Rockstar's long anticipated announcement of the next installment into their gun toting wild west action-adventure "Red Dead" series, has not be scheduled for release on PC when it drops in Fall 2017. This news comes as an unwelcome surprise to many fans of Rockstar's 2015 re-release of "Grand Theft Auto V" (GTA V) as the PC version of the game which saw 2 million copies sold in under a month, was such a successful PC port that players may have believed that this was part of a bright future between the PC platform and Rockstar.
Rockstar's rocky relationship with PC gamers
PC gamers have previously suffered at the hands of dodgy ports of Games over to the PC platform which leads some people to the conclusion that as a platform, the PC market is a second thought for Rockstar, though this is not only a problem with Rockstar games; many gamers are often concerned as to whether or not the product they buy will work well on their machine, or even run at all.
The recent title "No Man's Sky" by Hello Games displays this point perfectly, whilst there were issues across all platforms and a genuinely poor reception of the game in general, many PC players with high-end computers had major technical difficulties with the game.
Whilst Rockstar have had some poor releases on PC such as "Grand Theft Auto IV," they provided a very good quality port with GTA V which was an instant hit and improved vastly on the original release of the game in fall 2013 on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, which is part of the reason for the disappointment of PC gamers.
"Red Dead Redemption," Rockstar's second release in it's "Red Dead" franchise, was immensely popular on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and there was hope from the PC community that the game would one day be ported over to PC. However, PC gamers have had no such luck despite some teasers and pointers over the years which suggested the contrary. Until the release of GTA V on PC, the prospect of many future PC releases looked bleak.
Why we compare GTA V with 'Red Dead Redemption 2'
"Red Dead Redemption" was a fantastic game which had great success on its initial release platforms in 2010, so much so that it was recently re-released this year on current gen systems (XBOX One & Playstation 4.) This further aggravated the PC gamers who had been hoping for a PC release of this game, including myself, and spurred further hope that perhaps Rockstar was saving its resources for developing a PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 which, at the time, we were still waiting for to be announced.
GTA V, in some of its core mechanics, is very similar to "Red Dead Redemption." Now to some that may sound silly; why would anyone think that a game based around cowboys in the 'wild west' be anything akin to a modern day based gang warfare game with high-speed car chases and bank heists?
Well, they are both played with a 3rd person camera, are both free roam games, and both have control schemes which are somewhat similar.
So, what are the chances of getting a PC release?
Well, lets look at what we know so far; Rockstar has only announced the game on two listed platforms - neither of them PC, and those believing that Rockstar will surely be likely to release a more polished version of the game for PC to come out 19 months later just like GTA V may be in for some disappointment. During the development of GTA V, Rockstar stated that a PC release after the initial release, would be likely, but unfortunately, this is not the case as at the moment only PS4 and XBOX One have been named as release platforms.
Some may argue that this is a marketing strategy by Rockstar to extend the longevity of their product by encouraging as many people to buy it as possible and then releasing a newer 'definitive' version on PC or the next games consoles to emerge. This would be pure speculation.
Finally, can we really expect a franchise which has never been on PC to ever be released on this platform? To be honest, and however unlikely, I hope so.