Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Mode follows Arthur Morgan through a chapter-based outlaw story in 1899. Ride between camp, towns, and wilderness to take missions, hunt, fish, fight, rob, trade, craft, and improve your horse and equipment as the Van der Linde gang moves forward.
The scope includes the single-player campaign, epilogue, world activities, honor, camp upgrades, the Story Mode Compendium, Challenges, and selected completion thresholds. Red Dead Online systems and separate expansion content are outside this Story Mode scope.
- Developer
- Rockstar Studios
- Publisher
- Rockstar Games
- Release
- PC: 2019-11-05 · Xbox One: 2018-10-26 · Google Stadia: 2019-11-19 · PlayStation 4: 2018-10-26
- Platforms
- PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Google Stadia
Collectibles
Cigarette Cards
Cigarette Cards are a Story Mode collectible activity in Red Dead Redemption 2, built around themed sets hidden across the world. Phineas T. Ramsbottom introduces the activity at Flatneck Station, and players can use fixed pickups or random Premium Cigarette Packs to fill their sets. Mailing completed sets at a Post Office turns exploration into set rewards and contributes to the game's wider completion goals.
Dinosaur Bones
Red Dead Redemption 2’s dinosaur bones are an exploration activity tied to the A Test of Faith stranger mission. After Chapter 2, Deborah MacGuiness points you toward the route, and Eagle Eye helps reveal bones tucked into cliffs, riverbeds, caves, and open ground. Finding the sites and mailing their locations advances the quest toward the Jawbone Knife reward, with the New Austin stretch reserved for the normal post-epilogue Story Mode route.
RDR2 gameplay tips
- Let the camp and story missions set your route early. Between missions, mix hunting, fishing, exploration, shops, crafting, and side activities so travel also improves Arthur, his horse, and gang supplies.
- Treat Pause > Progress > Total Completion and the Compendium as separate references. The 100% route checks selected thresholds; it does not ask for every Compendium entry or every optional activity.
- For the 100% animal requirement, studying 50 of the 178 animal entries is enough for that threshold. Discovery, study, kill, skin, and full Compendium completion are different goals, so do not turn the requirement into a hunt for every animal.
- The 100% route requires all 90 Challenges across nine families, while its animal, fish, plant, horse, equipment, weapon, and collectible requirements are partial or category-specific.
- In the early game, learn how Health, Stamina, and Dead Eye Cores, food and tonics, horse bonding, honor, camp upgrades, weapon maintenance, and satchel capacity affect long rides and missions. Chapter and region unlocks can change what is available.
- Save before mission choices and late-game or epilogue exploration. Missions, graves, epilogue content, special-edition material, and some collectibles can be progression-gated or missable, so spoiler labels matter when you plan a completion run.