Third-party support was a big theme of the Switch 2 reveal earlier this year, with many publishers seemingly keen to capitalize on both the popularity of the outgoing Switch and the significantly increased horsepower of its imminent successor. And if you’re looking to get third-party games on your new system, they don’t come much much bigger than Red Dead Redemption 2, which could be making its way to Nintendo’s new console later this year.
Gamereactor says it has heard from sources close to Rockstar (which it then corroborated with other sources) that the enormous open-world Western that first released in 2018 is bound for Switch 2, and could arrive either at the same time, or after, a long-rumored next-gen update for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Red Dead Redemption 2 is of course currently playable on both of those platforms, but unlike GTA 5, it’s never been patched to support the higher frame rates and fidelity afforded by the newer hardware.
This should by no means be taken as an official announcement, but Rockstar has supported the current Switch pretty well throughout its life cycle, releasing ports of L.A. Noire, the original 3D Grand Theft Auto trilogy, and most recently the first Red Dead Redemption. If the Switch 2 can run its sequel, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that Rockstar would want to do it, and the console is likely to be roughly equivalent in power to the base model PS4, according to Digital Foundry. It goes without saying that we’ll know a lot more about how the Switch 2 performs when the console is in the wild and put through its paces.
Both a Nintendo Switch 2 port and current-gen patch for Red Dead Redemption 2 would be a good way for Rockstar to bridge the gap between now and the release of GTA 6, which was recently delayed until May 2026. With a 97 percent score on Metacritic, RDR2 is one of the developer’s most acclaimed titles to date, and you can be sure that a lot of people would happily hop back into the cowboy boots of Arthur Morgan while they wait to return to Vice City.
