On February 3, gaming history could change forever. Red Dead Redemption 2 one step away from a major achievement

Red Dead Redemption 2 might soon climb onto the podium of the best-selling games of all time, even though Rockstar isn't particularly promoting its highly popular western.

By the end of January, you can pretty much expect game publishers to start rolling out their quarterly or yearly reports. These are awaited not only by investors but also by players, as publishers sometimes inadvertently reveal interesting information. For example, about GTA 6 – at least that's what fans of Rockstar Games hope, as they are still eagerly awaiting any news about the sixth installment. Such opportunities include the fiscal summary from Take-Two Interactive, which will be revealed on February 3rd.

Dead Red Dead Redemption 2 has more life than many hits

However, some Rockstar fans are currently giving up on Grand Theft Auto VI. Some people would prefer to hear something about another series: Red Dead. This series, however, remains effectively abandoned by the developer. This is quite curious, as ben / @videotechuk_ points out on X, RDR 2 is close to becoming the third best-selling game ever, even though it doesn't even have an update for the latest consoles.

Let's emphasize that current rankings usually omit Tetris, which was previously listed as the top game of all time. Back in the day, people used to say it was the biggest hit ever, but that was counting all sorts of different versions of the puzzle game, not just the basic one, which was kind of a stretch.

According to current information, sales of RDR 2 have exceeded 80 million copies. This gives Rockstar's western the fourth position, just behind Wii Sports, which was purchased nearly 83 million times, and far behind GTA 5 (220 million copies) and Minecraft (350 million copies).

The latest sales stats for the third Red Dead game are from November, so it's kinda doubtful it'll soon beat Nintendo's sports hit. At least until we realize that in February 2025, Take-Two Interactive reported that 70 million copies of RDR 2 had reached stores (and players). By May, it was over 74 million copies, and by November, that number had grown to 79 million. In other words, several million copies of Red Dead Redemption 2 are sold each quarter.

The game's strong performance is almost absurd. We're talking about a title over 7 years old. RDR 2 has an online mode similar to GTA Online, but it is not developed nearly as actively as Rockstar's gangster sandbox. Moreover, the latest Red Dead doesn't even have a release for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S; the game still runs on these platforms only through backward compatibility.

It's all the more surprising that Rockstar Games barely seems to remember RDR 2 and Red Dead Online. Of course, the team is currently focused on GTA 6, which is set to be released on November 19. Nevertheless, this doesn't seem to prevent the team from regularly updating GTA Online, not to mention that GTA V received a next-gen update almost 4 years ago. Maybe players should keep an eye out for news about this series on February 3rd, when Take-Two Interactive releases their financial results for the last quarter?

Red Dead Redemption 2

October 26, 2018

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• Overview
• Guide

• Take 2 Interactive
• Rockstar Games
• Red Dead (franchise)
• game sales