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
Game data
Story Missions
Story Missions drive Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode campaign, from Chapter 1: Colter through the epilogue. Each one has a starting spot, most name a giver, and a few optional ones can be missed once the story moves past them. Clear any optional mission before you push on in its chapter.
Weapons
Story Mode weapons come from Gunsmiths and Fences, mission rewards, and world pickups. Gunsmiths sell most weapons after the right story mission, while some rare pickups disappear if you leave them behind. Red Dead Online guns belong to a separate mode.
Horses
Horses are your main way around Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode map, and each breed plays differently. Four bars (Health, Stamina, Speed and Acceleration) show which horse fits a job, while stable sales, wild taming and mission rewards decide how you get one. The bars and chapter gates tell you what to buy and when.
Animals
The Animal Compendium logs the Story Mode animals, from songbirds to bison. Hunt with the right weapon to keep pelts Perfect, since those pelts craft hats, chaps, vests and saddles.
Fish
Fishing runs through the rivers, lakes, ponds and swamps across the map. Every catch also gives meat for cooking, with each meat type restoring cores by a different amount.
Plants
The herbs, berries, mushrooms and flowers you pick across Red Dead Redemption 2's map feed cooking, bait, tonics and horse care. The Herbalist challenges call for several species, and Algernon Wasp's Exotics requests use the orchids.
Equipment
Equipment is one section of the Pause Menu Compendium, separate from Weapons and Horses. Tools come from the story, Pearson crafts the satchels at camp, and the Trapper sells challenge gear as you hit each rank. Gunsmiths sell the core upgrades, and a Fence starts selling satchels late in the game.
Gangs
Red Dead Redemption 2's Compendium logs each gang you meet in Story Mode, and every gang roams its own turf. Most gangs hold at least one hideout, and Del Lobos have more hideouts than any other gang. Some of those Del Lobos hideouts arrived after launch, and Twin Rocks is limited to the Special and Ultimate Editions.
Outfits
Outfits change how your character looks, and each named set has its own route: a general store or tailor, a Trapper build from animal pelts and hides, or a reward from challenges or an edition you own. Some store sets need a higher honor rank before you can buy them. Trapper sets are the ones to plan ahead for, since you sell the animals before you pay for each garment.
Trinkets & Talismans
Trinkets and talismans are small bonuses for weapon wear, horse care, Dead Eye and XP. Not every one comes from a Fence: some are lockbox and campsite finds, one is a treasure hunt reward, and Ancient Arrowhead is the prize for finding every Dreamcatcher. Special and Ultimate Edition owners get two more, so check your version first.
Cheats
Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode cheats are phrases you type into the Settings menu. They add money, spawn horses and wagons, refill your bars and change your Honor or Wanted level. Some phrases need a newspaper bought first, and turning a cheat on blocks saving and disables trophies for that session.
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.
Legendary Animals
Legendary animals are one-off hunts in Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode: follow the clues in each animal's territory until it shows, then take it down for a legendary pelt and a part the Fence turns into a talisman or trinket. Any five kills count toward 100% Completion, so pick the hunts that fit your progress.
Legendary Fish
A Fisher of Fish opens in Chapter 3 after the gang reaches Clemens Point. Meet Jeremy Gill at the pier on the northeast shore of Flat Iron Lake to start his legendary-fish request. The full mailed set counts toward Story Mode 100% completion.
Dreamcatchers
Dreamcatchers hang from trees across Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode map, and inspecting each one counts toward Total Completion. Find them all and the last mark leads to the Ancient Arrowhead, which makes bow stamina last twice as long.
Rock Carvings
Geology for Beginners is a Story Mode stranger mission that sends you hunting for rock carvings across the map. It starts at Francis Sinclair's cabin northwest of Strawberry once you reach Chapter 2. The search takes you from river gorges to snowy peaks, so it's a good excuse to see the map's quieter corners.
Graves
Graves are a late-game collectible in Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Mode, scattered from Ambarino's snow to the marshes of Lemoyne. Each stop is a landmark to find and a prompt to press. Track every grave you need for 100% completion and the Paying Respects achievement.
Challenges
Challenges are Story Mode goals that run from shooting and hunting to gambling and herbalism. Each family works through its ranks in order, and the gear you unlock feeds a reinforced set for every family. You can check where each family stands under Progress in the pause menu.
Hunting Requests
Hunting Requests is a mail-driven chain of animal hunts in Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Mode. The first requests open in Chapter 2, and the last one waits for the epilogue. Every animal needs a perfect carcass, so the work is about clean kills and careful carrying, not speed.
Exotics
Algernon Wasp's exotic requests unlock after The Gilded Cage in Chapter 4. Return each request list to Algernon for its cash reward; each return before the final one unlocks another list. Your final return also gives you the Exotic Hat and Algernon's Revolver. Find Algernon in the greenhouse north of Saint Denis to begin.
Treasure Hunts
Treasure maps send you from one landmark to the next until a cache pays out. Most chains end in gold bars, and the rest pay in a Gold Ingot, a debt payment or a unique revolver. Some stops open only late in the story, and one hunt needs a pre-order.
Stranger Missions
Ride close to a stranger with a job to reveal their marker and start an optional Story Mode side story. To the Ends of the Earth starts with a four-Yarrow delivery for William, while many other strands take several visits.
Gold Bars
Gold Bars are the high-value loot of Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode, hidden in stashes from a sheriff's lockbox in Limpany to treasure hunt payouts. You can sell them at a Fence from Chapter 2 onward, and the treasure hunt stashes hold the biggest payouts.
Shacks
Shacks are the cabins, ruins and camps scattered across Red Dead Redemption 2's Story Mode map, and several count toward 100% completion. Many hold valuables or notes, so they're worth a detour when you're riding past.
Achievements & Trophies
Red Dead Redemption 2's awards reward story chapters, side activities, hunting and Red Dead Online, and PlayStation adds a Platinum on top. A few story awards lock for good if you skip them in their chapter, so timing matters more than grinding. Gold Rush is the one that takes repeat play: its 70 Gold Medals add up across Story missions, so you can finish it over several replays.
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.


















































































































































