Red Dead Redemption 2 / Tropes M to Z

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M

• Must Make Amends: The Do Not Seek Absolution quest line is only available to a non-low honour Arthur, as he sees Edith Downes, the wife (now widow) of a previous family that borrowed money from Arthur's gang which ended with their husband's beatdown from Arthur and presumed followed death. After losing their house, she turned to selling her body outside Annesburg to barely make ends meet while her son works in the mines, and he doesn't get treated well there. This causes a huge amount of guilt for Arthur, as in those quest lines, he tries to atone for what happened to the family, and sends them on a train with a huge sum of cash. After the mission Red Dead Redemption, you can find a newspaper with an article reporting that the family used the money to set up a golf course and are now prospering.
• MacGuffin: The obscenely large take (stated in an in-game newspaper to be $150,000, which is over $4 million in 2018 dollars) from the botched Blackwater job, which was hidden by Dutch after everything went south - so well that nobody was able to find it. Practically a symbol of the gang's sins, almost to non-fantastical Artifact of Doom levels - it is a large part of the reason the authorities are tracking them so fervently, setting up the main conflict, the desire for some of the gang to go back and get it drives a lot of the conflict in the group - especially from Micah, even before he starts selling them out to the Pinkertons - and the group's slow realization that they're never going to see that money coincides with the realization that there may not actually be any escape for them. In the end, Micah gets his hands on it, and John steals it after he's dead. True to the game's morality, this act is heavily implied to be the thing that leads Ross to him and his family, years later.
• The Mafia: Although not yet at their prohibition-era height, we see a proto example with Angelo Bronte and his fellow Italian countrymen, who run the criminal underworld in Saint Denis.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The gang will wear bandanas masking their faces when committing robberies and various crimes of course. In a case of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, the game will probably treat it as a Paper-Thin Disguise if the player doesn't make the necessary steps of changing his other clothes too.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Charles is the result of one, being half black and half Native American. When confronting some bison poachers, one seems at a loss for what slur to use against Charles.
• Man on Fire: Fire bottles, flaming arrows, incendiary ammo, and shooting explosives such as moonshine stills or boxes of dynamite can set your enemies on fire. They'll generally run around panicked before falling to the ground.
• A Master Makes Their Own Tools: Only standard arrows can be purchased. In order to fulfill some of the hunting challenges, such as collecting perfect small game pelts or hunting cougars with a bow, you'll need to craft your own small game and improved arrows, respectively.
• Maximum HP Reduction: The new stats system sets up "cores" and "meters" for each of the three attributes - health, stamina, and Dead Eye. The health core drains over time, particularly in extreme temperatures when you are not adequately dressed, and can be restored by eating and resting. When your health meter runs out, your core will begin to drain as you take more damage. When it also runs out, you die. When Arthur contracts tuberculosis as part of the story, the cores also start to drain permanently faster, and the ability to replenish the cores with food has diminishing effects.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • The blind beggar gives Arthur and later John accurate, if rather cryptic, predictions of their futures.
  • The Native American Burial Ground northwest of Strawberry has a Whispering Ghosts effect and seems to have an unusually high spawn rate for animals nearby. Shooting these animals causes a drop in honor.
  • It's never explicitly confirmed if the vampire in Saint Denis is actually a vampire or simply an especially deranged serial killer.
  • The problems the people of Butcher's Creek suffer from appear to be caused by severe poisoning thanks to the pollution of the water they drink from. However, you can find a red, glowing pentagram under one of the houses at 3am each night, implying the town really is cursed.
  • Speaking of curses, by 1907 Armadillo has been ravaged by various illnesses for over a decade. The Strange Man has a map of Armadillo on his hut so it's possible he has something to do with it; On the other hand, he's also implied to be a neutral being, so Armadillo may just have been very, very unlucky and the Strange Man's stance is just to Let No Crisis Go to Waste.
• Meaningful Background Event: In the mission The Last Son, when Micah raises his voice on Arthur after the latter questioned Dutch again, you can see Charles, John, and Sadie, who were sitting moments ago, stand up and about to back Arthur up before Eagle Flies shows up.
• Meaningful Name: Hosea shares a name with a prophet in the Jewish Bible, specifically a "prophet of doom". Hosea is the only "voice of reason" Dutch with listen to, and keeps Dutch's more ambitious/risky plans in check. When discussing the plan to kill Angelo Bronte and rob the Saint Denis bank, Hosea will try to talk Dutch out of it, saying that "it doesn't feel right". He's absolutely right to do so, as killing Bronte brought enough attention to the gang where local law enforcement and the Pinkerton Agency were well prepared for the gang when they robbed the Saint Denis bank (which Hosea ironically urged Dutch to proceed with despite Dutch's doubts). Taking it even further, Hosea's death in that same robbery is the gang's true death knell, as it pushes Dutch further over the edge, and without Hosea's counsel, the only other voice of "reason" Dutch will listen to is Micah, and his encouragement of Dutch's more unhinged plans (along with fostering Dutch's growing distrust of the rest of the gang) is what ultimately leads to it falling apart.
• Mêlée à Trois: The final mission of Chapter 6 involves Arthur and John fighting Dutch, Micah, Bill, Javier, Joe, and Cleet; Ross and an army of Pinkertons then arrive on the scene to wipe everyone out.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard:
  • Hosea is like an adoptive father to Arthur, bringing him into the outlaw lifestyle along with Dutch. Hosea is killed at the end of Chapter 4.
  • Arthur himself is seen as a mentor figure by many of the more junior members of the gang, including John, and dies at the end of the main story.
• Menu Time Lockout: A downplayed version in that time does not completely stop when accessing your inventory, but it does slow to Bullet Time levels.
• Mercy Kill:
  • During the mission "The Mercies of Knowledge", Wilson J. McDaniels, the victim of a botched execution by electric chair begs to be shot and put out of his misery.
  • A random encounter can occur in which a stranger is mauled by wolves and, knowing he's beyond help, asks Arthur to kill him to end his agony.
  • Discussed by Charles and John when Uncle is kidnapped by Skinners, although thankfully Averted since they manage to rescue him before it gets too bad.
    Charles: John, look, we should agree on something. If it's really bad... this might not be about saving him.
    John: What the hell are you talking about?
    Charles: If it's really bad... it might be better... to stop the pain.
    John: Jesus, you mean to...
    Charles: I mean you can live a week without a scalp. But it ain't a good week. A gut wound, you can live a month, but it's horrible. What they've done to him, might have killed him already, with only hurt to come.
• Metal Slime: Panthers. They only spawn in two areas, are very rare, and are just as strong as cougars, if not more. And since they usually spawn at night, they blend in very well with their environments, which makes getting a perfect panther pelt even more difficult.
• Mexican Standoff: One occurs near the end of the Guarma chapter between Arthur, Dutch, Fussar, and Fussar's henchman Levi. Arthur has his lone pistol pointed at Fussar, Dutch has his guns pointed at both Fussar and Levi, Fussar is pointing at Dutch, and Levi is pointing at Arthur. In order to solve it, you need to kick a gun to the wounded ship captain on the floor, who will shoot Levi as you shoot at Fussar, who escapes.
• Minus World:
  • The areas out-of-bounds. Unaccessible areas near the borders look like they could be part of the game's map, but the further you go, the more foliage and texture details start to disappear, until textures go very-low res and stop having hitboxes. Animal, horse and human AI stop working outside the map, and quick traversing requires usage of cheat codes. Camping also stops working in these areas.
  • Mexico is otherwise like the other out-of-bounds areas, but seems to get more detailed in game updates.
• Mirror Character:
  • One of the available bounties has a ton of similarities to John Marston. This guy, Mark Johnson, is a former outlaw who abandoned his life of crime, bought some land in the middle of nowhere, and wanted to start fresh with his wife and son.
  • One of the debtor missions in Chapter 6 is for a man named Arthur Londonderry who's died by the time you can get to him. His boss tells you to go find his wife. When Arthur goes to his house, he finds Mrs. Londonderry and their young son. Arthur takes pity on them and even gives them money. A woman left with a boy to raise on her who Arthur helps financially mirrors both Abigail and Jack's situation early on as well as Arthur's baby-mama Eliza and son Isaac who died. Arthur sent them money but wasn't involved in the day-to-day due to his career.
• Misplaced Wildlife: The game generally does a very good job in filling its environments with fitting animals, but still makes some blunders:
  • Every coyote in the game is marked as a California Valley coyote - which are, as the name suggests, native to California, Baja, and surrounding areas - even in states such as Lemoyne where they would likely be of the southeastern subspecies.
  • Similarly, every rabbit in the game is marked as a black-tailed jackrabbit, which like the above are primarily native to western states. The eastern cottontail rabbit would likely have been a much more accurate choice, at least for the eastern parts of the map.
  • Little egrets can be found in the swamplands of Lemoyne, despite the fact that they are a largely Eurasian species that only occasionally wanders into the eastern United States.
  • Many of the fish species are highly out of place in many waterways. Muskie are not found anywhere east of the Appalachian Mountains, and yet can be caught high in the Grizzlies, and yellow perch do not live in the Deep South.
• Molotov Cocktail: The Fire Bottles in all but name.
• Molotov Truck: An oil wagon is used to this effect during the mission Pouring Fourth Oil IV to stop and rob a train.
• Money for Nothing:
  • There is big money to be made in hunting, but going for perfect specimens can take hours of research, planning, and execution. Since even poor quality pelts and carcasses still have value, a quicker method is to use "drive-by hunting". Whenever you're traveling between towns, simply shoot any animals you come across. You can store up to 10 "medium sized" pelts on your horse, dozens more small game pelts and feathers in your satchel, two small carcasses on the sides of your horse, and one medium carcass on the back. Simply stop at the butcher or trapper when you get to town, sell whatever you have, and collect your money. Also make sure you hunt the legendary buck (just north of Strawberry) and craft the trinket at the fence. It adds a chance for "Good" quality pelts to upgrade to "Perfect" quality upon skinning.
  • The Wagon Fence at Emerald Ranch becomes available in Chapter 2 and makes for quick, easy money. Emerald Ranch is surrounded by multiple crossroads which spawn wagons all day long. Look for wagons with two horses and a single NPC driver for the best risk/reward ratio. Ride up with your mask on, hop onto the wagon from horseback, toss the driver, find a secluded spot to wait out the investigation, and then flip it at Emerald Ranch for an easy $25-40 a pop. You can rack up hundreds of dollars in a real world hour with minimal risk. If you do get caught, Emerald Station is a short ride away and contains a post office to pay off your bounty.
  • Twice in the story you will get a sudden huge windfall: the first is just before you move to Clemens Point near Rhodes, where you're given a bar of gold worth more than a grand which, if you've kept up with camp and weapon upgrades, will leave you with very little to spend it on until the story opens up new weapons to buy. The second is after the epilogue, when you take Dutch's treasure stash, giving you several thousand dollars. But by that point, there's almost nothing to spend it on unless you're going for 100% completion by buying every variant of clothes, horses and saddles. Naturally this also takes care of John's bank loan for the Beecher's Hope ranch.
• Money Is Experience Points: Money can be used to upgrade weapons at a Gunsmith store.
• Money Is Not Power: Angelo Bronte tries to offer a bribe to any of the van der Linde gang that will kill Dutch and set him free. He's actually surprised when none of them take the offer. It never occurred to him that his immense wealth and web of corrupt officials would be useless against men who a) value loyalty more than money and b) have already wiped out the gangsters guarding him. He still goes out defiant, but he's proof that when your only real power is your checkbook, you better hope you get to use it on people who care about cashing checks.
• Money Sink:
  • Buying horses, with the very best breeds costing upwards of $1000. For significantly less money, you can try to find them in the wild and tame them.
  • The Gambler Challenges, many of which aren't simply about winning, but winning under very specific circumstances. You can burn through quite a bit of money trying to, for instance, win a hand of Blackjack while hitting three times. Nintendo Hard doesn't even come close to describing it.
• Money Spider: The Organ Drops version is in full effect. From a single animal, you can get a carcass, pelt, and possibly accessory items like antlers, teeth, claws, etc. All can be sold for profit.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The timing of some of the Stranger missions can cause this. For example, at the end of Chapter 3 Sean is killed, Jack is kidnapped, and the gang is forced to relocate after once again being found by federal agents. Chapter 4 picks up in Saint Denis, where you can find numerous bizarre Stranger missions right away, such as those of Charles Chatenay which revolve around nude drawings, adultery being Played for Laughs, and a Disguised in Drag segment.
  • After months of hard work at building a ranch at Beecher's Hope, John, Charles and Uncle celebrate by drinking and play around in a drunken state, similar to Arthur and Lenny at the beginning of the game. After a night of hangover, John and Charles wake up to find that Uncle had been kidnapped by the murderous Skinner Brothers and when they found him, he is nearly cooked alive.
• Moody Mount: Horses at low levels of bonding are prone to bucking you off if you push them too hard or take them into dangerous situations or terrain. They can also kick you if you startle them. Fully bonded horses downplay this significantly, being much less likely to buck you off even in the most extreme of circumstances.
• Mooks: Rival gang members take up this role for most of the game. They tend to spawn in groups and aren't particularly challenging to take down.
• More Predators Than Prey: Averted. The player will almost always see deer or other large herbivores like pronghorn or mountain sheep every time they leave camp. Wild turkeys are everywhere and rabbits are so common that an early challenge to kill five while on horseback(either by shooting them or running them over with your horse) is very difficult not to complete. Coyotes and foxes are also common, although they're not dangerous to the player. Bears and wolves are much less common, and cougars are rather frustratingly rare, considering how many need to be killed to reach 100% Completion. The only large predator that can be consistently and easily found is alligators.
• The Most Wanted: Dutch spends much of this game building the list of crimes that make him the most wanted man in America by the events of I. At one point, every other member of the gang is offered clemency if they allow the Pinkertons to take Dutch into custody. (To a man, and even some of the women, they go for their guns to defend him instead.) That is how badly the feds want to bring him in.
• Mountain Man: The Trapper. Other than his permanent stall in Saint Denis, he's found in wilderness camps where he'll buy pelts/hides and craft them into clothing or other equipment. He's the only one who will buy legendary pelts and can craft them into unique items.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Played straight for random bandit/raider encounters on the road. Demanding money from a veteran outlaw like Arthur/John is a bad idea...
  • Zig-Zagged during one particular random encounter in Saint Denis. A man will lure you into an alley with promises of discounted guns and ammo, only for another to knock you out and steal half of your money. You wake up a short while later a decent walk away from the alley, but if you go back to the alley they’ll still be there and you can kill them and take back your money, but if you don’t go back they’ll escape with the money.
• Multiple-Choice Past: The Strange Man in the first Redemption heavily implied that John was shot and left to die during a ferry robbery. Here it's changed to be an army train robbery, but he did get injured during the ferry job gone wrong in Blackwater just before the game's events.
• Multiple Endings: A Downplayed example in that certain events happen regardless (Arthur dies, the gang breaks up, the Marston family escapes), but exactly how they play out changes based on a number of factors including your Honor level, if and how you've completed certain side missions, and choices made during the final chapter of the game. The game continues into the epilogue after, but it is the end of Arthur's story.
• Mundane Utility: While exploding bullets may seem like overkill in battles and aren't useful in hunting, they allow you to blast safes (such as those found in trains) open with a single bullet, so you can save your dynamite for crowd control.
• Mutual Kill: In the northern part of West Elizabeth, you can find a mauled body underneath a bear carcass that has the unique Antler Knife sticking from it. Clearly, the poor victim died of their wounds, but not before taking the bear with them.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the first trailer and towards the end of "The Bridge to Nowhere" in Chapter 6, Arthur says “Listen to me. When the time comes... you gotta run and don't look back. This is over.” This is a pretty accurate description of John's final words & thoughts in the ending of I.
  • Spending time close to the San Louis River causes the game to occasionally play brief segments of the original game's Mexico BGM.
  • One of the "Greet" options when talking to Javier indicates Arthur asking him if he ever misses home (to which Javier says yes) before stating, "Must be hard, being so far away," a reference to the song "Far Away" by Jose Gonzalez, which plays while John is heading for Mexico in I.
  • Javier also mentions the Chupacabra in one random discussion, and explains that Mexican parents used to mention it to their children to Scare 'Em Straight. One ambient challenge in Undead Nightmare required the player to find and kill a Chupacabra, which could only spawn in certain spots in Mexico.
  • Baylock, Micah's horse, is identical to the Dark Horse, a low-honor reward in the previous game.
  • During the Saint Denis Bank Robbery, John wears an outfit so similar to the "Elegant Suit" from the last game that it's unlikely to be a coincidence. Some of the outfits from Blackwater and Tumbleweed can also be used to create a rough version of the outfit.
  • Like Jack in the previous game, Arthur wears a beige jacket as part of his default outfit. It's not the same jacket, but the implication is that Jack's decision to wear the coat is out of respect for Arthur.

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• Narrative Filigree: There are countless Worldbuilding details in the game that have nothing to do with the plot or any side-missions. Notes, letters, books, and even unique locations exist simply to flesh out the world.
• Nature Tinkling: In A Quiet Time, when a drunk Arthur wakes up outside of the saloon after a Smash to Black from the supposed Bar Brawl-turned line-dancing, he looks around to find no one in sight, then reaches into his pants for his... manhood (which he cleverly manages to hide with both hands grabbing it) before emptying his bladder. And yes, that's the sight of his tinkling on the grass! While in first-person perspective! Which is kinda weird... and a little squicky.
  • Also, the guys in camp will regularly go off somewhere a little more private and take a whiz on trees.
• Neglected Rez: The Wapiti Indian Reservation is a Wretched Hive by design, with the U.S. government sticking the tribe on land they cannot farm, cut off from decent hunting territory, and no way to find gainful employment. And now they'll be moved to an even worse place because oil has been discovered under it. More than that, Colonel Favours, the local army commander is hideously abusing the Wapiti, tacitly ordering assault, rape, arson, murder and withholding medicine from the sick, all to provoke the tribe into a rebellion he can crush so he can look good. To further add to their troubles, Dutch goads them into fighting a hopeless war against the U.S. Army as an elaborate smokescreen for the gang's last big score. It is the final straw that breaks the camel's back for John, Arthur, and Charles, who more or less lose all faith in him afterwards.
• Nemean Skinning: Several of the Trapper outfits qualify. A prime example is the outfit made from the Legendary Grizzly Bear, which includes using its open-mouthed head as a hat/hood.
• Never Learned to Read: Several members of the van der Linde gang. Given the setting during a time when literacy rates were quite low, this is Justified. Notable examples include both Arthur and John, who didn't learn to read until they were taken in by the gang. Arthur develops this skill rather nicely, as evidence by his journal. John... less so. (Which is a Call-Back to I where John and Abigail rely on Jack to read more complex documents for them.)
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: There are plenty of alligators in the Bayou Nwa. If they happen to get you, especially in the water, you’re dead.
  • The best example of this is in the mission Country Pursuits, where Dutch, Arthur, and their guide Thomas travel to an alligator invested swamp looking for the latter's partner Jules. It goes From Bad to Worse when all four of them are terrorized by a giant albino Bullgator,.. oh did we mention that the thing is unkillable? Have fun.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A newspaper article in the epilogue mentions that Guarma's citizens wound up worse off after the gang killed Fussar. It turns out that Fussar at least let the inhabitants grow their own food, whereas the bankers who took over decided to use every single bit of arable farmland on the island to grow sugar cane. That means that all of the island's food must be imported, which makes the food more expensive and causes even more suffering.
• No Bulk Discounts: Played straight. Prices remain the same whether you're buying one or one-hundred of a given item.
• No Communities Were Harmed:
  • Saint Denis is quite obviously based on New Orleans, from its bayou location, to its French colonial roots and influences, to the porcelain pavers labeling its streets, to its central square featuring a statue of a famous general on horseback. (“Quincy Harris” stands in for Andrew Jackson in the latter case.)
  • As for states, New Austin and West Elizabeth are still Texas and Colorado respectively, while Ambarino is the Rocky Mountains, Lemoyne is Louisiana, and New Hanover is South Dakota.
• No-Gear Level: The first half of the Guarma chapter is a downplayed example. You only have a relatively small area of the map to traverse in, limited weapons and supplies because your horse and the gang camp are not available and almost nothing to do outside of the main missions and hunting a few exotic animals.
• No Hero Discount: Subverted. At high Honor, stores will give you a discount up to 50%.
• Noisy Nature: Very much so. In many cases, your first indication that a particular type of animal is nearby are the sounds they make. Boars, coyotes, and many species of birds including turkeys are a few particularly notable offenders.
• Nominal Importance: The vast majority of NPCs in the game are simply referred to as "Stranger", with a number following it if there is more than one in a given scene (ie. Stranger 1, Stranger 2). Members of groups or other gangs are similarly but more specifically named, like "Gray 1", "O'Driscoll 3", "Raider 8", etc.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: Of all the arc villains, only Sheriff Gray, Colonel Favours and Alberto Fussar are killed by Arthur. Colm O'Driscoll ends up hanged in Saint Denis by the authorities, Leviticus Cornwall is shot by Dutch, Dutch drowns Angelo Bronte and feeds him to an alligator, Catherine Braithwaite commits suicide, Levi is shot by the ship's captain, and Andrew Milton ends up being shot by Abigail. Even Micah, who is softened up by Dutch, ends up being finished off by John.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • Most missions have plausible reasons for failure such as dying, letting a target escape, letting someone you are supposed to protect die, etc. Others can be failed for far less sensible reasons, such as being in the middle of a massive shootout only to have the "Mission Failed" screen appear because one of your stray shots struck a passer-by and now you have a bounty.
  • In the epilogue, John can go back to the mountain where Arthur found the Chelonians. A new group of Chelonians with a new master have set up shop there in the interim. When the player arrives, the Chelonians all jump off the mountain screaming 'Chelonia!', and if John chooses to follow them he yells the same unique chant as he plummets to his death.
• Noodle Incident:
  • What exactly happened on the Blackwater ferry is never made clear but it’s brought up a lot and is essentially the noose around the gang’s neck. Arthur wasn’t actually there which is why it’s so vague but some of the planning phase of it is in his journal. He and Hosea were working on a real estate scam. They were going to pull the scam some time after the ferry robbery. Then they would head to New Austin and regroup with the rest of the gang. What happens after that is murky. Somewhere along the way Dutch got goaded into killing a girl by Micah and then all hell broke loose. Law enforcement surrounded the boat and a bloody gunfight ensued. Jenny, Davey, Mac, and John got shot. Jenny died on the scene, Davey and Mac got away but Mac was killed by Milton and Davey succumbed to his wounds after reuniting with the gang. John also got away mostly unscathed, but went missing while doing recon for the gang's caravan. Sean was captured by bounty hunters but how exactly is unclear as well. There’s also some hints that the whole thing was a setup all along, with Micah the most likely candidate for the traitor.
  • The reasoning behind the man who accosts Tilly in Valentine is never answered. He knows her full name and apparently whatever passed between them apparently angered him enough to risk openly confronting her in a crowded town. When asked, Tilly promises to tell Arthur the full story later but never gets around to it. It is implied to have something to do with the fact that Tilly killed a man in her previous gang who "had it coming", but this is never confirmed or clarified either.
  • When Tilly jokingly asks if Dutch would be mad if she killed Miss Grimshaw, Arthur replies that Dutch is generally against murder in the camp; but "there was that one time. He was a traitor." We never learn anything else about this incident where a traitor was killed in camp.
• No Sneak Attacks: A possible random encounter along roads in territories controlled by rival gangs are ambushes. Said ambushes would be considerably more effective if the gang members didn't feel the need to announce themselves and their intention to kill you before they actually start shooting, giving you valuable time to grab your weapons to fight back.
• Nostalgia Level: If you played the first game, you will probably find the returning areas of Blackwater and New Austin this. There are naturally some differences as this game takes place years before the first, but most of the map is relatively unchanged. For some bonus points, since by the time you unlock them you'll be playing as John, you are exploring a Nostalgia level with a nostalgia protagonist. You used to be able to glitch there as Arthur in Chapter 4 but it was patched over in the March 2019 update.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: If you don't bother eating, your character will become "underweight", which results in Maximum HP Reduction. If you eat excessively, it is possible to Invert the trope by becoming overweight. Your maximum health will increase at the cost of some stamina. In the story, once Arthur contracts tuberculosis, it will become very difficult to even maintain an average weight. In the terminal stages, it becomes impossible for Arthur to keep any weight on at all, and he becomes painfully thin and frail looking.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Once the gang moves to Beaver Hollow, you can no longer donate money or restock the camp's supplies, since someone (heavily implied to be Micah) smashes the donation box and the ledger disappears. And after Arthur and Sadie bust John out of prison, you will have permanent dead or alive bounties in Roanoke Ridge and half of Lemoyne. You can still roam around those areas freely, but Pinkertons agents will occasionally spawn on major roads to hunt you down and lawmen will no longer give you a chance to surrender if you commit any crimes. Finally, after the mission where Arthur and John blow up Bacchus Bridge, trains stop running until after the Time Skip.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Chapter 4 mission Country Pursuits has you wading around in a swamp at night looking for a missing person. You, of course, have to split off from your group to search a greater area. If you've spent any significant time in the swamps before the mission, you'll know how frequent gators spawn and how quickly they can strike...
• Notice This: Items which can be picked up have a faint flash and glint to get your attention. Unique weapons which can be picked up appear with a gold symbol on the mini-map when you are near.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: While in Guarma, the gang makes it clear that they are only assisting Hercule against Fussar in exchange for passage back to the US. That said, they do seem to take some delight in actually killing Fussar.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Kieran mentions in the Chapter 2 mission Paying A Social Call that he doesn't see much of a difference between the van der Linde gang and the O'Driscolls and later the way he describes Colm and the influence he has over his gang is not unlike the sway Dutch has over his own people. John scoffs at the comparison, saying the O'Driscolls are just a bunch of criminals while Dutch and the gang have a philosophy are more about living free outside of society. By the Epilogue its clear John has come around to Kieran's way of thinking; that Dutch is and always was just as much of a thug and a monster as Colm. And given Dutch's actions as the gang slowly deteriorated it's hard to argue.
  • Micah believes this of himself and Arthur, even stating as such during their robbery of a stagecoach in An American Pastoral Scene after Arthur breaks him out of Strawberry in Blessed Are The Meek?. He says Dutch knows he (Micah) is a "feller who get things done", same as Arthur. Furthermore, he refuses to believe Arthur is any morally better than him. Depending on your honor level, he can either be dead wrong or make a decent point. Many of Arthur’s dishonorable actions, such as antagonizing his allies, harming innocent people, and prioritizing his own gain, will result in him acting eerily similar to how Micah normally does. Arthur will even lament in one optional conversation with Mary-Beth that he’s best at causing mayhem, and that it makes him no better than Micah.
• Not The Illness That Killed Them: If Arthur has low Honor at the end of Chapter 6, Micah will kill him by either stabbing him to death (if the player goes back for the money) or shooting him in the head (if the player chooses to cover John's escape).
• Not What It Looks Like: When Arthur finds a young man chained up in a basement dressed in a sailor suit, his initial reaction makes it clear that he assumes there is a sexual component to the situation. However, it turns out to be slightly less sinister as it's revealed that the young man is a Replacement Goldfish for the shop owner's own son, who died in an accident.
• NPC Random Encounter Immunity: Thoroughly averted. Strangers in the wild can be attacked by hostile wildlife and rival gangs.
• N-Word Privileges: Despite the presence of racists such as eugenics supporter Norris Forsythe, the neo-Confederate Lemoyne Raiders, and even the Ku Klux Klan, the black Lenny Summers is the only character in the entire game that uses the word "nigger", the rest instead using more uncommon slurs like "darkie".

O

• Occupiers Out of Our Country: The shtick of the Lemoyne Raiders in targeting "Federals" and anyone they consider to be "Federals". In practice, they're no better than any of the other outlaw groups.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In the Chapter 3 mission Blessed Are The Peacemakers, after Arthur is knocked out, captured, and tortured by he O'Driscolls, he escapes (badly wounded) to his horse. After getting out of the immediate area, Arthur passes out and is carried, slumped over, by his horse all the way back to the gang's camp. You only see a few cut-scene flashes during the trip. As if you needed more reasons to love your horse...
• Offscreen Teleportation:
  • Averted with horses with one exception. There is now a max distance from which your horse can hear you, and it doesn't just appear near you when whistling. However, you can teleport them to any stable or horse station no matter the distance.
  • Trains may do this; Rockstar stated before release that trains move on a schedule, and this seems to be true as trains don't just conveniently appear near you like in say, Grand Theft Auto V; chances are that if you want to board a train without fast traveling, you'll be waiting for a good while for one to appear. However, you may occasionally spot several trains going nearby in quick succession and as they are not marked on the map this time, some subtle teleportation may be happening.
• Oh, Crap!: Hearing the howl of a pack of wolves or the roar of a grizzly bear/cougar/panther when in the wilderness can cause this reaction. Hearing it means you may only have a second or two to lock onto and kill the onrushing predator. In the case of a cougar or panther, they are well camouflaged ambush predators whose pounce is capable of an insta-kill.
• Old Save Bonus:
  • Finding the double-action revolver in GTA Online and getting 50 headshots with it will unlock it early for RDR II. While you can find one out in the field for free anyway, doing the GTA Online challenge is the only way to access the gold metal plating and pearl handle customization parts.
  • The stone axe, however, seems to only be unlocked if you find it in GTA Online and getting 25 kills with it. There is a catch for the Stone Hatchet, as it is found in an Indian burial ground near a lake near Strawberry whereas the revolver is unlocked on the fly.
• One Head Taller: John is still a couple inches taller than Abigail even if the height difference is very much lesser than in I (Abigail was made a lot taller between the games).
• One-Hit Kill: Any headshot on a human foe will kill them, even with a piddly varmint rifle. On the flip side, the pounce attack of cougars and panthers will result in one of these on you. The lion also does this if you fail to kill it before it attacks.
• One Last Job: Deconstructed, profoundly so. Dutch swears up and down throughout the story that the latest big heist he's planned, whatever it may be, will be enough of a score for the Van der Linde gang to finally hang up their guns, but their sheer scale means that something is always bound to go wrong and bring down heat, especially when the law is already doggedly searching for them. Instead of ever doing the reasonable thing and putting his ambitions in check, Dutch's plans for retirement just get equally unrealistic (moving back west, then getting out of the country, then sailing to Tahiti or Australia), and the gang's disasters mount as he slips further into violent derangement. By the end, it's left ambiguous if he was just lying and manipulating everyone so that he could continue his outlaw life, or if he was genuinely deluded enough to believe the "big score" could ever happen after Blackwater.
  Dutch: Just one more train —
  Arthur: [Exasperated] And there's always a goddamn train!
• One-Man Army:
  • Arthur Morgan. Even if you try to be as non-violent as possible, you'll still likely end up killing more people than every single real-life Wild West gunslinger combined. Your enemies eventually start to notice this as well, and typically come with overwhelming numbers and/or set traps to try to take you down.
  • John Marston, just like in the first game. When you take over as John in the epilogue, he has all of Arthur's abilities and equipment.
• One Size Fits All:
  • Depending on how much you eat in-game, you can change pretty drastically in size from quite skinny at "underweight" to quite rotund at "overweight". Clothing and outfits you buy will fit you no matter how much weight you gain or lose after buying them, however.
  • Despite their different builds, all clothing fits both John and Arthur.
• One-Steve Limit: Noticeably averted.
  • There's gang member Mary-Beth Gaskill and Arthur's former love interest Mary Linton.
  • Gang member Charles Smith and stranger mission character Charles Châtenay.
  • Farmer and debtor Thomas Downes, Thomas the bayou boatman, Tommy the Valentine drunk and Pronghorn Ranch foreman Tom Dickens.
  • Another Arthur Londonderry who serves as a debt collection target. Only in the last example are any in-universe observations made on the shared names.
  • Also there's Hamish, a worker at Caliga Hall, and Hamish Sinclair from the side-story missions.
• Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Inverted: Arthur dies, and while John ends the game settling down with his family, we all know it's not gonna last. Meanwhile, while some gang members like Strauss and (maybe) Karen come to bad endings, the others like Pearson and Mary-Beth are able to move on and lead successful lives.
• Opening the Sandbox: Begins happening at the start of Chapter 2. However, not everything opens up at once. You'll need to play through some of the main missions in order to open up things like the stables, fences, scoped rifle, offhand holster, and fishing rod. A few things, like the horse fence, don't open up until Chapter 3. Completing the story really opens up the sandbox — opening 2/3 of the areas from Red Dead Redemption (Southern West Elizabeth and New Austin), adding around half of the new map's worth of new areas.
• Optional Stealth: Present in many missions, where only a select few actually force you to be stealthy. In the rest, you can go in guns blazing while still being able to complete the mission. At worst, this approach just makes the mission a little harder.
• Organ Drops: In addition to pelts, animals will also drop feathers, teeth, tusks, claws, antlers, horns, etc. as applicable depending on the species, with Wolf Hearts and Scent Glands being literal organs. Some can be used in crafting, and all can be sold for profit.
• Outlaw: Plenty, as one would expect in a western. Technically the entire van der Linde gang is comprised of outlaws after the Blackwater fiasco. They play up the part by camping in secluded, easily-defensible areas outside of towns.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Arthur had a son named Isaac who died as a victim of a robbery at some unspecified point before the game. He's only ever brought up three times in the game, once if you hang around fishing with Jack long enough, once to Rains Fall (where he is interrupted by Rains Fall) and once to Sister Calderon (if you helped her in Chapter 5) in a later mission, so the details are vague.
  • Rains Fall, the chief of the Wapiti tribe, lost his older son in the fight between the tribe and the Army, and his younger son meets the same fate during the main story.
• Out of Focus: West Elizabeth, New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso.
  • The former only has a handful of story missions, and half of it is under lockdown for most of the story. However, this is eventually subverted as most of the epilogue takes place in it.
  • There is exactly one story mission that (partially) takes place in New Austin, and like WE, it's under lockdown for most of the game. However, there is a decent amount of content to explore once it's open.
  • Nuevo Paraiso and Mexico as a whole plays no role in the story whatsoever aside from occasional mentions by the characters, and as such the place is not even accessible without exploits.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic:
  • The lasso is introduced when you have to use it to capture an escaped horse. Most players would be forgiven for never giving it second thought otherwise. However, it can be used in several other situations to great effect. First, it can be used to hunt medium sized animals, such as whitetail deer, while preserving the quality of their pelt and carcass. Ride up to your quarry, lasso your target, hop off your horse, walk up to it while still holding the lasso, and then hit the prompt to enter the "kill" animation with your knife. Another use when hunting is to drag un-skinned carcasses. Normally, you can only have one "large game" pelt on the back of your horse. Players figured out that you can get two large pelts if you store one on your horse, and then drag the un-skinned carcass of another back to town/camp. Sell/turn-in your first pelt, then skin the animal for the second. The lasso can also be used in a number of ways while committing crimes to make them easier and quieter. For example, you can lasso strangers and drag them into the wilderness before robbing them, making it less likely that you'll get caught.
  • Want to more easily fill up your compendium? Shoot large game with poisoned arrows. They'll flee and then lay dying for a little, allowing you to "study" them. This also reduces the risk of studying predators like the cougar or panther.

P

• Pale Females, Dark Males: Inverted by Whitetail Deer. Does have darker and fuller pelage while bucks have lighter, brighter, and more contrasted fur.
• Palette Swap: Mostly averted with John in the epilogue, as he has some new animations and his build is different from Arthur's, but his hair is just Arthur's hair dyed black. (And it naturally parts left instead of Arthur's right) That said, if grown long enough, it somewhat resembles his normal hair. His beard seems to zig-zag this, as John's level 1 & 2 beards differ from Arthur's^note Arthur's level 1 and 2 facial hair are clean shaven and stubble respectively, while John's first 2 levels are almost identical Permastubble , but from length 3 onward it seems to become identical to his. Oddly enough, pre-release screenshots and most pause menu images of 1907 John have his usual hair, implying it was a late change. John also uses Arthur's vomiting sounds if he tries to eat a poisonous herb.
• Papa Wolf:
  • John Marston, even more so than the first game. When news of Jack getting kidnapped reaches him, Marston can barely control himself. Dutch and Hosea have to calm him down repeatedly to prevent him from doing anything stupid. This is what finally push his Character Development and he started to become a better father and husband.
  • Arthur himself is this for Jack as he is the one who looks out for the boy and his mother before John gets his act together. He is also quick to defend Jack from the pinkertons and tells Micah off when he bothers the boy.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: When committing crimes, you can pull a bandanna over your face or wear a purchasable mask. It will be enough to fool civilians as long as you flee the red-highlighted area around the crime scene quickly enough, but any lawmen who see you will still be able to identify you through the mask and you'll receive a bounty.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Arthur's biological parents died when he was fairly young and, after some time as a Street Urchin, was taken in by Dutch and Hosea who serve as father figures for him. He mentions in his journal that while he loves Dutch, Hosea is really more the person he sees as his father. As the game goes along, Hosea dies and Dutch suffers Sanity Slippage, causing Arthur to grow disillusioned with Dutch.
  • John similarly saw them as father figures after he was orphaned and they took him in. John becomes one of the first gang members to grow openly disillusioned with Dutch, which gets worse after Hosea dies. From that point, John looks more to Arthur as a mentor figure, something of a cross between a father and an older brother (Arthur being about 10 years older than John).
• Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: If Arthur has low honor near the end of the game, a vicious thunderstorm will stir up as he fights and is subsequently killed by Micah.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: You suffer no loss to your Honor when killing and looting other outlaws. Additionally, some missions even reward you with an increase in honor if you go out of your way to harm/kill "evil" individuals as part of the mission. One prominent example is killing the former slave catcher in Scarlett Meadows. You can kill the Eugenics supporter in Saint Denis in broad daylight with absolutely no consequences, even if you put him on the back of your horse so you can finish him off in a more creative way in a different location (such as feeding him to an alligator or letting him get run over by a train). Similarly, any murder of Ku Klux Klan members is met with a boost in honor.
• The Peeping Tom: There's a random encounter in Strawberry at night where two men are looking at something through a window. When Arthur walks up, they run off and he looks through the window. It's a woman in her corset and stockings getting dressed, she shoots a shotgun at him and he runs off saying that he deserved that.
• Pelts of the Barbarian: A few of the Trapper outfits are in this vein. If you wear the viking helmet and wield an axe/hatchet as a weapon, you can really drive the trope home.
• Percussive Pickpocket: Arthur can get pickpocketed while walking into certain establishments, and the perpetrator will make off with a large sum of his money unless they're chased down and caught.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • The wiki has a fairly complete list of everything that can be missed. However, it also doesn't hide spoilers and given how there's no official list some things may be missing.
  • Mostly averted with regards to crafting and the missions. In the epilogue, you can obtain every satchel you didn't craft as Arthur by purchasing them from the black market, and progress in each stranger mission is either retained or reset.^note Since the Time Skip is a whopping 8 years, some stranger missions you started but didn't finish are simply reset to avoid the obvious problem of people waiting for almost a decade for Arthur to do their stuff for them. However, the camp upgrades become unavailable after the epilogue starts. A few non-stranger side missions, such as the final Braithwaite mission, can be replayed in the mission replay menu even if you didn't play them before Arthur kicks the bucket.
  • If you want to fill the animal section of the Compendium, there are a few animals that you can only find on Guarma^*Specifically, three different parrots, a red-footed booby, and four kinds of snake. The green iguana and Cuban land crab are not examples, despite what the in-game compendium says. They can be found on an island on the Flat Iron Lake, which you can never come back to once you leave. These animals are not required for any achievements.
  • Want to keep Hamish's horse, Buell, after completing his missions? Wait to finish the fourth and final of them during the Epilogue when you play as John Marston. Otherwise, if you get Buell as Arthur, you'll lose the horse for good even if you stable him.
  • Some unique hats only appear in missions, and the unique "Rare Rolling Block rifle" only appears in a single mission. Speaking about hats, the white gambler hat John wears for most of the game can only be acquired in the first half of the epilogue by first having someone else punch it off and picking it back from the ground afterwards.
  • The Owl Feather Trinket is a reward you get by beating an optional late-game mission without killing anyone, and slows down all core drain by 15%. Every other trinket and talisman avoids this, as the required items to craft them that only spawn once cannot be sold.
  • While not the only missable stranger mission, The Mercies of Knowledge disappears once Arthur dies. This one is odd, since nothing ever indicates it's an Arthur only mission - even the save file description follows the rule of not mentioning either protagonist by name suggesting John should be able to do it^note every other protagonist-exclusive quest mentions them on the description... yet if mods are used, John has motion capture and dialogue for the scene^AdmittedlyIt might bet to stay historically accurate, as the mission in question involves a scientist demonstrating a prototype electric chair, which wouldn't have been as innovative in 1907 as it would have been in 1899.
• Persuasion Minigame: Interrogations and individual robberies employ a simple version of this. You are given several options including "Theaten", "Beat", and "Aim Weapon". Certain NPCs are more likely to cooperate with certain options. For a particularly stubborn target, you can fire your gun into the air to show you mean business though this is more likely to attract unwanted attention.
• Photo Mode: Lets you add blur, filters, frames, and stickers to screenshots.
• Pinkerton Detective: One of the antagonist groups in the game. Agents Milton and Ross are explicitly identified as such.
• Playable Epilogue: The game has a fairly lengthy one (divided into two parts) following John Marston about 8 years after Arthur's death.
• Player Headquarters: The gang's camp serves as one throughout the main mission. You can resupply (with camp upgrades adding to what you can acquire), rest in your cot/bed, get free meals, shave, change outfits beyond what is kept on your horse, and pick up companion side missions from your fellow gang members.
• Playing Both Sides: Dutch's gang attempts to manipulate the two major houses of Scarlett Meadows, the Grays and the Braithwaites, into focusing on each other by carrying attacks on their properties on each other's behalf, intending to earn money and glean a bit of their wealth in the process. They both see through this plan easily as Dutch's gang wasn't exactly subtle in offering help and their coming coincided with more attacks.
• Playing Drunk: During a bank robbery, the player can choose to have Karen act drunk to distract the guards.
• Playing Possum:
  • Opossums are an animal found in the game and will have this reaction if you get close. You can attempt to pick it up or skin it in this state, but it will spring back to life if you do.
  • Bill at one point plays a passed-out drunk to help Arthur steal a dynamite cart for Dutch.
• Plunger Detonator: The gang uses these at several different points in the story, and Arthur is tasked with hooking them up to the explosives each time. Notably, when they first try to use one to blow up the tracks beneath a train they intend to rob in Who The Hell Is Leviticus Cornwall?, the explosives fail to go off altogether.
• Point of No Return:
  • Starting Banking, The Old American Art will subsequently start the Guarma section of the game, which lasts for a few hours. Furthermore, after you return from Guarma, Arthur will no longer appear healthy and will permanently have a pale/severely underweight appearance on top of having a decreased core effect until Chapter 6 is completed when he dies. Additionally, you will no longer be able to use the ledger and the earning box as the gang is now caught in a severe case of infighting after the disastrous robbery.
  • Toward the end of Chapter 6, you find that Dutch's camp is a little less crowded due to most gang members leaving out of fear (Trelawny, Pearson, Mary-Beth, Karen and Swanson), so talking to Dutch can lock you into Our Best Selves, which will then segue into the aptly-titled Red Dead Redemption upon completion. These are also the last two story missions you'll be able to play as Arthur, so the game warns you that it will be your last chance to go for the optional Honor missions and build up your Honor meter to maximum if you want the Golden Ending (and get a few more items while you're at it). Once the game is completed, you will head into the Playable Epilogue as John, which means that you can return to any place outside of the story missions, allowing you to complete many things you missed as Arthur.
• Police Are Useless:
  • In the story, it is very rare to see competent local law enforcement. Most towns have a sheriff and maybe a deputy or two, who don't do much besides sit in their office and comment on any bounties you bring in.
  • Averted on big missions, such as bank heists, where you may have to contend with dozens of heavily armed lawmen showing up. In several cases, gunning them all down isn't possible and the mission changes into getting away safely.
  • In free play outside of missions, law enforcement goes back to being useless. While they can recognize you even through you bandana/mask, which is a step up from common townsfolk, they are quite easy to escape. Once you lose your Wanted level, you can just stroll right back into town and greet some of the policemen who were just chasing you.
• Politically Correct History: Downplayed. With the exception of Micah and Bill, the gang is fairly progressive, having no problem with 4 non-white members and quickly accepting Sadie as someone who is more use on the field than in the camp. They don't seem to have a problem with Lenny (who is black) having a crush on Jenny (who was white). Arthur even believes women should be able to vote, if only out of a belief that voting is pointless and idiotic, and anyone who wants to waste their time with it should be allowed. However, pretty much everyone finds Sadie's choice of clothing odd for a lady, and many side characters and extras are as racist, sexist and homophobic as you'd expected from the time period, with plenty of racial slurs getting thrown around by more bigoted characters. It's implied that the gang's comparative open-mindedness compared to the rest of the setting is a big part of why its members are so loyal; Charles stops just short of saying it outright in Chapter 1.
• Polluted Wasteland:
  • A very sad, realistic example in Butcher Creek; toxic lead and arsenic runoff from the mines of the Roanoke Fuel Company have been leaking into Elysian Pool, poisoning the water and making the fish there not fit for human consumption (even the Legendary Perch is in terrible shape, with lesions all over its body). The inhabitants have been left sick and feeble, with one resident suffering terrible iodine deficiency and some in advancing states of delirium or dementia, while dogs in the area are going rabid and feral. Worse, because of how easily manipulated the townsfolk are in this state, the Fuel Company manages to escape any liability for their crimes, though the man they hired to pose as a shaman is force-fed runoff and likely killed, and Arthur takes the settlement money.
  • The Heartlands Oil Refinery out by Cornwall Kerosene & Tar, which gets even more hellish once it catches on fire.
• Porn Stash:
  • One random encounter involves a man with a tent in the wilderness. If you check inside the tent, you'll find numerous photos of nude women strung up along with one of Albert Mason's wolf photos for some reason....
  • The Torn Treasure Maps lead you to a chest containing the unique Otis Miller revolver... as well as a bunch of erotic photographs.
• Port Town: Saint Denis has a large and active port. Like its real life counterpart, it sits where a major river enters the ocean.
• Potion-Brewing Mechanic: You can combine raw ingredients you've harvested at any campfire into home-brew versions of Health Tonics and the like.
• Prequel: RDR II was released almost a decade after the original Red Dead Redemption, but is set in 1899, 12 years before the events of the original game. The epilogue takes place 4 years before the event of the first game and shows this even further.
• Practical Taunt: It is possible to use the "Antagonize" dialogue option to incite neutral NPCs into attacking you. This lets you knock them out/kill them in self-defense, avoiding a bounty. However, the system is very unpredictable, so use it at your own risk. If you do it enough in camp, one of the guys will punch you and you'll wake up outside the camp.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Likely the reason why New Austin is explorable in the epilogue, despite John claiming he's not familiar with the area in I. Including it adds more area to the online mode, but if it never opened up during the single-player mode the player reaction would presumably been negative.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The van der Linde gang prides itself on this. They, as a group, tend to only steal from folks "who can afford to share" and won't kill anyone that "doesn't need killing". On an individual level, you can choose to keep playing it straight or avert it by robbing and killing whoever you like.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "This idiot is really startin' to irritate me!" Spoken by Arthur just before shooting a bunch of Agent Milton's men in Fleeting Joy.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Like the previous instalment and unlike the Grand Theft Auto series, the word "fuck" is used very sparingly, both in ambient dialogue and in the story, and it's usually only for a very good reason. Arthur himself rarely says some sort of version of the word "fuck" (he can say it as part of one of the bawdy camp songs, will tell an NPC "Go fuck the deal" if he previously hid the money he stole for them and calls the Murfree Brood "kin-fucking bastards" but never says it otherwise).
    John (post-bear mauling): Fucking monster...
  • A racial slur but still applicable; if you wait too long during Lenny’s "performance" to distract the Lemoyne Raiders during Preaching Forgiveness As He Went, one of them will deliver an extremely venomous "get out of here, you nigger piece of shit!" and the group will proceed to gun Lenny down resulting in an immediate mission fail.
• Pretty Boy:
  • Javier is a young and handsome hispanic that has a soothing singing voice. There's also Sean and Lenny, two of the youngest members (aside Jack) who are really good lookin youths. Even John himself is this, since this is him in his younger days, being 26 year old and all and still has softer facial features.
  • Downplayed with Arthur, while he does get called this by Thomas before they fight, his looks are that more of a Hunk rather than this trope.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Averted. Just like in the first game, scoring a headshot will leave very nasty-looking entry and exit wounds on the target. A headshot with a shotgun at close quarters takes the aversion up to eleven, leaving a decapitated body and the remains of the head raining down in bloody chunks unless your shot is off-center, in which case a small, flap-like section of the head will remain on the corpse.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Unavoidable, since the game focuses on John's former gang. John and Jack are present in the game. When walking around the camp as Arthur, you're free to walk up to John and strike a conversation with him! Turns out to be a more than that by the end, as in the epilogue the player once again ends up taking control of John.
• Private Military Contractors: Leviticus Cornwall has a veritable army of them at his disposal. He sics them on the van der Linde gang twice.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Arthur kills tens of lawmen, soldiers and government agents up until the end of his life. Even rival gang members that he killed may have had family or friends, but this is rarely acknowledged.
• Prospector: A common Stranger encounter near creeks and streams.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: This game seems to be having some snippets of old classic tunes (that weren't even public domain in this game's date and age). For example, snippets of "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin can be heard in one place or another, and toward the end of "A Fisher of Men", most of the aria "Habanera" from Carmen is played from a phonograph in the background. Also, in one theater segment in Saint Denis, there are French dancers performing to the tune of "Infernal Gallop" from Orpheus in the Underworld (1858) by Jacques Offenbach.
• Pyrrhic Victory: John does get his revenge on Micah for all he has done, but as the ending shows, this ultimately leads to Edgar Ross finding out about him setting up the events of Red Dead Redemption which we know we not end well for John or his family.

Q

• Quantity vs. Quality: The van der Linde Gang versus the O'Driscoll boys. The van der Lindes' only number about twenty people at the start of the story... but these are tough-as-nails, seasoned criminals who have rode together for years and would die for each other. Colm O'Driscoll has a huge gang of underlings but all you need to join is be Irish-American, know roughly which way a gun points, and be able to kill innocents without question. Dutch suggests that Colm himself doesn't even know the names of half the boys he rides with at any given time. Their first gunfight which ends with the van der Lindes smashing three times their number of O'Driscoll boys without losing anybody really shows which approach is better.
• Questioning Title?: Several mission titles: Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?, Blessed Are the Meek?, Sodom? Back to Gomorrah, Jim Milton Rides, Again?, and Home of the Gentry?.
• Quick Draw: Several missions have points where you are automatically put you into Dead Eye in such a situation. One prominent example is the conclusion of A Short Walk in a Pretty Town, where Bill has been captured by Sheriff Gray who has a gun to Bill's head. You need to shoot the Sheriff to save Bill, and can then take a few shots at his deputies as well.

R

• Racing Minigame: Several Stranger encounters along roads have them challenge you to horse race to a certain location with a bit of money on the line. You have the option to race against Dutch in the mission American Distillation in Chapter 3 as well.
• Railing Kill: Possible to do to targets along ledges or up on towers.
• Railroading: While the world is indeed wide open and lets you do side missions in almost any order, the missions themselves tend to be extremely linear Point A to Point B to Point C-style, with a few rare exceptions that allow you to do various objectives of the mission in whatever order you want. Additionally, certain items and equipment only become available after a certain point in the main mission.
  • Dilly-dally too long about doing "Money Lending and Other Sins II" in the knowledge that it's the mission where Arthur catches tuberculosis, and the game will lure you back to camp with a letter from Mary Linton for Arthur to read; after being done looking over it, Strauss interrupts and asks Arthur for the final time to collect the Downes family debt. It becomes a mandatory mission from which the player cannot deviate by performing camp interactions.
• Railroad Baron: One of Leviticus Cornwall's industries, along with oil and sugar.
• Random Drop:
  • Unless you obliterate them by using too powerful of a weapon, hunted animals will always drop a pelt/hide and some meat. Certain animals have a chance to drop other body parts such as fat, teeth, tusks, feathers, horns, etc. These are not guaranteed, however, even if the animal should logically drop them. Further, they can drop in different numbers between two otherwise identical members of the same species.
  • Looting dead bodies almost always nets you some cash and ammunition, but there is a random chance of acquiring other items such as jewelry (including belt buckles), food, alcohol, tonics, and tobacco products. A high Honor rating increases the chances of finding these items on dead hostile enemies (such as rival gang members). A low Honor rating increases the chances of finding these items on dead lawmen and civilians.
• Random Encounters: While traveling, you may randomly come across Strangers, many of whom offer missions ranging from very short/quick (giving a sick man a Health Tonic) to ones with multiple stages (finding a wounded man on the road whose wife was kidnapped, locating the kidnapped wife, saving her from her assailants, then recovering money/a valuable item that she stashed).
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Part of the M.O. of the O'Driscolls. Led by an Ax-Crazy Smug Snake who believes in Quantity Over Quality, they can be encountered ambushing stage coaches and robbing homesteads, often leaving none alive. In Chapter 1, they do this to the Adler homestead, killing Sadie's husband and imprisoning her in the basement (with implications of rape mentioned later). The "burn" part in this case is Micah's fault, however.
• Rare Candy: Ginseng Elixir, Aged Pirate Rum, and Valerian Root are rare consumables that permanently increase your Health, Stamina, and Dead Eye meters, respectively, when taken.
• Rat Stomp: A Stranger mission in Saint Denis has you clearing his bar of a rat infestation. If you don't want to waste ammo, you can do this to kill the rats (unless one of them is on the counter).
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Many players are surprised to see that, compared to most Wild West media, there are plenty of black, Asian, Mexican, and other Ambiguously Brown NPCs present in the game world. As noted on the Wild West page under Race Lift, these races made up a far greater percentage of "cowboy" types in real life than is depicted in most media.
• Real Men Get Shot: Toward the end of Chapter 3, Arthur gets knocked out and captured by the O'Driscolls. He tries to escape, but gets shot in the left shoulder and captured again. After being tied up and tortured, he escapes again and deals with the (now hours old) gunshot wound by cauterizing it with black powder. After recuperating for several weeks at camp, he's back in action good-as-new.
• Rearing Horse: Able to be performed on command with a horse bonded to level 2.
• Reckless Gun Usage: There are two random events where a guy is showing off his new gun by drawing and pointing it at a friend. The friend is understandably concerned and tries to get the guy to stop. It either ends with the guy shooting himself in the foot when holstering the gun, or killing his friend and running away before the law shows up.
• Reclining Venus: The French painter and Gadfly Charles Chatenay produces a full exhibition of reclining nudes, male and female, which scandalizes his 19^th-century southern American audience. A melee breaks out when they start recognizing their own relatives in the paintings.
  Man: That's my momma! As nude as the day she was born!
  Woman: Stop looking at my husband's buttocks!
  Man: Stop looking at my momma!
• Recruiters Always Lie: Pearson is a former Navy cook and will make complaints to this effect in his camp dialogue. Bill Williamson can also be heard grousing about his time in the military on occasion.
• Redemption in the Rain: Inverted. If Arthur has low honor at the end of the game, a thunderstorm will occur during the events of the final mission, regardless of which ending you chose. Whether you choose to go with John or go back for the money, it ends with Arthur being murdered by Micah in cold blood, his corpse being left to rot in the pouring rain.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: Zig-zagged with the gang overall. To note:
  • Played straight at the start of the game, where the gang is actively on the run in the snowy mountains with limited preserved food provisions, namely salted offal (canned animal entrails), until Arthur and Charles go deer hunting.
  • Starting in Chapter 2, you can choose to play it straight for the camp by bringing Pearson the carcasses of rats, frogs, toads, snakes, small birds, and other poor quality game, with Pearson complaining a bit. Still, they all end up in the stew pot and eating the camp stew (regardless of what is in it) provides the same level of benefits. Averted, however, if you bring in better quality carcasses like deer, pronghorn, mountain sheep, and other big game, plus a good deal of food and meat. Additionally, you can purchase provisions for the camp which add other edible items.
  • Back to being played straight in Chapter 6, where the gang is once again being actively hunted and you can't even buy provisions for the camp as the lockbox and ledger are gone. The remaining gang members will complain that Arthur doesn't bring anything, especially Pearson. You can still choose to avert it, but it becomes more challenging due to Arthur's failing health and the increased number of lawmen out to get you as you explore.
• Referenced by...: William Shakespeare: Arthur makes a few references to Romeo and Juliet when talking about Beau Gray and Penelope Braithwaite. Also, Leviticus Cornwall expresses his disregard about the plight of the Annesburg miners when he says that businesses having feelings is "a nonsense that will bring a plague on both of our houses", a reference to Mercutio's "A plague o' both your houses!" from Romeo and Juliet.
• Regenerating Health: Your and your horse's Health meters will refill slowly over time. However, the Health core will only refill from food or rest.
• Relationship Values: A hidden one applies to camp. Performing activities like providing meat, adding to the gang's coffers, and doing chores around camp makes it more likely that companion missions (ex. Fishing with Kieran, Hunting with Charles, Rob a Stage Coach with Sean, etc.) will become available.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • Many of Dutch's followers here are new faces, and were never even mentioned in the previous title. Granted, a few lines from John in RDR1 do hint towards a larger gang.
  • Arthur is a particularly egregious example. Everything the Marstons have in the first game is because of Arthur's sacrifice, which is acknowledged by John himself in the epilogue. During the original game, not even once does John mention Arthur. John's optional meeting with Mary-Beth in the Epilogue does lampshade this though, with John mentioning that he doesn't talk about Arthur much anymore. Another optional bit of dialogue that can be overheard in the Epilogue has Jack asking Abigail why John doesn't talk about Arthur anymore, with Abigail trying to explain that it's just too painful for him, implying that Arthur's death left John with a hefty dose of Survivor's Guilt. During the mission Political Realities In Armadillo, John mentions that some of the people he respected the most in his life had a problem with the law, which could be seen as an indirect reference to Arthur.
• The Remnant:
  • The Lemoyne Raiders are comprised of ex-Confederate soldiers and those they've recruited to their cause. In their minds, they're still fighting the Civil War with Yankees and "federals" as their enemies. Given that the war ended nearly 35 years ago by the time of the game, these newer recruits make up the bulk of their ranks, but the Raiders still qualify.
  • Hayden Russell, a former corpsman in the 29th Ambarino Volunteer Infantry (he claims the rank of Captain, but his uniform suggests a much lower rank), can be found guarding a Union outpost in Roanoke Ridge; when speaking to him, he reveals that he thinks it's still April 1862, the eve of the Union Army's big push into Saint Denis, and nothing can persuade him to give up his post. It might be a case of the isolation taking its toll, but he's also acknowledged in-game to forget the player's previous visits, meaning there's a good chance that he's an old vet who went senile and started playing dress-up.
• Repetitive Name: Like the first game, Bill Williamson. However, a snippet of dialogue here reveals it to ultimately be subverted, as he chooses to go by Bill to cover up his Embarrassing First Name: Marion.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • After a big Reveal that Arthur had a lover and a son who were killed in a robbery at some point prior to the events of the game, it's heavily implied that he sees Abigail and Jack as this. Early on in the game, before John really starts to take responsibility for them, he goes out of his way to help them and even states in his journal that he should have married Abigail because he could provide for them when John couldn’t. He even says in his journal that he sees Jack as representative of what he missed out on.
  • In Rhodes, beneath the gun shop, you'll find a teenage boy chained up in the basement and dressed like a little kid. Provided you don't immediately kill the gunsmith, you'll find out that he's gone mad with grief from the death of his young son and kidnapped the older boy as a replacement, pretending that it's him.
• Replay Mode: The game features a mission replay option much like the later Grand Theft Auto titles, complete with optional mission objectives which you can go back for using said mechanic.
• Rescue Introduction: Sean was captured by the law as the gang escaped Blackwater. A Chapter 2 mission has the gang rescuing him while he is being transferred, giving him a formal introduction to the player.
• Retcon:
  • In the mission This is Armadillo USA in the first game, John answers Bonnie's question "How well do you know New Austin?" with "I don't. We talked about coming down here many times but we never made it." While Dutch and Hosea scouted out New Austin in preparation for the ferry job, the gang as a whole never went down there, which still makes John's line true (Although Pearson has a picture of the gang in what appears to be a desert environment, it's unlikely that it's New Austin). However, John has canonically been to New Austin at least twice, even though the first game heavily implies he's unfamiliar with the area.
  • In the first game, John mentions a couple times that, along with Dutch and Javier, Bill left him to die as well. This is contradicted in the second game, where Bill is shown to be on the train when John is left to die.
  • Bonnie tells John in the first game that her father build the Macfarlane Ranch's barn when she was just a little girl. The barn is nowhere to be seen in the second game, not even in the online mode (which takes place in 1898, when Bonnie would be 16 years old).
• Retired Gunfighter: Jim "Boy" Callaway. His biographer asks Arthur to track down four (later five) of his former associates who are similarly "retired" (and in a few cases, still actively on the run from the law).
• Retired Monster: The memorable sidequest The Iniquities of History has Arthur breaking into an old foreclosed house to recover some mementos for a destitute old drunk who used to live there: an old pistol and a couple of books. One of the books reveals that the man was formerly a bounty hunter who recaptured fugitive slaves, including mothers and their children. Arthur returns to the old man, tosses the belongings into his campfire and walks away in disgust, leaving the old man to cry on his knees over the ashes of his legacy. The player gets positive karma if the player opts to shoot him.
• Retired Outlaw: Mark Johnson, one of the bounties that Arthur can pick up claims to be this; he agrees to come along peacefully, and requests only a few minutes to say goodbye to his wife and son. However, he's actually instructing his son to send his old gang to intercept Arthur, showing that he might not be as far removed from his outlaw ways as he is claiming.
• The Reveal:
  • Micah is the rat.
  • Arthur had a son at one point whom he loved but couldn't be there for the day to day because of his line of work. One day he came to visit him and found his and his mom's graves. It's why he's so hard on John for not being there for Jack and Abigail when they needed him and why he ultimately sacrifices himself for them to get out of the life. It's not revealed until very late in the game (and the mission where it's revealed is optional) but it really adds another layer to a lot of what happens in the game.
• Revenge Before Reason: Inverted at first, as Arthur mentions several times that Dutch thought revenge was a fool's game. Later Deconstructed as Dutch's growing desire for revenge continually screws the gang to the point where they are all either gone or dead.
  • Also it's implied that investigating the death of Micah is what leads Agent Ross to John, years after the Marston's trail went cold, resulting in the events in the first game and ultimately John's death.
• Revision: The game alters the context of some lore from the first game without flat out retconning them. A few examples:
  • While Arthur is a Forgotten Fallen Friend in 1, several scenes include Arthur saying something John would later say in 1, turning them into John quoting Arthur. There's also a few instances where John's lines are changed into quotes of Dutch. John could have also alluded to Arthur during a conversation with Marshal Johnson.
  • In 1 Javier uses the term "children" when cursing John's family, implying that the deceased Marston daughter was born before John left the gang. Here she goes unmentioned for the entire story and thus was born somewhere between 1899 and 1911, meaning that Javier probably just made a lucky guess.
  • John seemed unfamiliar with New Austin in RDR, but he can freely explore the region here once he becomes playable. However, if we take 100% checklist as canon, all he did was explore the place a bit while hunting, fishing and doing bounties, and considering that New Austin is established to be a hellhole in this game ^note There are gangs everywhere, the land is unsuitable for growing anything, Tumbleweed is slowly dying, Armadillo is ravaged by disease and both Thieves Landing and MacFarlane's Ranch are private property at this point he doesn't really have any reason to go there at any point afterwards, meaning he probably didn't really gain an understanding of the region.
  • In RDR, The Strange Man heavily implies that the job that caused John to retire was a failed ferry raid. It does happen here and Marston is wounded during that heist, but the heist that he was actually shot and left behind on was an army train. Since The Strange Man only specified he was shot, not left behind, it technically doesn't contradict anything. He also never tells Landon the time Dutch left him behind during the Saint Denis bank job and/or about the time he went back to the gang's camp to call Dutch out for leaving him to die.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves:
  • In Chapter 2, Miss Grimshaw tells Kieran she's killed traitors before.
  • Subverted with Molly when she drunkenly declares to the gang that she ratted on them after the Saint Denis bank job goes south and is gunned down by Miss Grimshaw for her trouble. It turns out later that it was a tragic attempt to get her increasingly distant lover, Dutch, to pay attention to her.
  • Played straight with Micah, who is shot by Dutch at the end of Epilogue: Part II. Although Dutch’s reasons for doing so (for being a traitor, belated revenge for Arthur, or possibly even to save John to give a few examples) are left ambiguous.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • The blind beggar. His cryptic lines make a lot more sense after you know how the game ends.
  • You will recognize the exact moment Arthur gets infected with tuberculosis on a second playthrough as he explains it himself later in the game (When the terminally ill Thomas Downes inadvertently coughed in his face mid-beating). Additionally, you are much more likely to notice his ever worsening cough when replaying the game.
  • Arthur’s lingering resentment towards John for his treatment of Jack and Abigail and him taking it upon himself to help them makes a lot more sense in a second playthrough. It’s revealed late in the game that Arthur had a son named Isaac and baby-mama named Eliza who died in a robbery over $10 at some unspecified point before the events of the game. It’s implied that Arthur is trying to protect and care for Jack and Abigail the way he couldn’t for Isaac and Eliza (he provided financially for them and visited often but wasn’t there for the day to day). He’s likely resentful of John for not realizing how lucky he is to have his son with him (or alive really) while basically ignoring him for the first four years of his life. Arthur specifically tells Hosea in one of the first missions in Chapter 2 after the map opens up that he’s madder at John for running off on Jack than for running off from the gang.
  • Clues about Micah being the rat/not having the gang's best interests in mind are much more obvious on subsequent playthroughs. Watching seemingly every interaction he has with other gang members, especially Arthur, through the lens of knowing the ending make it clear he was constantly attempting to put the gang into disadvantageous situations from the very start.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • What exactly happened to Dutch? Did he go mad or was he always that way and just lost his ability to hide it?
  • What became of the mysterious Gavin?
• Ring Menu: The Weapons, Items, and Horse menu are all present in this fashion.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue:
  • Chapter 3's penultimate mission: Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern. After the Braithwaites kidnap Jack, almost the whole gang murder the Braithwaite matriarch's sons, gun down dozens of her workers, and ultimately burn her mansion to the ground. Ultimately Subverted as the Braithwaites turned Jack over to Angelo Bronte for safe keeping.
  • When the Wapiti Chief's son, Eagle Flies, is captured by the army deep into chapter six, Arthur and Charles assume the responsibility of breaking him out of the heavily guarded fort in which he has been imprisoned on behalf of his father. The first portion of the nighttime mission is stealth-based, reminiscent of the Metal Gear series, and after EF has been successfully retrieved the latter portion rapidly turns into a downriver canoe chase-and-shoot sequence. As some of Dutch's most capable muscle (with a very strong working relationship forged between them), they're able to get the job done.
  • In Red Dead Redemption once Abigail is captured by the Pinkertons, Arthur and Sadie fight their way through them at Van Horn and kill all of them, culminating in Agent Milton being killed by Abigail.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • It begins with a Cycle of Revenge moment when Dutch, Arthur, and Bill attack the O'Driscoll gang's hideout and massacre about fifteen of them.
  • Sadie goes on a rampage against the O'Driscolls after they kill her husband, hold her captive and rape her. It starts off with her running out into the fray during the attack on Shady Belle in Horsemen, Apocalypses to kill O'Driscolls with her bare hands, then later has her picking random fights with members of the gang, helping Dutch to ensure Colm is hanged before murdering the nearest O'Driscoll and starting a shootout in Goodbye, Dear Friend and finally finishing off the last members of the gang with help from Arthur in Mrs. Sadie Adler, Widow.
  • When the Braithwaites kidnap Jack, the gang storm Braithwaite manor, kill nearly every member of the family and burn the house down. Overlaps with Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
  • Dutch orders an additional one of these against Angelo Bronte for his setting them up at the trolley robbery. This is a Subversion as its clearly an overreaction and Disproportionate Retribution. It also makes things much harder on the gang.
  • Eagle Flies attempts one against the US Army for their mistreatment of his people. It sort of works in that Colonel Favours is killed and his regiment is routed, but Eagle Flies dies in the process and his tribe are forced to flee the reservation to avoid reprisals.
  • In the Epilogue, John leads the ranchers in one against the Laramie Gang after they set Pronghorn Ranch on fire, steal the livestock and kill one of the ranch hands.
  • The final mission has John, Sadie and Charles taking revenge on Micah for his betrayal by attacking his camp and killing him and his entire gang, with some help from Dutch.
• Robbing the Dead: Considering the number of enemies a player will kill and can loot, corpses are a steady, if not ludicrous, source of money, ammunition, and provisions. As long as a looted corpse isn't one of an innocent, it can be looted without the player's honor getting dented.
• RPG Elements: The game introduces "Cores" to the series, which dictate how good you are at certain activities. There are five cores: Health, which governs regenerating health and is increased by completing certain activities and challenges; Stamina, which governs sprinting time and is increased by running and completing certain challenges; and Dead-Eye, which is increased throughout the story by using it and from completing certain challenges. The last two cores are Horse Health and Horse Stamina, which monitors your horses' health and stamina and have the maxes increased by increasing the bond you have with your horse. Rather than having a linear bars, Arthur needs to keep these cores filled by eating food, sleeping, drinking, and other activities. The more the cores are filled, the faster his stats regenerate. You can also imbibe tonics that "fortify" your cores, temporarily giving you much higher stats in the respective core.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Kieran, the first of the gang to die once they reach Saint Denis, is tortured, murdered, and sent back to them like the martyrdom of Denis of Paris himself: with his own severed head cupped in his hands. Considering the inventive cruelty and likely Catholic upbringing of Colm O'Driscoll, this was completely intentional on his part.
  • Occurs toward the end of Chapter 6 with the final two choices: "Go with John" or "Go for the loot". If you choose "Go with John", you'll get a bit of a boost to your Honor Meter and you'll fight off the Pinkertons while climbing up toward the mountaintop in Grizzlies East where a fistfight with Micah awaits (all of which symbolizes Heaven itself). On the other hand, if you choose "Go for the loot", you'll suffer a bit of an Honor loss,^note which is no big deal if your Honor meter is high enough to warrant another good ending in that choice and you'll fight your way back down to the camp in Beaver Hollow that is being engulfed by flames as a result of the Pinkteron attack, where a knife fight with Micah awaits after you take the money from the chest (thus symbolizing Hell itself).
  • Also, the weather will change based on how much honor Arthur has. If he has high honor, the sky will be clear during the events of both endings, allowing Arthur to stare at the sunlight before he passes away. If he has low honor, both endings take place during a heavy thunderstorm, which prevents any sunlight from shining through when the morning breaks.
  • The Wapiti Indians' involvement in the main story concludes with the death of Eagle Flies, much to Rains Fall's grief. During the credits the latter is seen on a mountaintop observing an eagle flying away from him, on the verge of tears.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Like the first game, you can purchase/craft and wear different outfits. Unlike the first game, you can also mix and match pieces from all of these different outfits. The most extreme results enter this territory, and the game will call you out with NPC comments about what you're wearing.
• Running Gag:
  • Several "Encounters" such as the snake-bite man and the escaped prisoner in shackles are repeatable. Arthur/John comment on them to this effect each time after the first.
  • There are several times you get attacked in barns — once in the first mission, once midway through Chapter 3^*this one's a little different, since it's a Hold the Line situation, but the barn still catches fire in the middle of it, and twice in the epilogue. Given how I ends near one, it seems that barns bring bad luck in the Red Dead universe.
  • Gavin!?
• Rust-Removing Oil: Gun Oil works this way. It is possible to find guns in extremely poor condition (including rust on the metal parts) and restore them to like-new with one application of Gun Oil.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The O'Driscolls are all Irish born and are much more violent and evil than the Van Der Linde's. Additionally there is Angelo Bronte's proto-mafia organization, which represents the new breed of criminal.

S

• Sacrificial Lamb:
  • Sean. He spends most of the first two chapters in custody before the gang frees him. His Lovable Rogue nature makes an impression in Chapter 3, but then he is unceremoniously killed in the final mission of Chapter 3. While shocking, his death has no real impact on the story overall.
  • Kieran. He is a captured O'Driscoll who works to integrate himself into the gang, but is then captured and killed offscreen near the end of chapter 4. Like Sean, his death has no major impact on the story overall.
  • Lenny. He gets the most characterization out of the three "lambs", being particularly close to the protagonist Arthur. However, he is gunned down without warning during the failed Saint Denis bank robbery. The impact of this is also lessened as it follows the death of Hosea, the Sacrificial Lion, very closely.
• Sacrificial Lion: Hosea. He is the brains of the Van der Linde operation, part of the original trio with Dutch and Arthur, and is the only voice of reason Dutch will listen to. When he is gunned down by Agent Milton during the botched Saint Denis heist, it signals the beginning of the end for the gang. Several other members die or are captured in short order, the survivors escape in a ship but are shipwrecked in Guarma, and even when they get back to the US, the gang is in much worse shape.
• Sad Battle Music: The music that plays during the fight with Micah is aptly titled "Red Dead Redemption" after the final mission of Chapter 6 (which doubles as Playing the Heart Strings!), where we know that it's never gonna end well with Arthur fighting him off while his lungs are failing him due to tuberculosis.
• Same Character, But Different: The personalities of most existing gang members from I have been changed, some more than others. Only Jack and Dutch are more or less exactly like described in I.
  • The first game and its ancillary material paint John Marston as being the only rational one in the gang, disliked by both Javier Escuella and Bill Williamson, and who noticed Dutch's declining mental state first. Not only is John more or less liked by almost everyone, John's rationality was given to Arthur Morgan. John was also said to have been a "romantic" and have an eloquent way of speaking, very much a stark contrast to his depiction in II.
  • Javier is described as a creep disliked by Abigail Roberts who "had a lot of passion, but no love" for the outlaw lifestyle, and who was a False Friend to John. Here he's a Dashing Hispanic who genuinely sees John as a brother, respects Abigail, and whose main flaw is his Undying Loyalty to Dutch. Even as the gang starts falling apart, Javier doesn't go "crazy" like John described in I, he just becomes a total Jerkass.
  • Bill is Sour Outside, Sad Inside instead of the crazy and greedy maniac described in I; however, this change is somewhat explained In-Universe by his mental issues. He was described as having a "fatherly" relationship with Dutch and a "brotherly" relationship with John and was jealous that Abigail picked John over him. None of that is shown or indicated in II. Also, his Ambiguously Gay traits contradicts the claim that he loved and slept with Abigail, as well as his Rape, Pillage, and Burn aspects from I.
  • In general, it seems like Bill and Javier's negative traits that were implied in I were given to Micah Bell, likely to make those two more sympathetic. Meanwhile, Bill's original background and some of John's implied character traits were given to Arthur.
  • Abigail is repeatedly said to have been the gang bicycle, which is not shown here. However, this is also somewhat justified as she is implied to have been a prostitute before Jack was born. Still, the way things happen in II would be unlikely to leave the impression that Abigail was "passed around" and was "any man's wife".
  • Even Uncle seems different. He's withdrawn and grumpy in I, but very outgoing and cheerful in II. While this could initially be chalked up to him becoming cynical in the twelve years after the gang, basically his only family, had fallen apart, that doesn't really work when taking into account that he still has the same lively personality in the epilogue (1907) which is only a few years away from the events of I (1911). Really, the only similarities he has with his characterization from the first game is that he's an old drunkard that dislikes working. There's also no indication in I that he was apart of the Van der Linde gang.
• Sanity Slippage: As the first game told us, Dutch goes from a man trying to help others despite his dislike for technology and modernization to an anti-progress madman obsessed with his ultimately pointless one-man war against the future. As seen at the end of Chapter 4, he likely suffers a traumatic brain injury following a botched robbery. Give the lack of knowledge or treatment options available at the time, this likely exacerbates his condition.
  • A much lesser example, but after the eight year Time Skip in the epilogue, it turns out that Gavin's Friend is still looking for him. However he's been reduced to a gibbering, giggling loon.
• Savage Wolves: Arthur and Javier save John from a pack of these, although the Super-Persistent Predator aspect of the trope isn't present; the wolves only pursue the duo for a short while and quickly back off once Arthur guns down several of them.
• Saved by Canon: John, Abigail, Jack, Dutch, Javier, Bill, Uncle, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham survive the events of the game, since they appear in the first one.
  • Armadillo, despite appearing to be on its last legs due to successive outbreaks, rebounds into a successful and thriving town by 1911.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: An option for one of your "pistol" slots. It packs a bigger punch than the other pistol options, but has a lower ammo capacity, fire rate, and range to compensate.
• Say My Name: RDR2 has the drunken memetic "LEENNNYYYYYY!!!" Which you can repeat a lot while you're searching for Lenny while drunk. There are also other names that are shouted whenever something happens to the other characters in different scenarios.
• Scenery Porn: The game is graphically much bigger, grander and beautiful than the first game.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • Yeah, go ahead, cut down those poor guys hanging from the trees in the swamp. See what happens. Hope you like getting attacked by cannibals.
  • Some of the Strangers who approach you on the sides of the road asking for help are actually horse thieves and bandits in disguise. As soon as you get off your horse to approach, they strike.
  • You can find an abandoned wagon on a cliffside in Strawberry. If you try to go inside it, you'll slip and fall to your death off the cliff below.
  • Whatever you do, do not go into Sonny's cabin.
• Screw the Money, This Is Personal!: In the mission "Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten", Arthur, Dutch, John, Lenny and Bill sneak into the mansion of Angelo Bronte to kill him for ratting out their plan to rob the Saint Denis trolley station. When the gang catches him, Bronte asks them to "name their price". John takes him out with one punch and takes his limp body to Dutch. When Bronte wakes up, Dutch tells him that despite all of Bronte's money and hired guns, he was no match for his gang. Bronte offers a thousand dollars to anyone who kills Dutch and sets him free, but nobody takes him up on the offer. After that, Dutch feeds him to the alligators who live in the swamps around Saint Denis.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: You can go on a murderous rampage, perhaps even massacring an entire town and the dozens of lawmen sent after you, but as long as you have the money to do so, you can pay off your bounty and its like nothing happened at all. This is particularly notable because some of the Bounty missions result in the culprit getting hanged for a bounty as low as $20. ^note Since the game takes place in 1899, that's $600 in 2018 dollars. Keep in mind that the maximum bounty you can accumulate is $1500.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once it becomes obviously clear that Dutch's sanity is deteriorating and it is significantly impacting his ability to lead the gang, the majority of the members quit, leaving only Arthur and a small handful of Dutch's most loyal followers left.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The cover might remind you of something else you may have seen before. Although, come the Epilogue...
• Selective Enforcement: Law enforcement in the game can be rather flaky and inconsistent. In obvious cases, such as gunning down a NPC in front of witnesses without a mask, you'll be easily identified and given an appropriate bounty. However, less clear circumstances can run the gamut of outcomes. For example, say you Antagonize a NPC into starting a fist fight. In some instances, you can knock the NPC out without a word from any witnesses or law enforcement. Other times, the law isn't called until you knock the person out. And yet other cases occur with the outcome being anything in between. There are entire message board posts and Reddit pages dedicated to figuring out the nuances will little success to date.
• Self-Deprecation: The gang occasionally reminds John about his inability to swim, a clear nod to the Super Drowning Skills present in RDR 1. Some of Abigail’s dialogue to Jack can also be viewed as a nod to people not liking him in the first game. She calls him an annoying brat a couple of times ( even pre-Time Skip).
• Self-Surgery: At one point, Arthur is forced to remove a bullet from his own shoulder after being kidnapped. He heats a file in a candle flame and uses it to dig out the bullet, then uses some gunpowder from a shotgun shell and the candle flame to cauterise the wound.
• Sequel Escalation: Whoo boy, Rockstar really wants to use the better hardware to its full extent.
  • For starters, the map is bigger and more detailed than the one of the last game. The graphics and environments have also been massively improved upon.
  • In the previous game, you could greet NPCs (or taunt them with low honor). In this game, the player is given more control over Arthur's dialogue depending on the context, location and NPC alignment among other things. This system also pops up in other situations, such as deciding whether to crack or blow up safes.
  • Hunting in RDR1 was limited to "Shoot animal. Skin animal. Sell goods." Here hunting goods can be used either as a way to gain money or to feed your gang, and animal carcasses can be carried on your horse for later skinning. The weapon you use to kill the animal affects its value: a bow is way better than a shotgun, for example. There was also no limit to how long you could carry around all your animal pelts and meat parts. In II, it's a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome as there's a limit to how many animals you can carry with you, and you need to bring the carcasses back to camp/butcher/trapper before they start decaying. Old meat, naturally, is not as valuable as fresh meat.
  • Horses were disposable in the first game, and the only benefit of using the same horse for long periods of time was a slight increase in stamina. Here, you can't just get a new horse by whistling if your ride dies, and if you manage to keep your horse alive, it will learn to stay put at command and to keep calm during firefights, among other things.
  • In the previous game, you could purchase a Rabbit's Foot to slightly improve the chances of receiving items from corpses, and Marston with good karma would eventually get a relic that lowers enemy accuracy. In this game, you can craft a number of special talismans and trinkets that give you permanent perks.
  • While in the last game, only stores and safehouses had accessible interiors, this game supposedly allows the player to waltz in to most houses on the map to add depth to the game world. The improved AI reactions also support this, as entering someone's house uninvited may cause trouble.
  • The epilogue of the last game is basically one mission and a couple of sidequests, all of which can be completed within an hour. The epilogue of this game has multiple missions and is roughly 1/6 of the total length in terms of cutscene.
• Sequel Hook: While there are the obvious nods to the previous game you'd expect, the game also establishes a convenient eight-year Time Skip between 1899 and 1907, at least part of which John Marston and his family spent laying low in what's implied to be an equivalent to the Yukon gold rush, which definitely opens up a door for another prequel or an interquel with the same cast in a new setting.
• Sequence Breaking: By completing some ambient challenges, you can obtain a secondary holster way before Micah canonically gives you one. However, you cannot buy a second variant of the handguns you already own until Micah gives you the story-related one.
• Serial Killer: A side mission involving one is started by coming across one of his crime scenes and piecing together a map from the clues. Once you find his hideout, you can confront him. You can also find a serial killer prostitute in Valentine.
• Set Bonus: Completing Challenges unlocks reinforced equipment at the trapper. Each piece, in addition to being unique in appearance depending on the set, grants bonuses such as reducing the amount of wear your guns take and increasing your ammo capacity. Buying the entire set (which requires completing all 10 challenges) will give you a bonus to your health, stamina, or Dead Eye depending on the set.
• The Seven Western Plots: A deconstructed outlaw story. The game chronicles the final days of the Van der Linde gang as Dutch becomes increasingly insane and Arthur becomes increasingly disillusioned with the outlaw life, eventually culminating in him openly defying Dutch and doing everything he can to get John and his family out of the gang before he succumbs to his tuberculosis.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Even though Arthur helps John, Abigail and Jack leave the gang and by extension a criminal life, or goes back for the money, John later takes vengeance against Micah and takes back the money anyway, and gets on the radar of Ross and Fordham, which eventually leads to the Downer Ending of the first game, with John and Abigail dead and Jack being unable to live a life of peace, unlike what John and Arthur wanted from him.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran:
  • In several towns, you can meet Civil War veterans who are now crippled beggars. All of them now suffer psychological issues as well.
  • The leadership of the Lemoyne Raiders are ex-Confederate soldiers and officers still waging the war against "Federals" or anyone they deem to be Federals- which are, ironically enough, usually people working for state or municipal governments. They are, naturally, not the most well-adjusted individuals. Their elderly leader at Shady Belle will commit suicide unless you kill him first. Other leaders Lindsey Wofford and Camille de Millemont are both bounty targets, both ranting about how they are "free" from US jurisdiction and fighting for the "true" America.
• Shoot the Rope: How Arthur rescues workers who are in the middle of being hanged in Guarma. Can also be done with bodies hanging in Murfree Brood country, if you want to get attacked by them (or Nite Folk if you do the same in the bayou). And one of the Gold Medal requirements in the mission where you rescues Sean from bounty hunters is to shoot the rope that's hanging him by his feet.
• Shop Fodder: Subverted for items looted from corpses and sometimes given for completing Stranger missions, like rings and belt buckles. You can't sell them to any old merchant, but dedicated fences will still buy however many you have, and you can donate them to the camp fund as an alternative to money.
• Shoplift and Die: Can be played straight or averted depending on the shopkeeper in question. Some will go along with your robbery but then alert the law immediately after. Others will draw weapons and attack you.
• Sore Loser: If you beat a particular NPC in a horse race, he will scold and slap his horse. If you beat him again, he will shoot it in the head in a rage. Aside from being horribly cruel, it also wastes a healthy and expensive horse, strands him in the wilderness and likely angers the dangerous horse-loving outlaw he just lost a race against.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Played straight with the Sawed-Off Shotgun, but significantly downplayed with all other shotguns. They still make a chunky mess of anything at short range, but remain much more effective into the medium range than they do in most video games. Few humanoid enemies survive more than two blasts at this range, and the first is likely to knock them down, temporarily preventing them from fighting back. Upgrades are available which further increase their effectiveness at longer ranges, while still keeping their high short range lethality.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Particularly when it comes to Saint Denis, an Alternate Universe recreation of New Orleans:
    • The hitching posts shaped like horse heads actually do exist in the city, and were used for the exact same purpose around that period of time
    • New Orleans is home to many above-ground graveyards such as the one Arthur and John run through. In fact, 90% of the graves in the city are above ground.
    • Several different trolleys still runs through the city of New Orleans today—they're referred to by locals as streetcars, however
    • Many different areas of New Orleans can be identified by locals, including Rockstar's recreations of the French Quarter, Lee's Circle, Jackson's Square, and something similar to the Garden District/Uptown.
    • The vampire side-mission in Saint Denis is reflective of the huge amount of vampire lore the city has, a lot of which has made it into popular culture. (Interview with the Vampire, anyone?)
    • When greeted, some of the NPCS will address you in French-Creole.
  • Back at the end of the 19th century, tuberculosis was a pretty big deal, and there were no cures or antibiotics or vaccines back then. And although Arthur doesn't know it, it's not just the tuberculosis or its spread that does him in: according to the Game Theory video, research has shown that smoking, alcoholism, malnutrition and vitamin D deficiency, and physical injury/trauma to and/or not caring for the human body have a high risk of tuberculosis, which is no wonder Arthur succumbs to the disease at a young age (in the High Honor ending, that is).
  • In one camp interaction with Javier and Swanson, look closely at Javier while he's making the Sign of the Cross, and you can see him kissing his thumb as the finishing point of the open right hand gesture before returning to his prayer; this shows that in some Catholic regions like Mexico (which is his home country) and other parts of Latin America, it is customary for one to kiss one's thumb at the conclusion of the ritual gesture.
  • Chinese immigrant workers can be found working on the Central Union Railroad, and Saint Denis contains a sizeable Chinese community; these Chinese immigrants all speak Cantonese, as Guangdong (where Cantonese is spoken) is where most of the Chinese immigrants of this time came from.
  • There's also a lot of historical accuracy put into this game, as described by the YouTube channel Real Pixels in this video.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • After Jeremiah Compson is revealed as a former slave-catcher, he starts ranting about how "they" pissed on his legacy. Arthur responds by throwing his items on the campfire and tells him "Some jobs aren't for saving and some legacies are for pissing on".
  • During bounty hunting missions, the captured targets will often go on rants about how unfair what's happening is, offer to help the player if they release them or make excuses for their actions. The player can shut them up by hitting them mid-rant.
  • Two camp encounters have this happen to Micah; when he hurls racist insults at them, both Charles and Javier respond by decking him.
  • When captured, Angelo Bronte tells Dutch that the rest of the gang aren't loyal and offers a thousands dollars to the man who kills Dutch and releases him. All gang members present just ignore him.
    Dutch: What're you gonna say now?
• Single-Stroke Battle: Possible with judicious use of Dead Eye. You can line up head shots on an entire group of enemies and, when time returns to normal, they'll all drop dead almost at once.
• Sinister Deer Skull: The Native Burial Ground is marked with a deer skull atop a conical stack of branches with some human skulls on spikes nearby. Downplayed in that nothing bad happens there, but it does seem to have a higher than usual spawn rate for animals nearby and hunting them from the burial ground itself causes an honor loss.
• Slain in Their Sleep:
  • Discussed by Sean in one campfire event, when he talks about his father, Darragh MacGuire, being murdered in his bed by the British. If one looks at a newspaper clipping, however, it will claim that Darragh was slain in a gunfight and that claims that he was slain in his sleep were brushed off as "Fenian propaganda" (although the story in the newspaper looks more like it was Written by the British Winners in favor of Darragh's murder).
  • When Billy Midnight is hunted down in the side-mission "The Noblest of Men, and a Woman", he makes the Suspiciously Specific Denial "I didn't kill him in his sleep, and if I did it was the only way".
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Arthur, a career outlaw, believes it. In a particular side mission, you gather the personal effects of an old man who has been evicted from his home. As you gather them, you learn that he is a former slave-catcher. When you return to him, Arthur, without control of the player, throws his belongings on the campfire, telling him "Some jobs aren't for saving and some legacies are for pissing on". Killing him on the spot actually yields an Honor increase.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Like its predecessor (and most of Rockstar's games), it leans heavily toward the Cynicism side. Most people are objectively bad, the good ones are still deeply flawed, and while the outgoing world of cowboys and frontier anarchy is dark and dangerous, the incoming world of technology and federalism isn't any better.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Played with the state of Ambarino: though it's a cold region, not all of it is covered by snow.
• Small Role, Big Impact: A few of these ...
  • Had Dutch not murdered Heidi McCourt in cold blood, they would have gotten away with the take in Blackwater. This sets off the events of this game and by proxy, those of the first. If she had lived, both games would be very different. She’s so important to the story that Strange Man (who’s implied to be the Devil, God, or the incarnation of death) brings her up in I.
  • Even though he’s mentioned three times in the game (and you can easily miss two of them), Arthur’s deceased son Isaac is one of these as well. A lot of the specifics are left vague but his death and that of his mother Eliza hardened Arthur and explains a lot of his self loathing. He thinks that the two of them dying is his karma for living the life he has and that he’s not allowed to have good things in his life. He’s also the catalyst of Arthur’s eventual Heroic Sacrifice for the Marstons. He wants John to have the life he wanted with Isaac but couldn’t have.
  • Thomas Downes dies a little way into Chapter 2 but he gives Arthur tuberculosis.
• Smoke Out: Magnifico, a magician you need to capture in a particular side mission, uses this move repeatedly while running away from you.
• Smoking Is Cool: By extension, since tobacco products refill your Dead Eye meter which in turn allows you to pull off cool moves like winning duels and headshotting multiple enemies before they can even draw their guns. Arthur will also smoke in several cutscenes.
• Smug Snake: Colm O'Driscoll, leader of the O'Driscoll gang. He's arrogant, mean, and cynical, caring very little for anyone including the members of his own gang with whom he takes a "quantity over quality" approach. Driving the image home, he has a snake skin band around his hat.
• Snake Oil Salesman: One of the Bounty missions is to bring in such a character whose snake oil has actually killed people.
• Sniping Mission:
  • Subverted in Chapter 2 during the mission where you first gain a scoped rifle. You ride out with John to commandeer a flock of sheep on its way to market from a few ranch hands guarding it. However, instead of shooting them with it, you use it to merely scare them off.
  • Subverted again during a Chapter 3 mission to parlay with the O'Driscolls. Arthur is using it to watch over Dutch from a distance in case there is trouble, but is attacked from behind and knocked out by a group of O'Driscolls before he can use it.
  • Played straight toward the end of Chapter 6 where Arthur has to cover Sadie with a sniper rifle from the Van Horn lighthouse as she fights through Pinkertons to rescue Abagail.
  • Played straight again during the second Epilogue where John covers Sadie with a sniper rifle as they attempt to re-capture an escaped Del Lobo bounty.
  • Quite useful for hunting during free roam. Rifles won't damage large game if you make a clean head shot, and you won't have to worry about other hunting factors (your smell, the wind, noise, etc.) if you're at a sniping distance.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: A Downplayed version occurs when going from the ending of the main story as Arthur to the Epilogue as John. All of Arthur's stats, weapons, clothing, equipment, and some satchel items (including valuables and documents) do transfer to John. However, Arthur's money, tonics, ingredients, provisions, materials, and horses, even those at the stable, do not.
• Somewhere, an Equestrian Is Crying: While the game does better in this regard than most others, it still has several areas of horse mistreatment. Many could be considered Acceptable Breaks from Reality for the sake of keeping the game fun, but to note:
  • It's not healthy for a horse to leave it saddled and bridled 24/7. If you stick with one horse for the entire game, it will be saddled and bridled the entire time with no ill effects.
  • You can leap onto your horse from up to about two stories. In real life, jumping onto your horse from any height is very dangerous to you and the horse.
  • You can ride full gallop on paved roads, which can cause long term harm to a horse's hooves and legs. You can also ride on railroad tracks and other uneven surfaces, which puts the horse at risk of falls and injuries. Further, you can push your horse to full speed while carrying another person or several animal carcasses, which isn't healthy with the added weight.
  • Breaking in and bonding with horses, especially wild ones, happens unrealistically fast. Additionally, it usually takes months to train a horse to come to your call (like a whistle) and it can take even longer for them to be comfortable around gunfire.
• The Song Before the Storm: A rare one in video games: "That's the Way It Is", which is played near the end of Chapter 6 when Arthur, riddled with tuberculosis, goes on his final ride to camp, where he will face the Pinkertons before meeting up with Micah for one final showdown in which he may or may not survive depending on his honor.
• Son of a Whore: Both John and Jack.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Just like in the first game, a lot of characters talk like this and it's very charming. Who would've thought thick Southern accents and backwoods dialects would mix so well with fancy words?
• Southern Gothic: Shady Belle is this to a tee. A former plantation house, it has fallen into disrepair and was taken over as the headquarters of the Lemoyne Raiders. After the gang drives them out, they take over in Chapter 4 when they flee there from Scarlett Meadows. Scarlett Meadows and Saint Denis also have this aesthetic to a lesser degree.
• Space Compression: Like its Grand Theft Auto sister series, the game takes place in a fictionalized version of the United States (though many references are made to real life cities and states as well) along with a few excursions outside the country. Stand-ins for the Rocky Mountains, the deserts of the American southwest, the great plains, and the bayous (including Saint Denis for New Orleans) are all present. In real life, these regions span an area over 1300 miles. In game, you can leisurely ride a horse from one edge of the map to the opposite in a single in-game-day (66 real life minutes).
• Spectator Casualty: Potentially leading to consequences. Missed shots can continue to carry and strike NPCs or objects behind them. It is possible to be shooting at a legitimate enemy, only to strike a non-hostile NPC behind him, gaining you a bounty for assault or murder. In some cases, it is possible to fail missions in this fashion if your stray shots attract unwanted attention. This is also exemplified by the famous .gif shortly after the game's release where a player fires their gun in the air in order to intimidate a NPC, only for a dead bird to fall from the sky nearby.
• Sprint Meter: Both you and your horse have a Stamina bar which works in this way. Running and swimming both cause it to drain. Once emptied, your Stamina core will begin to drain. Once that drains, you'll need to take action to refill it (such as eating Stamina-restoring food).
• The Squadette: While the Van der Linde gang is made up of about 1/3 women, most contribute in non-combat capacities. After she proves her value in a fight, plus the attrition of some of the male gang members, Sadie moves more into this role later in the main story.
• Stalking Mission: Numerous missions involve following a person to either have them lead you to something or in order to confront them in a less open place. If you're too far back, you may lose them and fail the mission. Follow too closely and you may be spotted, also potentially failing the mission or at least making it more difficult to complete.
• Standard FPS Guns: All of the basic categories (knife, pistol, shotgun, rifle, sniper rifle) are present in one form or another. Dynamite and Fire Bottles cover "Grenades", while Dynamite Arrows cover the "Grenade Launcher" category. While you can't take them with you, "Gun Turret" Gatling Guns are present during some missions and can be used by you.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Beau Gray and Penelope Braithwaite, members of Rhodes's Feuding Families, appear to be based on the original two. Unlike them, Beau and Penelope get to be together in the end.
  • A pair appear in the backstory of Martha's Swain. Martha, a Northern woman, was in love with Garfield, a Confederate soldier. Garfield planned to desert to be with her, but he seemingly never did and she died alone and was left to rot. Garfield was murdered by his regiment, who would go on to form the Lemoyne Raiders, when they caught him trying to desert. His body can be found pinned to a tree in Bolger.
• Starting Equipment:
  • You start the game with a basic Cattleman Revolver and a Carbine Repeater rifle. Shortly into the first chapter, you'll be handed a Sawed-Off Shotgun and a can pick up a Double Barrel Shotgun.
  • Those willing to go through a few hurdles will get a free golden double-action revolver upon reaching chapter 2, and those willing to pay extra and buy the special edition can go and pick up a free Volcanic pistol, varmint rifle and pump-action shotgun as soon as they reach a gunsmith.
• Status Effects:
  • You can be poisoned via snake bites or through eating poisonous plants. It will slowly drain your health until healed.
  • If you aren't properly clothed, exposure to extreme cold and extreme heat will similarly drain your health core.
• Stealth Pun: One of the quest givers in chapter four is a man named Algernon who, among other things, asks you to bring him a great deal of orchids...
• Steampunk: Marko Dragic and his steam-powered robot. Though it malfunctions at first, Arthur can later find it has killed Marko and disappeared. It can be found on a mountaintop in the Grizzlies, calling for its "papa."
• Sticks to the Back:
  • Averted for firearms. Long guns have slings and you can carry up to two, one slung over your back and another over your shoulder. Your handguns likewise go into holsters and your knife into a scabbard.
  • Tomahawks and hatchets play it straight. "Sheathing" them if they are your active weapon has them placed near your thigh/hip where they just kind of stay. You can also see this on Charles during missions where he carries a tomahawk.
• Still Fighting the Civil War:
  • There is a random encounter with a senile veteran of the Union army who thinks that he is on the verge of invading San Denis despite the war having been over for 34 years.
  • The Lemoyne Raiders are The Remnant of the Confederate army who are still fighting against federal influence in their state.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: The Lemoyne Raiders are outfitted in old Confederate uniforms and look-alike clothing.
• Storming the Castle:
  • The Chapter 3 mission "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern" has the gang do this to Braithwaite Manor after the Braithwaites kidnap Jack. It's a merciless slaughter that ends with Braithewaite Manor burnt to the ground.
  • Happens again in Chapter 4 when the gang attacks Angelo Bronte's mansion after he set them up.
• Story-Driven Invulnerability: The Bull Gator cannot be killed when it attacks during the Chapter 4 mission, "Country Pursuits". Even if you use explosive rifle ammunition, which will kill it in one vital hit during its proper legendary hunting mission, you can only drive it off as the plot demands, not kill it.
• Strawman Political: Played for laughs, the game features several characters and publications with hilariously outdated and backwards politics. Like its predecessor, the game takes great relish in making fun of these characters and their views. A great example is the eugenics proponent in Saint Denis. He's so hated that you can kill him in broad daylight without drawing a bounty.
• Stupid Crooks: Random encounter criminals, such as those who attempt to mug your or steal your horse, are this combined with Bullying a Dragon or Mugging the Monster in many cases. Your rival gangs are prone to some jaw-dropping moments of stupidity as well.
• Suck Out the Poison: One option for dealing with the "snake bite victim" random encounter. You can also offer him medicine if you have some.
• Suicidal Overconfidence:
  • Enemies in entrenched positions will frequently leave cover to charge you. Even if you're supposed to be attacking them.
  • Your fellow gang members will do this as well during missions. Their deaths usually lead to mission failures, making this incredibly frustrating. An especially notable example occurs during the mission with Lenny to attack the Lemoyne Raiders at Shady Belle. They have dynamite boxes around their camp which explode when shot, meaning you can thin them out quite easily by sniping the dynamite from the front gate. Lenny, one of the most intelligent members of the Van der Linde gang, nonetheless charges in headfirst and can be caught in the explosions.
• Suffrage and Political Liberation: The women of Rhodes are suffragettes, rallying and trying to gain the right to vote.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Dutch keeps pouring more money into another One Last Job when he has $150k (worth a little over $4 million today when adjusted for inflation) stashed in Blackwater. The worse straits they find themselves in, the more money he has to pour into it. He’s also bringing more and more attention to all of them when they’ve got all sorts of people hot on their trail. The more logical decision would have been to wait a year or two once it’s not as hot while they keep up operations as usual and then either go back for the money himself or pay someone to do it for him.
• Super Drowning Skills: Averted with Arthur, who can swim. It will drain his stamina, but he can remain afloat longer than any of the horses. If stocked with stamina-fortifying items, he can swim almost indefinitely. Once you switch to John, this ability is gone, and stepping too deep will instantly set your stamina to zero. You do have a few seconds to save him if this happens however, unlike in the first game.
• Super-Persistent Predator:
  • When Arthur and Javier rescue John Marston, they are set upon by wolves. No matter how many Arthur guns down, the wolves keep attacking the group wave after wave.
  • Bounty Hunters are relentless. They have a habit of appearing if you stay too long in one area (10-20 minutes in real time), meaning that while you are somewhat safe while on the move, camping and exploring on foot is a risk in states where you're wanted.
• Super-Reflexes: Dead Eye, crossing over with Bullet Time. At high levels, you can go from drawing your gun to pulling off multiple head shots in an in-game blink of an eye.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Chapter 3 has the gang Playing Both Sides in the conflict between the Greys and Braithwaites. The families eventually realize they're being duped since every interaction with the gang is followed by another attack, and seek revenge. This results in Sean's death and Jack being kidnapped.
  • Killing the man financing the Pinkertons isn't going to stop them. Considering Cornwall was extremely powerful and wealthy, the federal government can't ignore such a high-profile assassination, and sends even more detectives and deputies to find the gang.
  • Molly drunkenly confesses to being the rat and everyone believes her, as alcohol makes you less likely to lie, right? Wrong. Her confession was nothing more than a drunken cry for attention, and only ended up helping the true rat.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Almost every gang member death is one of these. Sean is killed by a headshot before you even realize you're under attack. Hosea is captured by the Pinkertons and shot in cold blood in front of the gang. Lenny is gunned down by an agent out of nowhere during the escape after the failed Saint Denis bank robbery.

T

• Tag Line: Outlaws for life.
• Take a Third Option: The mission where you break Micah out of jail gives you two options right up front, blow the jail window up with dynamite or pull it out with a hook from a nearby steam donkey. The third option is simply stealing the keys from the sheriff and breaking Micah out from inside the jail by unlocking the jail door, which triggers a different set of lines from Micah for when he kills his jailmate.
• Take Your Time:
  • As is standard for open-world games. However, the severeness of Arthur's tuberculosis is only affected by the story.
  • Missions with a white marker can expire and will no longer be available if you wait too long. "Gold" main story missions will be available until you complete them, as they are required to advance the story. When in doubt, always knock out the "white" missions first to avoid losing them.
  • During the "The American Inferno, Burnt Out" stranger missions you're asked to bring food to Evelyn Miller so he doesn't starve to death. The final part of the side-quest is triggered after bringing him food 3 times, at which point you find him dead anyway. However, he WILL actually starve to death if you don't bring him food for several days.
• Talk to the Fist: Possible to do during "encounters" which do not shift to cut scenes. Want to shut up the eugenics supporter or the KKK members setting up a cross? You can!
• Talking to Themself: Dutch can be heard doing this starting in late Chapter 4 following his head injury during the trolley crash. Unlike the usual "muttering to yourself" version that Arthur (and most people in real life) does at times, Dutch talks in pieces of full conversations, at one point even playing a verbal game of chess despite being alone.
• Technician/Performer Team-Up: Dutch and Hosea, take on "performer" and "technician" roles, respectively. Dutch is a Byronic Hero, being intelligent relative to the setting, highly charismatic, extremely passionate about the gang, and has an intense drive and determination to live out his philosophy. He can rally the gang with a great Rousing Speech at the drop of a hat and blend in with the upper echelons of society to scope them out for robbery... But he's by far the least active gang member when it comes to actually committing crimes and his planning skills tend to amount to an Indy Ploy at best. Hosea is a cranky but Cool Old Guy, with plenty of cunning and experience as an outlaw during the golden years of the Old West, making him the gang's expert planner and Dutch's voice of reason. When he is killed, it signals the beginning of the end for the gang, as things only get worse under Dutch's solo leadership and Sanity Slippage.
• Telegraph Gag STOP: In the Epilogue, we get this one from Sadie Adler, without any punctuation at all:
  JIM MILTON=
  JIM STOP IF YOURE THE JM I KNOW STOP ITS SADIE ADLER
  STOP IVE GOT SOMETHING TO DISCUSS STOP PAY GOOD
  STOP MEET ME IN SALOON IN VALENTINE STOP IM THERE MOST DAYS =
  
  SADIE ADLER=
• Tempting Fate:
  • When Jack tells John about how his fishing trip with Arthur was interrupted by two Pinkerton agents, John responds by saying that no city man will show up near their ranch. Guess what will happen a few years from then.
  • A random roadside Stranger encounter involves two men attempting to open a (presumably stolen) safe with dynamite. You can probably guess what happens next...
  • Abigail tells Jack that he can become a gunslinger over her dead body. Jack literally becomes a gunslinger after Abigail's death 15 years later.
• Theory Tunnel Vision: Subtle, but it's there; almost every time a major job goes wrong, the gang automatically assumes there's a mole, no matter how improbable. The Saint Denis bank job is a great example, as every time the gang has fled the law, they went south and/or east, so the law guessing they'd end in Saint Denis was almost unavoidable. It isn't until near the end until Arthur starts realising how flawed their strategy was. Of course, by then there really is a mole, in the form of Micah.
• There Are No Tents: Averted. You can set up camp to cook, craft, and sleep from your main horse (the one with your saddle) anywhere in the wilderness. Actually setting up the tent is optional, unless it is raining in which case your character will automatically set it up.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • Dynamite, Fire Bottles, Dynamite Arrows, explosive shotgun rounds...the list goes on of weapons/ammunition which will make bloody/burnt-up chunks of your human adversaries.
  • Using too powerful of weapons on smaller animals, such as a Rolling Block Rifle on a rabbit, will mutilate the carcass and prevent you from getting any pelts or meat.
• Thriving Ghost Town: In 1899, New Orleans had a population of almost 300,000, and an area of 350 square miles. Saint Denis doesn't exceed a hundred people or five square miles.
• Time-Passage Beard: Courtesy of the dynamic facial hair growth mechanic. Arthur has ten different lengths for his beard as opposed to the seven for his hair, and almost every single one can be cut into a fashion to the player's liking, such as mustaches and goatees. Arthur's facial hair will also grow instantly by a few lengths following time skips.
• Time Skip: Eight years pass between the end of the main story and the start of the Epilogue, at which point you are once again controlling John Marston.
• Title Drop:
  • The final mission of Chapter Six is called “Red Dead Redemption”.
  • Several missions are named after quotes stated during the mission.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Some story missions present players with a choice between two options that has an effect on their Karma Meter. In one example, after capturing a group of thieves, the players' employer will opt to leave the thieves tied on train tracks, with players needing to decide whether to leave them to their fate or free them and let them live on. In another, an older man enlists the players' help in finding his much younger wife, whom he claims was kidnapped. In truth, the wife had fallen in love with an outlaw closer to her age and doesn't want to go back. Thus, do the players carry through on their original mission, kill the outlaw and retrieve the reluctant wife? Or do they help the two escape and live happily ever after?
• Token Evil Teammate: Even for a member of a gang of outlaws, Micah comes across as an Obviously Evil Psycho for Hire. It is perhaps the least surprising plot point of the game that Micah turns out to be the one ratting out the gang to the feds.
• Town with a Dark Secret:
  • Several homesteads qualify, such as the Aberdeen Pig Farm which is run by an incestuous brother and sister who drug, rob, and murder visitors.
  • Zig-zagged with the town of Butcher's creek. The people their believe themselves to be cursed, but a little investigation reveals that the "curse" has been invented by a conman working for a mining company, who is trying to convince the townsfolk that their problems aren't due to the company having polluted the water supply. However, at a certain time of night a glowing red pentagram appears under one of the houses, implying that the town may actually be cursed after all.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Downplayed. Had Arthur paid more attention to Thomas Downes's symptoms, he may have not resorted to physical violence to avoid catching his illness. However, it's not necessarily entirely Arthur's fault, as Strauss told him that he would need to be rough with Thomas.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • Pre-release screenshots prominently showed John wearing his classic denim vest and hat from the previous game, which he doesn't even obtain until the epilogue.
  • Eagle-eyed viewers noticed in screenshots that John carries his equipment and holds his weapons in the exact same manner as Arthur, the most obvious reasoning being that John would be playable and thus share animations with Arthur. This was proven true in the final release.
• Train Job:
  • The final mission of Chapter 1 is a train job on a train owned by Leviticus Cornwall. After failing to stop the train with dynamite, Arthur and Lenny have to fight to the front of the train against Cornwall's Private Military Contractors.
  • Another takes place during Chapter 2, organized by John. It involves using an explosive oil wagon to stop the train. Naturally, it doesn't go as smoothly as planned and the law shows up not long after.
  • A final one takes place toward the end of Chapter 6. The gang seeks to rob a army train full of payroll. They succeed, but John is shot and left for dead by Dutch. This is the final straw for Arthur, who sends Tilly and Jack away with a large take while he rescues Abigail and then confronts Dutch along with a wounded-but-alive John.
  • One of the "Bandit" challenges is to rob five trains without getting caught.
• Trash the Set: Near the end of Chapter 6, Ross and the Pinkertons attack the Van der Linde gang and force them to evacuate their camp at Beaver Hollow. If you choose to go for the loot, when Arthur returns to the camp, he finds it being engulfed in flames, with the Pinkertons being the reason for the destruction.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Notice how all of Micah's missions tend to devolve into massive slaughters with rival gangs, lawmen, and sometimes both at once? When looking back after The Reveal, it makes sense. He is trying to get Arthur, the most competent member of the gang and the one trusted most by Dutch, killed. Even though he only started working for the Pinkertons after Guarma, he was weaseling his way into Dutch's inner circle far earlier. While stopping short of killing Arthur himself, drawing him into dangerous situations would allow him to accomplish that goal while escaping blame.
• Treasure Map: Several can be found leading to large hauls of loot.
• Trick Arrow: Several types are craftable, including less-damaging Small Game arrows, increased damage Improved Arrows, Poisoned arrows, and even explosive Dynamite arrows.
• True Companions: Arthur's relationship with Dutch and his gang appears to be this, judging by how Arthur replies that he will always have Dutch's back. The player can also build similar relationships between Arthur and the other gang members.
• Twilight of the Old West: Though the game is set earlier than its predecessor, the theme of the Wild West coming to an end is even stronger than in the first game.
  • Dutch believes in some ideals of the Wild West with men living without interference from the government away from civilization. However, the federal government tightens its grip on the lands as the country becomes more and more developed, with industry occupying more of the landscape.
  • Similarly, the gang's initial successes end up bringing the attention of the Pinkertons and the law down on them, gradually making their way of life untenable. Dutch's unchanging approach, which is to carry out grandiose heists, "make some noise", and slip away in the confusion, hastens the events of the game.
  • The Lemoyne Raiders are a vestigial band of bushwhackers — ex-Confederates turned guerrilla outlaws — who "act like the war never ended". By the start of the game, the members who fought in the Civil War are old and the Raiders mostly consist of younger men. By the end of the game, that leadership has been removed and the organization dissolves.
  • Similar to the raiders are the various bounty missions and other gangs in the region, such as the rival O'Driscolls. These prominent criminals are brought to an end directly by the actions of Arthur, John, Sadie, and the rest of the gang — further drawing to a close the era of lawlessness that was the Wild West.
  • The Wapiti Indians who used to call much of the land their home have been put on a reservation, and Rains Fall has recognized that fighting the changes imposed on them is no longer an option. Eagle Flies's last-ditch attempt to fight the army sent to force them off their remaining land ends in his death and a crushing defeat for the Wapiti.
  • One side mission has you track down several aging duelists and gunslingers from the heyday of the Old West, most of whom have been forced into hiding from the law or drinking their lives away.
• Twofer Token Minority: Charles is half black, half Native American. This is an example of Truth in Television as Native Americans and African Americans have a close and complex historical relationship. A fair few Native American tribes, like the Seminole, welcomed escaped and freed slaves and engaged in cultural exchange and intermarriage. Charles' ancestry would not be exceptional in 1899.

U

• Understatement: "This idiot is really startin' to irritate me!" Spoken by Arthur just before murdering a bunch of Pinkerton agents. Also a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner.
• Undertaker: There is one in Rhodes. His assistant borrows money from Strauss in Chapter 3, so naturally Arthur is sent to collect.
• Undignified Death: Arthur, with exactly how depending on your actions during the final mission and your Honor level. We learn in Chapter 5 that Arthur has contracted tuberculosis, a bacterial infection of the lungs that, while treatable today with a course of antibiotics, was a death sentence in 1899. So Arthur, the badass One-Man Army, survivor of countless rival gang attacks, law enforcement attacks, and wild animal attacks, gradually wastes away to Nothing but Skin and Bones, coughs up bloody mucus, and looks like death. During the final mission, if you have high Honor, Arthur will die from the TB after overexerting himself. Otherwise, he'll be gunned down or knifed In the Back by Micah.
• Undying Loyalty: The gang towards Dutch. Best shown when agents Milton and Ross personally come to make a deal with Dutch. If he turns himself in, the gang will be spared from the wrath of the Pinkertons. When Dutch's about to take up on that offer, the gang instantly ready their weapons and chase the agents away without Dutch doing as much as saying a word. This erodes by the end as most of the gang gets alienated and/or, in a Deconstruction, killed by Dutch's Sanity Slippage. By the end, the only ones who are truly loyal to Dutch are Bill and Javier.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
  • If Arthur is Covered in Gunge and/or hasn't bathed in a while, people will refuse to interact with him. Being covered in blood may result in people actually running away from him, possibly to the point that the law enforcement acts hostile to him. Naturally, trying to get information out of them while in this state will be challenging.
  • While, in line with Guns in Church, you still carry your sidearms nearly everywhere you go, drawing them and waving them around will cause anyone nearby you to react appropriately. Some may flee, some may shout at you, and some may draw their own weapons to fight back.
  • People you beat up have a chance of getting up, and can either try to continue the fight or limp away. However, hit them with a gun in your hand, and they will stay down for good. After all, getting hit in the face with a fist hurts, but being hit in the head with a heavy metal object can actually kill you.
  • Enemies that are set on fire are unable to be looted because anything of value they might be carrying would be charred and thus worthless.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Most shopkeepers will return to life if killed. Even if you blow their heads clean off, they'll back up in a few days with some bandages.
  • Several minor "encounter" characters as well, most notably Sonny (the implied rapist outside of Saint Denis) and Jon (the racist with the racoon hat in the Valentine saloon). No matter how you kill them, they'll turn back up for more punishment.
• Unflinching Walk: In the second trailer, a moment occurs where a masked, longcoat-wearing Arthur casually walks away, rifle in hand, as he blows open a bunch of safe deposit boxes in a bank he's robbing.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Dutch has elements of this toward Arthur, especially as the main story progresses. Despite being his most reliable and competent gang member dating back two decades and practically his surrogate son, Arthur is the target of Dutch's infamous "have faith" speeches and Dutch begins siding with dangerous newcomer Micah simply because Micah sucks up to him and tells him what he wants to hear. The deaths of prominent senior gang members like Hosea only make Dutch worse in this regard.
  • Every now and then, once you kill around 98% of a gang hideout's population, a few survivors will run away. If you let them go, they'll repay you by alarming everyone to your presence the next time you come near the hideout, causing everyone to shoot you on sight even if you show no hostile intent.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • A series of missions done in a certain order during Chapter 2 can bug Abigail's dialogue, meaning that she'll never give you the mission to take Jack fishing. This locks you out of continuing and prevents you from getting the fishing rod item.
  • As mentioned under Game-Breaking Bug, a glitch in the epilogue can remove a few semi-important items from your inventory, meaning you cannot finish certain side-missions. Some of them allow you to skip checkpoints that require the missing item, but others don't.
• Universal Ammunition: Downplayed in that ammo is placed into several different categories (ex. Revolver, Repeater, Rifle, etc.) but that ammo can be used by any firearm in that category. This is notable because the real life basis for many of the firearms used different calibers of rounds. For example, compare the round of a Spencer Carbine (the basis of the Carbine Repeater) to that of the Winchester Rifle (the basis of the Lancaster Repeater).
• Universal Poison: Oleander Sage is used to make both Poison Arrows and Poison Throwing Knives.
• Unorthodox Holstering: Different characters have unique ways of holstering their pistols, especially characters who carry them in pairs. Dutch and Sadie, for example, carry their pairs of revolvers in standard straight draw holsters, while Micah prefers the "Cavalry Draw" that "Wild" Bill Hickok was famous for. Arthur and later John carries one pistol in a traditional straight draw holster and later a second in an off-hand holster across the belly in the manner that Lee Van Cleef was famous for.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment:
  • Generally averted for guns and hats, which you can then pick up and use/wear. In fact, some hats can only be acquired by taking them from NPCs, such as the fancy women's hats in Saint Denis.
  • Played straight for outfits. There is no way to loot clothing from dead bodies.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Downplayed for your outfits and equipment. You can run around in garb made from a white buffalo, wearing a Revolutionary War era tri-corner hat, wielding an antique (even for the era of the game) Volcanic Pistol and a Pirate Sword, and the only comments you'll get are the standard generic negative remarks about your attire which NPCs make regardless of what you're wearing.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Arthur shakes down debtor Thomas Downes in order to get the money his family owes the gang, regardless of how sickly and defenseless the poor guy is. Thomas accidentally ends up passing his tuberculosis to Arthur, which ends up killing him.
  • Even worse, Leopold Strauss' requests for debt-collection - namely, sending Arthur to shake down Thomas Downes (and specifically requesting he do so violently) - is what leads to Arthur's death a couple months (or more depending on how fast you're playing) later from tuberculosis.
    • It's possible that Thomas isn't the only one who plays a role in Arthur's sickness. Although TB has a latency period that can last for up to two years, during Chapter 3 Colm O'Driscoll has his boys knock out and shoot Arthur, and then they torture and starve him for days, which would've undoubtedly weakened his immune system and allowed the bacteria to start wreaking havoc on his body much faster. Colm and his goons could be considered responsible for sending the high-honor Arthur to the big ranch in the sky, or weaken the low-honor Arthur enough to get shot in the head or knifed In the Back by Micah. As Austin Hourigan of Game Theory puts it:
    "Being shot with a gun and not being properly fed for days means he's going to be suffering from physical trauma and malnutrition, both of which increase the likelihood that his tuberculosis will progress. [...] It's here, at this moment, that Arthur Morgan's fate is solidified; and it's telling that the first real cough that you see from him is after this point in the game. [...] If he wasn't living a risky life of constant violence with no time to rest at all, it's possible he could have recovered from his infection, or possibly not even progressed into active tuberculosis at all."
  • Had the Greys shot anyone but Sean, the first game wouldn't have happened. He was accompanied by Arthur, Bill and Micah, all of whom are important to the events of the first game.
  • Toward the end of Chapter 6, while Arthur and Micah Bell are at a standoff against each other, with John Marston and Susan Grimshaw at the side of the former, Javier Escuella arrives and warns everyone that the Pinkertons are approaching; unfortunately, his warning inadvertently distracts Susan in the process, giving Micah time to fatally shoot her in the stomach.
• Urban Segregation: Present and clearly evident in Saint Denis, where the city center areas (with the shops and entertainment) are populated by more well-to-do NPCs. The areas near the dock as well as the northeastern area heading into the bayou are much more run down and have poorer-looking NPC residents.
• The Usual Adversaries: Each region has a local gang whose members you'll encounter over and over as they respawn for encounters. Western New Hanover and northern West Elizabeth have the O'Driscolls, Lemoyne has the Lemoyne Raiders as well as the Night Folk in the swampy areas, while the areas near Annesburg and Van Horn have the Murfree Brood. Other different groups appear in the Epilogue as well, with the Laramie gang essentially replacing the O'Driscolls (as evidenced by them hiding out in the same farm where Arthur and Sadie can clear out the last of Colm's crew after the latter's execution), the Skinner Brothers showing up in Tall Trees, and the Del Lobo gang terrorizing New Austin.

V

• Vengeance Feels Empty: In chapter 6, while Arthur is very glad to see Colm O'Driscoll finally hanged, he ultimately doesn't care that much; not only because he's gone through so much crap by that point, but because the other problems he and the gang in general are facing are so much worse. He also notes that Colm was never truly his gang's fight, it was Dutch's (and Sadie's as well).
• [Verb] This!: During the camp interaction, Micah starts antagonizing Charles by sneering, "Hey redskin, go get me something to eat!" Charles, usually stoic, dares him to repeat it again, and Micah does repeat it...only for Charles to flat-out knock him down while growling, "Eat that!"
• V-Formation Team Shot: Happens twice. The first is when the gang storms the Braithwaite manor after the Braithwaite family kidnap Jack. And the second occurs when Arthur, Sadie, Charles, Dutch, and some Wapiti warriors storm the US Army settlement to rescue Eagle Flies.
• Victorian Novel Disease: Arthur's tuberculosis definitely averts the "has no effect on attractiveness" aspect, as he loses weight rapidly, his complexion becomes paler, and his eyes become sunken and bloodshot. It also extends to the gameplay, as your cores drain much faster than normal.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • Arthur can bring food and supplies to the camp which improves camp morale and makes companion side missions more likely to appear. Ignoring the gang negatively affects camp morale and dialogue, but they'll never die from the lack of food.
  • As with everything else, the horse features have been greatly expanded and so it is even easier to get attached to your horse: They act a lot more like living, breathing creatures, and will respond better to a dangerous situation if your bond is strong- and strengthening your bond involves doing things like petting and grooming it. If your horse gets wounded, you can treat it with medicine, but if you're too late, it will die, and you can no longer simply whistle for a new one. The creators figured the feature of calling a new horse immediately after your previous one died (after a bug in the new game made the same happen) undercut the "sadness" of losing your horse and was otherwise too unrealistic for the new kind of immersive gameplay they wanted. It also makes the ending much sadder when Arthur's horse dies and he says goodbye.
  • When Arthur is collecting a debt from a Polish immigrant, he can leave a gold wedding ring, which the man has been desperate to protect.
  • Assisting certain NPCs during stranger encounters not only raises your honor, but you may encounter the NPC you helped in town afterward where he or she will offer to buy you an item of your choice from the general store or even the gunsmith.
  • The dialogue system allows the player to be quite courteous, greeting anyone they pass and being nice to people in conversations. Once their reputation for being honorable gets established, most people will reciprocate the gesture.
  • Arthur can knock out enemies with a pistol-whip rather than killing them. This can be done during gunfights or while sneaking on them (such as with the Braithwaite stablehand or the Gray guard that talks to Sean).
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Wounded animals bleed, and can even start writhing and screaming in pain until you put them out of their misery. You can use this to your advantage by "Studying" the wounded animal, since it is technically still alive, to fill out your compendium.
  • On that note, shooting a person with the Varmint Rifle can cause them to bleed out slowly.
  • The highest level of Dead Eye shows where the target's vital organs are located. As such, you can intentionally avoid hitting them to inflict extra pain to your victim. Worse, you can shoot those vitals to provoke heavy bleeding from your victims. This means that they'll fall over, get up, try to run away while leaving a trail of gushing blood behind, fall down again and writhe in agony on the floor while a huge red puddle forms under them, until they're finished off or perish from loss of blood.
  • Using the lasso, you can tie up anyone from hostile enemies to neutral NPCs. You can then load them onto your horse and take them away to torture them in any number of ways. You can drop them in water and watch them drown. Or leave them on railroad tracks to get killed by a train. Or you can drop them and let predatory wildlife kill them for you. You can even use them to your advantage, such as using them to complete challenges that are difficult to pull off on a mobile NPC like the extreme range scope kill Sharpshooter challenge and the 80 foot tomahawk kill challenge.
  • The dialogue system allows for the player to "Antagonize" nearly anyone. Given the game's setting and cast of characters, such antagonism can be perfectly justified, but when it's directed at some people it's just cruel, spiteful, and/or abrasive. Careful though...
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • ...If you antagonize your fellows at the camp too much in a short period of time, one of them will punch you out. When you wake up, you'll be lying in an area outside the camp ground.
  • If you cause a ruckus in a town, like rob a store or start a bar fight, and then come back another day, the people will remember what you did and they won’t be friendly towards you and it won’t take much for them to be set off and turn hostile. 'Course there is absolutely nothing stopping you from beating the shit out of them and starting another commotion but good luck trying to have a peaceful time in that town later on.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty:
  • Downplayed when it comes to camp donations, which can be used to purchase items for the gang's camp including supply and crafting upgrades, an enhanced horse station, and more. While other gang members will donate even if you do not, the more you donate either directly (as cash or valuables), in terms of food (hunted game), or in time (chores around camp) will increase camp morale and cause others to donate even more. Additionally, companion missions are more likely to become available with a high camp morale, so donating gives you more to do in gameplay terms as well.
  • Zig-Zagged when it comes to using "Cinematic Mode" while on horseback. Setting a waypoint while on your horse and then going into Cinematic Mode will allow your horse to take you to your destination automatically. However, random events will not spawn while in Cinematic Mode. This can be beneficial, as you won't have to worry about rival gang ambushes or wild animal attacks, but also means that you'll potentially miss out on rewarding NPC encounters and rare game hunting opportunities as well. If you don't mind this latter fact, then the "penalty" aspect is negated.
• Video Game Time: One in-game day lasts about 66 real-life minutes. Additionally, daylight hours are about 2.5 times longer than nighttime hours.
• Violation of Common Sense: The game allows you to do, and in some cases even rewards you for doing, numerous things that any sane person in reality would avoid. Examples include drinking a mystery substance from a bubbling cauldron in an abandoned wilderness hut, eating a poisonous plant a nearby NPC specifically warns you not to eat, and killing a certain number of grizzly bears as they charge at you.
• Virtual Paper Doll: There are several dozen outfits available to wear. Further, you can mix and match pieces of the outfits to create entire new looks. Add in hats, bandoliers, gun belts, and holsters, and you get into exponential outfit combination territory. The outfit system also differs from the first game, in that while full outfits are available, you can also mix-and-match individual items. This ranges from obvious things such as shirts, coats, and pants all the way down to minuscule details such as spurs and ties. Outfits can be further modified; whether the sleeves are rolled up, top buttons opened or not, pants legs over or under boots.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: You can have a few encounters with a pair of escaped convicts, Mr. White and Mr. Black. They argue constantly and loudly proclaim their intention to be rid of each other as soon as possible, but are still together each time you run into them and you can tell through the bluster that they are actually quite fond of each other. You can eventually run into them living in a house together, still arguing away.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: At the end of "A Quiet Time", if Arthur successfully escapes the law, he will wake up feeling sick and hung over and lean over onto the tall grass to projectile vomit. Believe us, it sure ain't pretty.

W

• Wallet of Holding: You can walk around with tens of thousands of dollars with no ill effect. Note that in this era, coinage was still quite a bit more popular than paper currency for average folk.
• Wall of Weapons: Several gun stores display their available firearms in this fashion. Fully justified as this is the preferred method even in modern times.
• The Wandering You: While you can pay to take trains or stage coaches between destination, and there is a Fast Travel map which can be unlocked at your camp, the game still largely requires you to manually travel to most destinations. This is also the best way to trigger random events, which often come in the form of encounters along roads (such as the Strangers who want to race you on horseback, the snake bite victim, the escaped prisoner, rival gang ambushes, etc.) Patch 1.15 added in the ability to fast travel from any camp you set up, potentially downplaying this if the player so desires.
• "Wanted!" Poster: The source of Bounty missions, and what you need to take down to start helping Mr. White and Mr. Black.
• War Is Hell: Any characters who experienced the Civil War first hand tend to have this view. Arthur too will make comments along these lines the first time you visit Bulger Glade, a Civil War battlefield.
• The War Just Before: The game takes place 34 years after the end of the US Civil War. The effects of the war can still be felt, especially in areas directly impacted like Lemoyne where pro-Confederate raiders still operate.
• Warp Whistle: There are a few ways to fast travel. As most of them rely on public transportation, they cost a few dollars.
  • Every major town has a stage coach post. Even if the coach isn't present, you can purchase a ride to other posts in other cities. The only drawback is that if you have a bounty, the coachmen refuse to drive you around.
  • While it is possible to ride trains without fast traveling by simply boarding one, you can purchase tickets from the various train stations around the world. Fortunately, as every track eventually goes through Saint Denis, all stations are connected. The only downside is that while the tracks allow fast travel around the new parts of the map, New Austin and Blackwater cannot be reached this way as the tracks there are still unfinished.
  • Once you upgrade the camp enough, you can use a map at Arthur's tent to travel to any already discovered major location. This is completely free, but also a one-way trip; you cannot travel to the camp.
  • Patch 1.15 added in the ability to freely fast travel from any camp you create in the wilderness like in the previous game.
• Weapon Specialization: Most members of the gang have a weapon they prefer to use.
  • John has a unique Cattleman Revolver, Hunting Knife, and a Lancaster Repeater colored similarly to the Winchester Repeater from the first game. When John becomes controllable in both Epilogue chapters, the player can use both his unique revolver and knife. They are fittingly labeled "John's Cattleman Revolver" and "John's Knife". The unique "Winchester" can be attained by coloring a generic Lancaster Iron metal and Rosewood varnish at any Gunsmith.
  • Dutch has a pair of custom Schofield Revolvers.
  • Bill uses a custom Schofield Revolver, as well as a custom Bolt-Action Rifle (likely kept from his days in the army).
  • Javier has a very unique Double-Action Revolver.
  • Micah uses his custom pair of Double-action Revolvers. One can be obtained by John in the Epilogue.
  • Charles almost always uses his custom Sawed-off Shotgun, paired with either a Bow, Tomahawk, or Machete. He does reach for a Cattleman instead at one point when about to ride off with Arthur, but the instant he learns they're going into Murfree country, he takes the heavier sidearm instead.
  • Sadie has a pair of custom Cattleman Revolvers and a custom Carbine Repeater.
  • Hosea uses a pair of custom Cattleman Revolvers, as well as a custom Semi-auto Shotgun.
  • Uncle has a custom Schofield Revolver, and a custom Double-barreled Shotgun .
  • Lenny uses a custom Cattleman Revolver, as well as a custom Rolling Block Rifle.
  • Kieran has his own custom Cattleman.
• Weapon Stomp: In the final part of the fistfight with Micah in the "Go with John" part of the final story mission, Arthur manages to kick one of Micah's revolvers from his holster and send it flying onto the ground further out of reach. The hard part is that he has to painfully crawl over toward the revolver while Micah is chasing after him. Once Arthur reaches out for the revolver in his attempt to shoot Micah with it, a foot belonging to Dutch steps on the weapon with Arthur's hand still on it, thus ending the battle.
• We Buy Anything: Generally averted. In fact, many stores, such as tailors and saloons, won't buy anything from you at all. The ones that do will only buy items in line with their business, and stolen/looted items can't be sold to a regular store and must be taken to a fence.
• We Help the Helpless: The Van der Linde Gang's philosophy as summarized by Dutch is "we shoot fellas as need shootin', save fellas as need savin', and feed 'em as need feedin'." The romantic nature of the crusading outlaw becomes brutally deconstructed over the course of the game — if Dutch indeed wanted to help others and retreat from the modern world while spreading his quasi-Luddist philosophy, he could've started some sort of anarcho-primitivist collective and lived peacefully in the wilderness, but his insistence on maintaining an Old West gang and fighting injustice through force of arms means that the modern world will always be at his heels hunting him down. Just being a band of outlaws in the first place requires them to fend off other, more vicious gangs for territory and dominance, leaving little time for heroism, while Dutch himself slowly becomes (or is revealed as) a tyrant who doesn't allow anything less than unwavering loyalty in the ranks. Ultimately, all they've got separating them from the O'Driscolls in the eyes of the law is a code of ethics and a mission statement, and the law doesn't care about good intentions. There's evidence for both Dutch's sincere belief in the Robin Hood ideal and him using it as a excuse to justify a life of crime, but taking advice from Micah — a man who only looks out for himself — is what really dooms the gang.
• Weight Loss Horror: The player is treated to watching the tall, broad-shouldered, and tough-as-nails cowboy Arthur gradually waste away to nothing from tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that was a death sentence for anyone who contracted it in 1899. It's actually possible for him to become more underweight than the game normally allows.
• Weird West: The Old West was even weirder back in the day, containing, among other things, ghosts, giants, odd statues, aliens, dinosaur bones, viking burial grounds, mad scientists, time travel, robots, and incest.
• Welcome to Corneria: Not as a rule, as there are many different recorded lines for NPC's, but during mini games like Poker or Domino, both Arthur's as well as his opponents lines will get repetitive very quickly.
• We Need a Distraction: The gang likes to use these immediately prior to large heists to draw the attention of the authorities away. Prior to the Valentine bank robbery, Karen will provide a distraction, the nature of which is up to you. The Saint Denis bank robbery starts off with Hosea and Abigail triggering an explosion several blocks away. This one goes less well, however, as the Pinkertons are tipped off beforehand. They capture Hosea, kill him in front of the gang members inside the bank, and then lay siege, forcing the gang to flee.
• Went to the Great X in the Sky: At the end of the side-mission, "He's British, of Course", when Arthur/John returns to ringmaster Margaret after killing his lion, Margaret gets a little sad, but repays him with an emerald (a fake one, obviously) before going on a journey with his assistant Sally Nash, telling her that the lion has "gone to the great circus in the sky".
• We Sell Everything: Also generally averted. While you can buy a few items from a General Store that are typically found in more specialized stores, such as fishing lures and ammunition, these are in the minority.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Arthur makes a comment along these lines the first time he approaches Bolger Glade, the site of a Civil War battle, in free roam.
• Wham Episode:
  • The quest "A Fisher of Men" seems innocuous at first, with Arthur taking Jack on a fishing trip at Abigail's request... and then a pair of well-dressed men ride up, and you meet two people who will be important not just in this game, but in another one...
    Agent Milton: What a fine young man... and in such complex circumstances. Arthur, isn't it? Arthur Morgan? (his partner cocks his gun)
    Arthur: Who are you?
    Agent Milton: Yes, Arthur Morgan, Van der Linde's most trusted associate. You've read the files, typical case... orphan street kid seduced by that maniac's silver tongue and matures into a degenerate murderer. Agent Milton. [indicates his partner] Agent Ross.
  • The last two missions in Chapter 3, "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town" and "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern". While Arthur, Micah, Bill, and Sean are on their way to the Rhodes saloon for a routine job, the Grays quickly ambush them in town and shoot Sean in the head. The Grays finally figured out the gang's scheme, and it's soon revealed in the next mission that the Braithwaites knew as well as they managed to simultaneously kidnap Jack. By the end of the chapter, the major players for each family are dead, leaving the gang's plan to rob the families for their gold completely in vain. The resulting chaos also forces them to move camp once again in order to evade the Pinkertons and to search for Jack in Saint Denis.
  • The final mission in Chapter 4, "Banking, The Old American Art". The gang's "final job" to rob the bank in Saint Denis turns into a complete disaster, with the Pinkertons already knowing the gang's plan. Hosea gets captured and killed by Milton, John gets arrested, and Lenny gets unceremoniously gunned down during the gang's escape. Cornered in the city, the survivors of the heist are forced to flee towards a boat at the docks leaving the country. Suffice to say, this mission marks the true beginning of the end for the gang.
  • "A Fork in the Road", during which Arthur learns he has tuberculosis.
  • Fittingly, "Red Dead Redemption". Milton is killed by Abigail and it's revealed Micah was The Mole. The gang quickly falls apart after this as the infighting hits its breaking point due to Arthur's confrontation of Micah as well as a wounded John staggering to camp, accusing Dutch of leaving him for dead. Before the remnants of the gang can gun down Arthur and John, Ross and the Pinkertons finally raid Beaver Hollow in full force which forces everyone to flee. As a result, Dutch goes into hiding, Arthur either succumbs to his wounds and tuberculosis or gets killed by Micah, and John successfully escapes and soon reunites with Abigail and Jack. Eight years later, we play as John who's now trying to settle down with his family.
• Wham Line:
  • After returning from Sean's death in Rhodes, Arthur gets to hear this bit from Dutch: "I know you worry. Arthur, have you seen that boy, Jack?"
  • Unique in that it's actually in the form of the interface's Dialogue Tree. During the Chapter 6 mission where you assist Rains Fall, one of the dialogue options simply reads "ARTHUR'S SON?"
  • "You've got tuberculosis."
  • Agent Milton: "Not all you boys have quite so many scruples. Old Micah Bell..."
• Wham Shot:
  • After returning from the battle in the Braithwaite mansion, Arthur converses with Dutch in the camp regarding Jack's whereabouts after which Milton shows up.
  • In Chapter 5, if you walk back into Saint Denis (which you need to in order to progress the story), Arthur will suddenly collapse in a coughing fit and pass out. This begins the mission "A Fork in the Road", and reveals to the player that Arthur is very sick.
  • The shot of Dutch's feet as he calmly walks away as Arthur is cornered by soldiers.
• What a Drag: You can lasso NPCs and drag them behind you while on horseback. One of the game's challenges is to do this and then drag the poor victim a specific distance. Going too fast will kill them outright.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?:
  • Charles Châtenay speaks in a very over the top French-accented-English.
  • Downplayed with German speaking characters. While a bit stilted, they've drawn praise for being grammatically correct.
  • Zig-zagged with most of the French spoken in Saint Denis. It sounds very off to those versed in Parisian French, but this is justified because it is based on the Creole dialect of French. However, zagging back, it is interspersed with more traditional French, which makes it sound incorrect once again.
• What the Hell, Player?:
  • The Van der Linde gang preaches and (mostly) practices Pragmatic Villainy, only stealing from those who can "afford to share" and never killing anyone that "doesn't need killing". When on missions with the gang, going out of your way to harm or kill non-hostile NPCs will draw reactions from your fellow gang members in this regard.
  • Your fellow gang members will call you out if you aren't hunting and providing meat for the camp. They'll survive without your help, but it depresses camp morale which means fewer donations and less chance of companion missions appearing.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: During the credits, various scenes show what happened to the surviving gang members, ending with Ross and Fordham tracking the Marstons to Beecher's Hope.
  • Charles goes to Canada, having expressed the desire to start a family there after seeing how happy John's is.
  • Sadie moves to South America to live a quieter life.
  • Mary-Beth becomes a successful romance author under an assumed name.
  • Tilly married a lawyer and now lives in Saint Denis.
  • Pearson goes straight, gets married, and assumes ownership of the general store in Rhodes.
  • Karen's fate is uncertain, but in Tilly's letter to John, she assumes that her alcohol addiction killed her.
  • Trelawny's fate is also unknown, but he presumably went back to his family in Saint Denis.
  • In a newspaper John can read, it's revealed Swanson sobered up, moved to New York and became the minister at a church there.
  • Charles reveals that Strauss was picked up by the Pinkertons sometime after getting kicked out of Beaver Hollow and tortured to death for information on the gang; surprisingly, he never gave them up.
• Whispering Ghosts: Native American Burial Grounds have a sound effect like this.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The latter part of Arthur's story follows the plot of The Seventh Seal, albeit in a less spiritual/metaphorical way, especially if you play him in High Honor. After years as a good soldier in Dutch van der Linde's libertarian crusade, Arthur learns he's dying of a disease, and after a lot of soul searching he tries to help his fellow outlaws find better lives rather than stay and be killed by the encroaching forces of law and order. Arthur eventually sacrifices himself to ensure that a family can escape and start a new life.
• Wild Child: The 'Feral Man' is one of the random people that can be encountered in the wilderness. He is naked, communicates by howling, and runs with a pack of wolves.
• The Wild West: The game takes place during the final years of the Wild West, with federal marshals attempting to stamp out the last of the old western styled gangs like the Van der Lindes.
• William Telling: One of the Stranger missions involves two brothers trying to impress a girl who have Arthur shoot bottles from their heads or their arms.
• Winter of Starvation: Chapter 1 opens with the gang on the run from the law in the snowy Grizzlies West mountains, forced to take shelter in an abandoned mining camp. They have limited food provisions, with the camp chef giving Arthur a can of "Salted Offal", essentially canned animal entrails, implying the desperation of the situation. A gang member who was shot during the failed heist immediately before the game, Davey Callander, dies from his wounds and the presence of his body, while not commented on in-story, certainly brings the idea behind this trope to mind. Thankfully, Arthur and Charles are able to hunt up some deer before they have to resort to anything worse...
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Leopold Strauss may look like a harmless, kindly old grandfather, but he's a vicious loan shark who will order debtors beaten, threatened, or even killed without batting an eye.
• Would Hurt a Child: From the Epilogue, Micah. He's wanted for several crimes including murdering a little girl. He also tried to kill Cleet, one of his gang members, when he objected to killing said girl. It's heavily implied that, if he survived, he would kill John's family as well.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Some of the unarmed moves qualify. If you are close enough to grab your opponent by the throat, you can then perform a two-handed choke slam to the ground. If you get a running start, you can also spear your opponent.
• Wretched Hive:
  • Saint Denis, an industrial town overrun with crime. Between pickpockets, crooked politicians, and an early example of the mafia running the city, it may be worse off than the Far West.
  • Annesburg in Roanoke Ridge isn't any better, being dominated by a ruthless coal mining company that has gun-toting guards everywhere, works its employees literally to death in wildly unsafe conditions, and brutally crushes any labor disputes. Leviticus Cornwall is a major shareholder in said mine, which would certainly explain most of that. Oh, and if you stray outside of town, you run the risk of being killed and eaten by a cave-dwelling hillbilly family.
  • The Van Horn Trading Post just south of Annesburg may top those both in terms of sheer lawlessness, being a squalid, lawless port full of people who barely tolerate outsiders that makes Theives' Landing look like a convent in comparison. The only buildings not abandoned and/or boarded up are the saloon, the inn/post office, and the local fence. Hell, the sheriff's office is a burnt-out ruin with squatters living in it. To drive it home, a random event involves two people picking a fight outside the tavern. If you intervene, there's a good chance one of them will pull a gun on you. And if you pull yours to defend yourself? You've suddenly got everybody in town shooting at you.
  • The Wapiti Indian Reservation is one of these by design, the U.S. government sticking the tribe on land they cannot farm, cut off from decent hunting territory, no way to find gainful employment, and now they'll be moved to an even worse place because oil has been discovered under it. More than that, the local army commander is hideously abusing the Wapiti, tacitly ordering assault, rape, arson, murder and withholding medicine from the sick, all to provoke the tribe into a rebellion he can crush so he can look good.
  • The entirety of New Austin, with the sole exception of Tumbleweed. Once you reach it, you can see why it took so long for civilization to get there. To wit: Armadillo, the only other major settlement in the territory, has been devastated by both scarlet fever and cholera plagues back to back, and the surrounding desert and countryside is the domain of the Del Lobo gang.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Much like Devin Weston, Angelo Bronte believes his vast wealth means he can get people to do anything he wants; all he has to do is name the right price. Also similar to Weston, he finds out the hard way that having more money than God is worthless when offered to men who are devoted to ideals other than wealth.
  • Beforehand, his men also discover that intimidating local businessmen and bribing or murdering the occasional policeman does not mean you're capable of going toe-to-toe with seasoned, skilled, and heavily-armed outlaws who have survived dozens of gunfights over the years.

Y

• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: If antagonized enough, some gang members like Strauss and Abigail will call Morgan by his surname rather than "Arthur" or "Mr Morgan".
• You Can't Make an Omelette...: This seems to be the attitude of Dutch, Micah, and others as the gang's heists invariably devolve into bloodbaths. Arthur begins to reject this approach more and more as he progresses through the game.
• You Did Everything You Could: Swanson says this to Dutch when the latter feels bad about letting Davey succumb to his injuries sustained in the failed Blackwater theft.
• You Don't Look Like You:
  • Javier Escuela looks completely different, having gone from a dingy two-bit thug in a poncho and a sombrero to a Dashing Hispanic in a Waistcoat of Style and stylish hat.
  • A lot of the first game's landscape went through a rehaul, some being more subtle than others. Most things are where they should be, but someone with access to both versions will notice some differences. For example:
    • Tall Trees has much more vegetation and is not covered in snow, so it's almost entirely unrecognizable in certain places. For example, the western end of Aurora Basin has been redesigned entirely and the waterfall is replaced by a much longer stretch of land that ends in cliffs. Nekoti Rock is also unclimbable now, and as the summit is not intended to be seen the cave is missing.
    • The areas north of Blackwater and around the Flat Iron Lake are also different, but that's much more understandable since they were not originally designed with gameplay in mind.
    • The cliffs north of New Austin aren't as steep, while the San Louis River isn't quite as wide and has several islands on it. Manteca Falls have changed a bit as well. Oddly enough, the large rocks hiding Solomon's Folly are gone as well.
• You Have Failed Me: If you challenge and beat a certain NPC twice in a horse race, he will shoot his horse.
• Young Gun: The Wild West setting means that a number of the Van der Linde gang are this, particularly Lenny. Both John and Arthur start off as this, with the former committing his first murder at the age of eleven while the latter was inducted to the Van der Linde gang at fifteen.
• Your Head A-Splode: Scoring a headshot with a shotgun or explosive ammo will result in the unfortunate target's head exploding in a shower of blood.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Arthur survives countless gunfights and near-death experiences only to contract tuberculosis, a disease which, at the time this game is set in, was a death sentence. Even worse, he contracted it because of his own impatience in dealing with a sick debtor, who coughed all over Arthur after getting beaten up. His death is slow, painful, and completely unavoidable, but he makes damn well sure whatever time he has left isn't for nothing.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already/No Fair Cheating:
  • Ironically enough, with the cheat codes that can be entered in the cheat menu for various effects. The game will not accept certain codes, even if it's a valid one, that you haven't personally discovered in-game. So yes, you can't cheat the system by looking up the codes online, because they don't work unless you find the code in-game first.
  • The same applies to Treasure Maps. Even if you know where to go to get the treasure, either by having done a previous play-through or by looking it up online, the treasure won't be there unless you've found the associated in game maps.

Z

• Zebras Are Just Striped Horses: Played With, Lampshaded, and Subverted in "He's British, Of Course", in which the player finds a zebra belonging to a traveling circus show headed by a mustachioed British man named Margaret. The zebra sounds like a mule, and worse, it turns out to be one painted as a zebra.
• Zerg Rush: The Mooks as well as the Pinkertons and the Army will overpower Arthur and John if you're not careful.
• Zip Mode: Trains and Stage Coaches offer a more traditional version, taking you between cities and stations for a fee. Once you've upgraded your camp enough, you gain access to a Fast Travel map. However, you can only use it to leave from camp. It's still useful if you're heading out to the far end of the map to save on time. Patch 1.15 would eventually bring back the ability to fast travel from any player-made camp from the previous game.

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