It’s been a rough few months for Rockstar following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, mainly due to how many people have been left disappointed and frustrated with Red Dead Online. Unfortunately for Rockstar, it seems that their latest update for the game has now angered those who are still being kept busy in the game’s single-player campaign.
That’s because the latest update 1.06 seems to have given the game a slight graphics downgrade, particularly when it comes to lighting. It would appear that ambient occlusion has been removed from the game entirely. Ambient occlusion helps provide realistic lighting effects, and the removal of it is quite noticeable, especially when compared with how lighting looked before the update.
Twitter user DaRealBandicoot posted a screenshot of the lighting in Red Dead Redemption 2 1.00 alongside the recent 1.06 update, and it’s pretty easy to spot the difference between both versions.
1.00 vs 1.06 pic.twitter.com/sNd5h5hXwj
— Darealbandicoot (@Darealbandicoot) 13 March 2019
While not a game-breaking issue by any means, it seems an odd thing for Rockstar to remove nonetheless, especially since it didn’t seem to be an issue before. In fact, the single-player of Red Dead Redemption 2 has been considered by many to be perfectly fine the way it was. The downgrade also wasn’t mentioned in the update notes or hinted at by Rockstar before they rolled out the 1.06 update.
As of yet, Rockstar has not commented on this graphical downgrade. Hopefully, they will explain why they made the decision in the first place and, if possible, reverse the changes.
Given how much attention has been given to Red Dead Online, this latest update is only likely to annoy fans of Red Dead Redemption 2 further. Those hoping for DLC for the single-player are still yet to hear anything from Rockstar, and while Red Dead Online continues to receive updates, the single-player is seemingly being forgotten about.