Red Dead Redemption could have been titled Grand Theft Horse. That would have been a terrible name, but totally accurate.

Rockstar Games’ latest epic, released Tuesday for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, takes the open-world formula that works so well for Grand Theft Auto and applies it to a wholly different place and time. Now you’re jacking horses and firing repeater rifles in the Old West.
The first thing you’ll notice about Red Dead Redemption is just how pretty it is. The game’s early moments take you on a few horse rides that, not coincidentally, place you in front of some gorgeous vistas, overlooking vast mountains and ranges of cacti. I personally sustain no fantasies about living the pioneer life, but I imagine that a lot of people do. Absent the holodeck, Redemption’s massive world might well fit the bill.

Rockstar has done a good job transplanting the familiar Grand Theft Auto feel into a world without skyscrapers or cars. Having spent some time in Liberty City, I know where everything is — there’s my mini-map in the corner, with its wildly anachronistic but indispensable GPS; there’s my bedroom on the map where I can save my game.

Red Dead Redemption is filled with interesting characters, from Bonnie — the improbably attractive pioneer lady who gives you a place to crash and walks you through the game’s tutorials — to the harried, gruff old sheriff tasked with keeping his townsfolk alive and safe from unsavory rustlers. The main characters seem to have that whiff of period authenticity about them, creating what feels like an authentic sort of time-travel experience.
That reader isn’t alone. Red Dead Redemption, the hottest new video game of the week appears to be afflicted by a bug or bugs that are turning very important elements of the game invisible. Do note that Kotaku can’t verify how widespread the issue is but the multiple reports we’re getting make this something we feel is best to share so people know what might be going on.

After the original publication of this post, we received word from Rockstar that the company is “really happy with how well Red Dead Redemption has been received by the community on both platforms so far. We’re aware of the issues some people are experiencing on multiplayer and we’re working hard to fix them.”
Players are reporting these glitches on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 copies of Red Dead Redemption, primarily when the game’s multiplayer mode is activated. Some of them have isolated the problem to specific locations in the game’s map. Stepping into those zones makes the player or horse flick away, going invisible, but still being controllable by the player. Imagine the problems in a multiplayer match, one gamers told us, when a player starts sniping others while he is in an invisibility zone and they are not.

One RDR player told Kotaku directly that he’s seen four versions of the invisibility bug: one that makes the player’s own character or horse invisible, one that makes the horse and guns disappear, one that just vanishes the guns and one that makes every players’ horse and character disappear during a multiplayer session.

Red Dead development studio Rockstar Games already issued an Xbox 360 patch yesterday, on the day of the game’s release, to address problems with system-link multiplayer.