Red Dead Redemption 2 has climbed to third on the all-time best-selling video games list, per reporting from IGN and Hypebeast, placing Rockstar Games‘ 2018 open-world epic directly behind only Minecraft and Wii Sports – two titles that benefited from platform-bundling at a scale no premium-priced game can realistically match. The broader Red Dead franchise has now moved over 106 million units worldwide, a figure Take-Two Interactive has flagged across multiple earnings calls as the series continues to accumulate sales nearly seven years after the sequel’s launch.
For context, RDR2 surpassed the lifetime sales of the original Red Dead Redemption in just two weeks after its October 2018 release – a sequel outrunning its predecessor before most players had even finished the story. Take-Two has also repeatedly cited RDR2 as the best-selling title of the last seven years in the U.S. by dollar sales, which is a genuinely unusual thing for a game without a live-service revenue engine to be. The title has also accumulated over 175 Game of the Year awards, cementing a critical legacy that has continued to drive word-of-mouth long after the launch window closed. If you’ve been picking it up on PS Plus – it did land in the PS Plus catalog earlier this year – you’re part of why this number keeps moving.
Honestly, the number that matters most here isn’t the ranking itself – it’s the staying power behind it. Most premium games spike at launch and fade; RDR2 has been quietly stacking sales for nearly seven years on the back of deep discounts, platform deals, and a reputation that hasn’t dimmed. That’s not marketing. That’s a game that people keep recommending to each other. It also puts Rockstar in a genuinely elite position: the studio now has two titles – GTA V still sitting comfortably ahead – among the five best-selling games ever made, which is something no other single developer can claim. The irony is that Rockstar‘s commercial dominance is being measured in RDR2 milestones at the exact moment the industry is holding its breath for GTA 6, a title reportedly running behind its internal targets.
Watch for Take-Two‘s next earnings call for the clearest signal on whether RDR2 can hold third place or push further – any meaningful franchise activity, from a next-gen upgrade to the faintest whisper of Red Dead Redemption 3, would likely trigger another sales surge that makes the current ranking look conservative. The Switch 2’s launch sales underline just how rare it is for any title to crack the all-time top five, which makes RDR2‘s climb on premium pricing alone all the more striking.
Did you sleep on RDR2 at launch and come to it late, or have you been watching it climb the charts since day one? And does a milestone like this shift your expectations for what Rockstar needs to deliver with GTA 6? Sound off in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more Red Dead Redemption 2 coverage.
