point has been made: this is an exceptional achievement, and a one-of-a-kind title on the current console generation."

Digital Foundry - Red Dead Redemption 2 analysis: a once-in-a-generation technological achievement:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-...

I said many times at the beginning of - and throughout - the PS4/XB1 generation, that I wanted to see what Rockstar would do with the current consoles with a game built from scratch for them, not a port of a X360/PS3 game like Grand Theft Auto 5.

I also said that while Naughty Dog were geniuses at the technological level for games, that their games are first, only on a single platform - only counting the platform they were designed for - and second, very linear games.

Here is Rockstar with a game designed for 4 platforms, and an open-world game at that - a very large and expansive open-world game. That's why in my eyes, Rockstar has surpassed Naughty Dog on a technical level back when Grand Theft Auto 5 launched. What Rockstar did with GTA5 on the X360 and PS3 almost seemed like devilry/witchcraft at the time.

This isn't a knock on Naughty Dog, they are geniuses at what they do best, but rather an indication of how far Rockstar has gone. Fanboys aside, Rockstar's technological achievements are unarguably.

And now Rockstar has surpassed itself again with Red Dead Redemption 2. But enough talk, let's go play and enjoy the goddamn game!

There are so much visual weak shit on Horizon, and a lot of it goes to animation quality that makes it an assassin's creed knock-off... the scope and overall finner extreme details is worlds and beyond superior on RDR2.

No one denies the Horizon Engine has still great strenghts especially on modelling, but the overall scope and quality of RDR2 ON EVERYTHING makes the visuals so much better and consistent, you would even only say that Horizon has the better viusals if your whole concept of visuals take was based on one single thing they acheived as... wrinkles or explosion sfx, or something. That is so limited.

Im an U4 and GOW fanboy but i think that this game takes the graphics king crown

Are you aware that what you're writing is not just simplification of a complicated matter, but super-super-simplification, and it makes you look like you have no clue what you're talking about and what's going on in a system and its GPU. A hint of humbleness in how you present your hard numbers would be appropriate.

It is the attention to detail here and the use of tech that makes this so impressive. I am playing Spider-man righ now, and I think the rendering engine in that is more impressive than this for sure and the quality of the main character models is much better, but the consistency of detail here given the scope of the world is excellent. Apart from the lighting it is the draw distance and LoD that is really stellar. The character models are not the most impressive, and the environmental geometry is good, but probably not as impressive as say Odyssey, but it comes together more consistently I would say.

yeah. i suppose you didn't.

I think that's the key thing with this games visuals. It's consistent. The individual elements may not be as good as something like, Horizon when you break it all down, like it's textures, AA solution, geometry etc. But its all really consistent in what it does. The kotaku review is a good read and is precisely why I struggle to care about the game though. They flat out say the game isn't fun. That the character controls are terrible at worst and stubbornly dated at best along with its interactions and combat... And honestly, when your character doesn't control well I don't see how I'm supposed to enjoy it?

*takes a sip of grape juice* Really, go...explain. lol U crack me up, Owl.

I really don't understand the buzz about the God of War graphics.
Until this gen God of War has always looked fantastic and raised the bar technically. This time around it looked good but not much more beyond that. There was some seriously shoddy-looking areas, especially when it comes to texture work. I especially recall the place where you met Freya, some of the trees as well as the water close-by didn't look very good at all.
In that case Assassin's Creed: Odyssey looks better even though it's like 29402492049042 times bigger.

I think FC5 and Odyssey are some of the most impressive technical/graphical showcases on the market until now, and I remain a bit skeptical that RDR2 would surpass them in this regard. But I'd love to be proven otherwise and I'm looking forward to personally find out.

I don't know if it's maybe just non-native checkerboard resolution (PS4Pro) but I found visuals underwhelming yesterday night. I mean sure, volumetric effects and godrays look cool, but the latter we've seen already in GTAV and it hasn't improved much, and the textures/texture maps (is that what they're called) lack the mind-blowing small detail like in UE4 games (Arkham Knight), Witcher 3 or, most recently, Spider-Man. Textures and model complexity are just a tad better than GTAV, and 30fps makes shooting unbearable after playing Max Payne 3 and GTAV at 60. 30fps didn't bother me in Witcher 3 (my PC couldn't handle 4k@60 at max settings) but that wasn't the same type of gameplay. RDR2 feels so sluggish because of that. And visually it's definitely not on par with likes of Witcher 3, which I consider the best looking game still (although I use texture/water improvement mods).

P.S.: plus it makes my Pro sound like jet taking off, and only Uncharted 4 overheated it to that extent.

RDR 2 feels sluggish due to the animation systems that R* use, not so much the framerate, afterall, there are plenty of perfectly responsive games that are 30fps. R* like nice reactive character dynamics but it's sadly at the expense of basic control functions. this has been the case since GTA4. it's likely why their games have such a strong focus on skill-less lock-on aiming, because it's the only system that really works when your input lag is enormous and your character feels like dead weight. basic things like turning or moving into cover is super frustrating in their games. max payne 3 kind of made it a bit better, but it was still miles away from being a responsive shooter.

Odyseey is very impressive in scale and great graphically overall, but there is compromise both in quality of texturing and environmental geometry. GoW has better up close fidelity obviously given that is where the concentration of resources is. It is also much more effects heavy.

I am playing Odyssey and Spider-man side by side, and has straight up more impressive rendering, particularly character models which are incredible and the quality of assets. Odyssey has very impressive terrain geometry and also the scale is incredible.

There is a haze RDR and a lack of that crisp fidelity you get with spider man and Horizon. But for me it comes down to taste. Horizon looks artificial, more cartoonish. Spider Man looks more real, it has a more natural color palette but it's world is one note. With RDR its a sum of all its parts that for me create a far more believable world. There are so many systems at work you can't even compare it. Those other games feel like shiny card board cuts out now.

"There are so much visual weak shit on Horizon, and a lot of it goes to animation quality that makes it an assassin's creed knock-off" Sorry but you seriously have no idea what you are talking about. Horizon Zero Dawn is gold standard when it comes to its animations. The game won the award for animation in last year's develop awards. Not only animations of Aloy are so fluid, expressive and varied, the gameplay is also extremely responsive (which is rare in games that are so animation heavy, including Red Dead Redemption 2 btw. where unresponsive gameplay is pointed out by many reviewers). There were even articles about it: https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/5/15178418/horizon-...

I mean it is clear you haven't actually played HZD but simply comparing it with Ubisoft games like ACO even by just looking at it you should have been able to judge the massive difference in quality.

lol, more like I haven't even played Odyssey but played 30 hours of Horizon. So what?

hobo broad finds magic device goes into sweet sixteen party, spy drone finds her party poopers kill the hype, let's go explore... mancaves. long neck dinos. shittiest generic one type villages/one liner villagers this side of a bioware games. hunt kill.

should i keep going?

Its animation is janky looking at best... again in the veins of the current jank'ier odyssey/origins and nothing like AsscreedIII or Unity. Choose your poison, if it makes for a better gameplay in the game, it is what it is.

So many people upgrading to One X just for this game. Hilarious to see this after Sony's marketing deals.

PRO barely does any better job than ps4 Slim for RDR2.