If you’re a beginner to Red Dead Redemption 2, the vast open-world game can seem overwhelming at first. However, with some helpful tips and strategies, you can quickly get up to speed and enjoy the game to its fullest. Here are some tips to help you get started:
RDR 2 Tips and Tricks for Beginners
This page contains tips, tricks and strategies for survival and success in Red Dead Redemption 2.
General Tips
- Arthur will visibly lose or gain weight depending on how much food he eats.
- Gold Bars found in the world can be sold to a Fence for $500 and are a pretty fast way to make money. See Gold Bar Locations and Where to Sell Them.
- Treasure Maps can also lead to easy money in the form of Gold Bars
- You must keep your horse clean for full horse stamina. You can brush your horse to clean it, or just ride through water. See: How to Get a Horse Brush
- If you lose a hat or weapon it will reappear on your horse’s saddle
- If you set a waypoint and enable the cinematic camera while holding down X (releasing it afterward), your horse will automatically ride there.
- The HUD is customisable, so you can remove the minimap and other on-screen cues if you desire.
- Pause the game or press down on the D-Pad, and the current time and temperature is displayed.
- Items can be purchased at general stores by walking around and picking them up off shelves, but there’s also a catalog here, too.
- You’ll need to dress warmly when the temperature drops and shed layers when it gets unbearably hot.
- Putting on a bandana during a crime and then taking it off afterwards makes the Wanted meter drop faster, providing you’re out of the search radius.
- You can pay off your own bounty by visiting the nearest Post Office during the day.
- If you get a bounty on your head in a town and then clear your name by paying the said bounty, townspeople will still remember any trouble you caused and comment on it when you return.
- You can buy newspapers which will cover events that occur throughout the story.
- You can pat dogs. Those dogs won’t bark at you again if you see them.
- Health and stamina bars have an “inner core” that determines how fast your bars refill
- The honor system is intricate and the most obvious honorable versus dishonorable choice won’t always be apparent. Killing an O’Driscoll, one of the rival gang members, won’t be considered dishonorable. But if you escalate the conversation before killing them, it will be.
- Hygiene matters. If you’re dirty or bloody or generally gross, people will shy away from you.
- Fast Travel from camp is unlocked by upgrading Dutch’s tent then Arthur’s in the Ledger. See: How to Fast Travel
- You can also set a waypoint, switch to Cinematic Mode while on any trail and tap the horse run button (A on Xbox, X on PS4) to autopilot on that trail.
- Complete chores around the camp early on to get some easy points toward leveling up Dead Eye
- When choosing your outfit, be sure to store at least one outfit for cold weather and one for warm weather on your horse – so you can easily adapt when exploring
- Make sure to unequip your gun while going into your weapon wheel if you’re about to talk to someone. Aiming your gun at someone will most likely make them run or become hostile, disabling any other actions you could have taken with them.
- Your beard can only naturally grow to a length of 7/10. You can use Hair Tonics to make it grow further.
- You can get a black breaker from the Fence. To access the shop that sells this you need to play through gang missions. You don’t need to buy another once you have it.
Combat Tips
- When aiming a weapons, auto-targeting will snap your cursor to the center mass of the enemy nearest to where you’re aiming.
- This can manually be disabled in the options menu.
- Bodies of downed enemies are marked as a small ‘x’ on the minimap.
- Similarly, killed animals are marked with a paw print on the minimap
- Gang members will also loot downed bodies, so move fast or they’ll bogart all the extra cash and ammo.
- Weapons get dirty and clogged up over time, or if you get them wet, so you’ll need to clean them to get the best performance.
- You can lengthen the time between cleanings if you keep your guns out of the harsh elements. Equip upgraded and reinforced holsters to protect weapons from degradation.
- Tap R2 to rapidly fire from the hip.
- If you double-tap L1 Arthur puts his gun away with a flourish.
- Hold up on the D-pad while aiming and Arthur will fire a warning shot in the air, which can be used to attract the attention of other characters or startle an animal he’s hunting.
- You can shoot off someone’s hat and then steal it. Enemies can shoot your hat off.
- Kill cams are impacted by your honor. If you play honorably, the camera on a kill replay will focus on Arthur. If you’re dishonorable, it’ll focus on the kill, and represent it in a more intense way.
- You can shoot a horse to knock an enemy off its back. You monster.
Horse Tips
- Your horse will get covered in mud over time, which slows it down, and will need grooming
- Your horse can be cleaned by riding it through a body of water or a rainstorm.
- You can ‘store’ horses in stables, in case you need a ‘back-up’ horse, because…
- If your horse dies, it’s gone; they’re not like cars in GTA V that can be resurrected via an insurance claim.
- You can change the style of your horse’s mane and tail at stables, making it short, medium or long, adding braids or even changing to dreadlocks.
- You can tell your horse to flee when it’s in a precarious situation to try to spare its life.
- Increasing the bond with your horse unlocks tricks such as rearing, skid turns and dressage.
- If you haven’t got a good relationship with a horse, watch out when walking behind them — they’re likely to kick.
- Be careful when searching the saddlebags on someone else’s horse as it might kick you.
- You can search other people’s saddlebags.
- Be sure to pat your horse periodically to raise its affection for you. You can do this while you’re riding it by clicking the left thumbstick. This also calms it when it gets scared.
Hunting Tips
- If you leave the bodies of animals where you killed them, they will attract scavengers.
- Carcasses will decompose over time.
- Opossums play opossum – they’ll play dead when you’re nearby to try and fool you.
- Different species of fish respond to different bait and/or lures. Experiment to find the right combination to bring in the best fish.
- The carcasses you choose to load onto your horse and bring back to camp will spoil and rot over time, attracting scavengers and disgusting people.
- If you shoot an animal with a bullet rather than an arrow, it’ll fetch a lower price at the town butcher than a clean kill.
- Eagle Eye can be used to track animals, but will also show the scent coming off of your body, which animals can catch wind of to track you.
- You can mask your scent when hunting with special lotion, purchased from stores or found around the world.
- Increase Dead Eye level by hunting animals and skinning them.
- Alligators will jump out and eat dead bodies you leave in the water near them.
