Could GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 Run on Nintendo Switch 2?

Virtuos believes Rockstar’s biggest open-world games could succeed on Nintendo’s future handheld gaming hardware worldwide.

Virtuos has openly said that they want to bring two of Rockstar Games' biggest games to Nintendo hardware. This has led to new rumors about the future of mature third-party games on Nintendo systems. Members of the company talked openly about their plans to make both Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 for Nintendo platforms in a new interview.

Andy Fong, an executive at Virtuos, said those things when he was asked by a reporter about future projects the studio would like to work on. Fong says that the team thinks that both of the popular Rockstar games could do very well on Nintendo systems and reach a whole new group of people through handheld gaming.

Over the last few years, Virtuos has made a name for itself as one of the best support and porting studios in the gaming business. The company has development teams all over the world, with its headquarters in Singapore. It has worked on many well-known remasters, ports, and co-development projects. 

The company already has a lot of experience with Nintendo hardware, having helped bring L.A. Noire to the Nintendo Switch along with its releases on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In addition to working with Rockstar, Virtuos has also helped bring big third-party games like XCOM 2 and The Outer Worlds to the Nintendo Switch.

Virtuos thinks that Rockstar's biggest franchises could do well with portable Nintendo games.

Because of this, a lot of fans think that the company would be one of the best at making technically difficult Nintendo ports. Since Grand Theft Auto V came out first on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the idea that it could come out on Nintendo devices seems pretty likely.

Even though newer versions of GTA 5 have gotten a lot of improvements, the game's roots in older consoles hint that a scaled-down version might work on Nintendo systems with some tweaking. Red Dead Redemption 2, on the other hand, is much harder to make technically.

Rockstar's huge open-world western is still one of the most visually impressive games ever made, and it still puts a lot of strain on current hardware years after it came out. A lot of people think that playing the game on the original Nintendo Switch would either need cloud streaming technology or big changes to the graphics.

Because of this, a lot of Switch fans thinks that any possible ports would mostly be for Nintendo's new hardware and not the original Switch. Reports and reports about the so-called Switch 2 have said over and over that game developers are working on bigger, more technically difficult projects for the system, especially games that couldn't be made on Nintendo hardware before.

Even so, players are still very interested in the idea of being able to play Rockstar's big open-world games on a hybrid portable system. Nintendo's ecosystem for handheld devices has consistently shown that it can extend the life of big third-party releases by giving fans new ways to play old games.

Switch 2 rumors keep building up huge hopes for Rockstar's future with Nintendo.

And there are still questions about whether Grand Theft Auto VI will ever be released on Nintendo's new gear. There's no hard evidence yet, but many Nintendo fans think the company's next system could be powerful enough to finally get more modern AAA games from publishers who weren't willing to support the platform before.

Meanwhile, there have been rumors for quite some time about a Nintendo version of Red Dead Redemption 2 that is being considered for Nintendo’s new hardware. Some players are now wondering if the company is already talking with Rockstar or Nintendo behind the scenes about possible ports ever since Virtuos announced its interest in these sorts of projects.

Others think that the comments are more likely to be strategic goals than confirmations of ongoing development. Making it known that you're interested in big franchises can sometimes get publishers to start serious talks, especially if the studio has experience with large-scale ports and remasters.

Virtuos’ comments have sparked renewed interest in what Rockstar has in plans for Nintendo platforms, although no deals have been announced yet. With Nintendo preparing for the next generation of Switch hardware, fans are hoping bigger third-party developers will bring open-world games that are more ambitious than ever to the system.