Acting for Two: The game's cast would occasionally provide motion capture for characters other than their own when the original actor wasn't available. For example, some scenes of drunk Arthur in "A Quiet Time" were actually recorded by Rob Wiethoff (John), and Roger Clark actually played ''Mary'' in the brief credits scene where she is shown grieving Arthur at his grave.
Awesome, Dear Boy: Despite having given up acting for quite a few years at that point, Rob Wiethoff immediately accepted the offer to return as John Marston in this game, due to loving his experience with making the first Red Dead Redemption.
Despite being located in West Elizabeth, the water tower at Wallace Station has "Ambarino" written on it, and the HUD info card claims the station is located in "Grizzlies, AM". Everything around it is labelled correctly.
Princess Isabeau’s missing person poster says her birthmark is on the right side of her face but on the character model, it’s on the left.
Jeremy Gill mentions Frontera Bridge at one point, but it hasn't even been built yet and doesn't exist in-game. Given how the bridge connects New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso, the line is likely a remnant from a time the latter was meant to be explorable.
Similarly, Jack at one point mentions the Great Plains train track, which doesn't exist yet. The returning areas were meant to resemble their 1911 counterparts more than they do in the epilogue portions of the final game.
Colbert Bump: Arthur Morgan's fate reintroduced many players to tuberculosis, to the point that many YouTube videos about the disease are infested with references to Red Dead Redemption 2 in the comments sections.
Content Leak: The website Trusted Reviews had a fairly accurate one in early 2018. It didn't get everything right, but was accurate enough to warrant a lawsuit from Rockstar.
A gang hideout named "Tallulah Jetty" was either replaced by or merged with the Van Horn Trading Post. While the hideout was removed, a gang named Tallulah Gang is mentioned in a newspaper - specifically, it mentions they were wiped out.
If an early map is to be believed, the gang was actually going to camp at/in Dewberry Creek but this idea was abandoned, seemingly in favor of Clemens Point. When scouting the creek as a potential hideout, both Arthur and Charles agree it would be a terrible place for the camp.
During the side mission "American Dreams", when investigating Edmund Lowry's cabin, you can find a missing poster of a woman named "Eliza Bloom". This is a reference Arthur's lover and the mother of his son, who was suppose to have a larger role in the game but was cut and relegated to the backstory, making her literally missing from the game.
Under normal circumstances, the dinosaur bones quest can't be completed before the epilogue, since eight of the bones are located in New Austin, which Arthur can't access at all in the entire game since there's an invisible sniper that will kill him the moment he crosses the border. The quest is meant to be completed by John in the epilogue, as he's the only one that can cross into New Austin unharmed. However, you used to be able to glitch your way to New Austin as Arthur without being instantly killed and completing the quest. Arthur could still talk with the quest giver and has his own set of lines with her. This suggests that the quest was also meant to be completed by Arthur at some point in development. You can still get the glitch if you have the disk version, uninstall your file, and turn off wifi updates.
Datamining the PC version has revealed some odd character models that never appear in the game; An adult version of Princess Isabeau (a kidnapped Luxembourgish princess who is alluded to several times but players were never able to find her in-game), a living version of Agnes Dowd (a ghost of her appears as an easter egg in the game proper) and even a goddamn caveman (who some fans speculate was meant to be frozen in ice somewhere up in Ambarino).
Oddly enough, the noticeably absent towns of Mexico may in fact be there, but are simply disabled in-game.
Guido Martelli has a voice actor listed in the credits for the main game, despite having no lines, suggesting that his lines were cut after being recorded.
Tempest Rim still has unused, visible paths and an opening from the time when Colter was located there; all paths were blocked off before release, with several leading to the top of the hill that now acts as the southern Gravity Barrier that runs from Colter to Adler's Ranch. A glitch that allowed players to set up a camp in one of the now-unused former camp spots there made into the game, but was very quickly patched away after being found.
The most western point of the snowy parts of West Ambarino has a blocked entrance to a half-finished area that includes a fully-rendered aftermath of an avalanche (which can still be seen by using Photo Mode), a few openings between the cliffs that seem to have been designed to be playable, a frozen pond, and a largely-finished path that reaches around the mountain John is rescued from in the prologue; given how the entrance is blocked off by some relatively small unclimbable rocks and the unfinished path appears in some maps from earlier in the game's production, the area appears to have been explorable before being cut and hastily blocked off by the rocks.
The Princess Isabeau sidequest still has some coding attributed to it, but ultimately the trigger to start the quest seems to have been dropped from the game, possibly when Roanoke Ridge was cut down in size.
Cut Talismans and Trinkets exist in the game's code, with some having working models and some not. Some are even used as props in the final game, but cannot be obtained for player use. Some have the prefix used for Guarma, suggesting that they were obtained from exploring the island when it was meant to be more open.
All of the actresses wore chunk heels throughout filming, to make their heights more consistent and bodies move more naturally (since the characters would all be in lace or western boots anyway).
Steven J. Palmer has revealed that Peter Blomquist regularly practiced twirling his prop revolvers during downtime on the set, so that it would look better when he did it on-camera.
Benjamin Byron Davis (Dutch's actor) barely held back tears while filming Arthur's final moments in each one of the four endings (hence why Dutch seems so despondent and frightened throughout each scene). In many takes, as soon as Dutch leaves the scene Ben would break down, and suggested that if they wanted, the animators could use his emotional breakdown in-game. They didn't, presumably because it would have been against Dutch's character to show that much emotion.
An accidental case. Ben was a heavy smoker while recording for the first game, but dropped the habit a few years later. His voice got slightly higher after he quit, which meant he could voice a younger Dutch without much effort. Similarly, Rob Wiethoff didn't regularly smoke during the recording of the first game, but started doing so while working on this one. This caused his voice to become noticeably raspier, giving John a more youthful and inexperienced tone of voice.
Fake American: Although Arthur Morgan's actor Roger Clark was born in America, he was raised in Ireland and developed an accent to match, meaning he had to force an American accent when portraying Arthur.
Fake Brit: The very English Josiah Trelawny is voiced by Stephen Gevedon, who is American.
The half-black, half-Native American Charles Smith is played by the Parsi-Japanese American Noshir Dalal.
Leopold Strauss is originally from Austria and has a very thick accent, yet he's portrayed by Howard Pinhasik, who was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.
Jim Pirri, who is also American, voices the very Italian crime lord Angelo Bronte.
The First Nations Canadian Graham Greene portrays the Native American Rains Fall, though he does end up immigrating to Canada near the end of the story.
God Never Said That: Rockstar themselves has never claimed the map of the game is the largest one they've made. All claims that it is have been made by (p)reviewers, and Rockstar has actually implied that the map, while larger than in Redemption 1, is not as large as in Grand Theft Auto V by stating that they are focusing on quality over quantity and that the slower speed of the Player Character (on-foot and horse travel obviously can't beat a jet plane or a supercar) can make a smaller map look larger.
Irony as She Is Cast: Jack Marston is shown to be mostly unfamiliar with Italian culture, with his knowledge of the language and food only being briefly taught to him by Angelo Bronte before he's rescued. His voice actress, Marissa Buccianti, is actually part-Italian.
Lying Creator: In some cases to protect spoilers, other times not.
Rockstar repeatedly said Arthur would be the only protagonist, but John is playable in the epilogue. Fortunately for them, GTA V's character swapping allowed them to pretend they talking about a similar mechanic.
Unlike what Rockstar claimed before the game launched, the whole map is not unlocked when free roam opens up. There is evidence that it did in some builds of the game, but in the released version both southern West Elizabeth and New Austin are locked until the epilogue.
Trains don't seem to have schedules, despite what was claimed pre-release.
Before the online portion of the game launched, Rockstar addressed concerned players by saying that even if it's not the main priority, the single-player mode would still be at least watched over. Ignoring the MP exclusive content and without getting too negative, there are several reports of Online content patches introducing the single-player mode to graphical downgradesnote Granted, this is difficult to check accurately because of how much the weather affects it, performance issues, and new game- or immersion breaking glitches not present in the 1.00 version of the game. The 1.14 patch in particular introduced numerous new issues to the gamenote Including, but not limited to: Heavy framerate issues, "Sell" and "Donate" UI opening on the wrong tab, animal corpses spawning incorrectly, saving a photo can corrupt the gallery, some trees despawn if watched trough binoculars etc., and players who tried to report these on the Rockstar Support site were redirected to the "Online Feedback" page.
Meaningful Release Date: The game was released on the 137th anniversary of the O.K. Corral gunfight. This is a big case of Fridge Brilliance and Genius Bonus, as Doc Holliday, an O.K. Corral participant, passed away at age 36 from tuberculosis.
Non-Singing Voice: Uncle is credited twice because of this; his original actor died during the game's production, and while James McBride recorded over all of his lines, Rockstar preferred O'Creagh's singing and kept it in the game.
The Other Darrin: Uncle, Javier Escuella, and Abigail Marston have their voice actors replaced from the original. Abigail's original actress does provide the character's motion capture, however.
The Other Marty: As mentioned above, John O'Creagh was meant to voice Uncle, but died before finishing his lines. James McBride took his place, but Uncle's singing voice is still that of O'Creagh's. A lake in Ambarino was named after the late actor.
Alex McKenna has noted in interviews that she was a fan of Rockstar Games prior to being cast in the game as Sadie Adler.
The various cast panels reveal that Roger Clark is a fan of the first game, which he stumbled upon when he bought an Xbox 360 and asked the clerk for good open world games. Led to a few funny moments during production, as the self-admitted John fan was almost instantly asked to throw insults at him and the first meeting between him and Rob Wiethoff had Roger pick up and carry him on his shoulder.
Fred Armisen, a fan of the first game, makes a small appearance as the host of the vaudeville show in Saint Denis.
Recycled Script: The game reuses several plot points from the first game.
Thematically, the slow death of the old west is used again.
Both Arthur and John end up on foreign soil, where they need the help of local rebels to continue their quest, but who in turn ask for their help against their corrupt leaders.
The parallels are turned up to eleven near the game's end. The Hero Dies, someone close to them takes their place as the Player Character, and then avenges them. In both games the last hours of the game consist mostly of John working at his ranch, before one last big action scene in the final mission.
The Stranger quest involving a giant and a dwarf is based on a cut stranger mission from the first game. As uncovered by modders, this mission involved John meeting a lonely, Jerkass dwarf. John promises to try an find him a friend, and later meets a "giant", who agrees to meet the other guy. However, the giant then accidentally kills someone, and the dwarf demands John to kill the giant - whose fate is then left to the player.
Some trailers for the first game showcase the interior of a gambling boat, which didn't make it into the finished product. While not available in free roam, one of the missions in this game takes place in one.
Role Reprise: Despite having retired from acting after the first gamenote One of only four things he'd starred in, at that, John Marston’s voice actor, Rob Wiethoff, returns to continue the role he’s best known for. Also returning to their roles are Benjamin Byron Davis as Dutch van der Linde, Steve J. Palmer as Bill Williamson, and Jim Bentley as Edgar Ross.
Scully Box: Benjamin Byron Davis is 6'6", much taller than his co-workers and even Dutchnote Dutch is confirmed to be approximately 6'0". The camera that animators use to track the character's heads was kept on his chest so Dutch wouldn't tower over everyone else.
Throw It In!: During the ride to Valentine, while Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Karen sing a joke song about meeting "a friend in Valentine/Strawberry/etc.", at one point Karen mixes up the lyric, and the others chide her for screwing up before they all laugh about it. This was a genuine moment made during the recording that was left in the final game.
Time-Shifted Actor: Josh Blaylock does not reprise his role as Jack Marston, as the character is only four years old during most of the game's events and is still fairly young after the Time Skip in the epilogue. There was a brief period of speculation that he had returned for this game due to a glitch that changed Arthur/John's voice into what sounded exactly like Josh's take on 19-year old Jack, but in the end it turned out the lines belong to a gambler in Rhodes.
Trolling Creator: Rockstar remained silent about if the legendary channel catfish could be caught. It cannot, so the game literally catfished players who spent time trying to do so. That said, many called this because it allegedly weights 180lb, about 10 times more the biggest fish you can catch in free roam.
Troubled Production: While nothing has been officially stated, there are some things that point towards this:
The game was delayed twice, and 5 hours of content was removed as late as just months before release.
Inaccessible parts of the map (such as Tempest Rift) clearly have work put to them yet cannot be accessed legitimately, with some paths and openings being blocked with simple unclimbable objectsnote The most western point of the snowy portions of West Ambarino in particular has an unused area blocked off by some stones that features a full path around the mountain John is rescued in the prologue, and a fully rendered aftermath of an avalanche can still be seen with photo mode. Likewise, artifacts of earlier versions of the map can still be seen and heard in the final releasenote Pacific Union railroad camp still has an info card where it would be in the first game, characters in the epilogue refer to unbuilt train tracks, Wallace Station's info card claims it's in Ambarino, and the "Wanted: Dead or Alive" map markers of Sisika prison and Fort Wallace are still displayed where they were in earlier builds, with the latter's now-outdated info still appearing in the map index.
Trailers show Arthur inside areas locked up until 1907, and he has Dummied Out content in NA and WE.
Several NPC models from the game files don't appear to be in the game at all, and in at least one case they still have a voice actor in the credits. These include Princess Isabeau, Guido Martinelli, living Agnes Dowd and a caveman. Guido, however, would appear as an upcoming major character in Red Dead Online.
Urban Legend of Zelda: Similar to Ned Luke's cut role (see above), many fans speculated that the Laramie Gang member John beats the hell out of in "Old Habits" was voiced by Steven Ogg in a cameo, due to the guy sounding extremely similar to Trevor Philips. Ogg confirmed himself that it wasn't him, but joked that it might have been intended as an homage ("imitation is the sincerest form of flattery").
At the time of filming a scene in which Dutch and his followers aim their guns at Arthur and John in Beaver Hollow in the final part of Chapter 6, voice actor Gabriel Sloyer would never believe that his character, Javier Escuella, would turn his own weapon against his "brothers" and go against his good nature (according toan interview with Sloyer). Though Rockstar initially rejected Sloyer's idea of getting Javier's reluctance to aim his gun at Arthur and John into the scene, Sloyer insisted that they get that part in, until Rockstar finally gave in to his request.
Having been raised in Ireland, Roger Clark was unhappy at having to say Colm O'Driscoll's first name wrong whenever Arthur mentions him (in Irish, it's pronounced "Column" rather than "Coalm"), and tried to get Rockstar to use the correct pronunciation. Unlike with Sloyer however, Clark was unsuccessful in getting this change, as the Houser brothers insisted on Arthur saying it wrong with the justification that Arthur's an American and would naturally mispronounce it. That being said, there is a campfire interaction between Kieran and Sean at Horseshoe Overlook that has the latter berating the former for mispronouncing it.
According to Dutch's voice actor, Benjamin Byron Davis, Bronte's similarities with Dutch are part of what contributes to the latter's Sanity Slippage. Dutch has imagined himself an educated refined criminal who is entirely capable of running The Man Behind the Man organization if he ever got enough money to do it. Meeting Bronte, who is exactly this, disgusts him because he is an honorless arrogant piece of garbage who embodies the worst civilization has to offer. Unbeknownst to the rest of the gang, Dutch realizes he has nowhere to go and retirement is not an option after Chapter 4.
Write Who You Know: According to Gabriel Sloyer, Javier Escuella's plight in his hometown of Mexico up to the time that he immigrated to America before Dutch found him echoes the life and ordeal that Sloyer's immigrant father (also named Javier) experienced at the time he came to the United States.
General trivia
The game is Rockstar's first 8th gen title; every other Rockstar game on those consoles are currently either ports or remasters of earlier games.
As the epilogue puts the player back into the cowboy boots of John Marston, he holds the honor of being the first Rockstar protagonistnote Not counting Max Payne, whose first two games were developed by Remedy Entertainment. There is also the whole debate around Claude Speed. Rockstar never gives a concrete confirmation on whether Claude and Claude Speed are the same, but even if he is, we don't technically play as him in two games because his character in GTA 2 and 3 are different versions of each other. There's also Red Harlow, who is playable in Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer, but this wouldn't exactly be canon. who's playable in two different Rockstar games.
where she is shown grieving Arthur at his grave.
