If you want to know more, check out our review of Red Dead Redemption 2 or our Red Dead 2 wiki guide.
1. Arthur’s facial hair grows in the game’s real-time, and his options when styling it depend on how long it’s gotten – just like facial hair in real life.2. Arthur can shave at his tent in camp, going clean shaven, keeping a full beard and anything between. He can trim the different areas of his face separately – chin, cheeks, sideburns – so they’re short, medium, or long.
3. To change his hairstyle, Arthur will need to visit a barber in town. He can use purchased pomade to style it, too.
4. Arthur’s beard even has its own physics, bobbing and shifting around depending on how much weight it has.
Lawmen will wait for a fistfight to settle down before asking you to move along.
“
6. Arthur will visibly lose or gain weight depending on how much food he eats.
7. Fellow gang members will also loot downed bodies, so move fast or they’ll bogart all the extra cash and ammo.
8. Your hat can get knocked off in a fistfight or shot off in a gunfight.
9. Lawmen will wait for a fistfight to settle down before asking you to move along.
10. You can craft hats out of animal pelts, like raccoons or foxes.
11. Outfits are customizable to an impressive degree. You can choose to have your pants tucked into your boot or not, sleeves rolled up or not, etc.12. Weapons get dirty and clogged up over time, or if you get them wet, so you’ll need to clean them to get the best performance.
13. Similarly, your horse will get covered in mud over time, which slows it down, and requires grooming to fix – though it can also be cleaned by riding it through a body of water or a rainstorm.
14. Your horse will bond more strongly with you the better fed it is.
15. Arthur’s comments while grooming or soothing his horse change depending on the sex of the horse.
16. If Arthur is covered in mud or blood the reaction you’ll get from those around you will be different than if he were clean.
17. Snow on Arthur’s clothing will eventually melt. Mud will harden and wipe away. Blood will dry.
18. You can choose what position you ride in when you’re in a group.
19. You cannot ride the horses of other gang members. Dutch’s horse will actually kick you if you get too close to it.
20. There are 192 separate pieces of score (not including ambient themes), with Composer Woody Jackson returning to create the music for Red Dead Redemption II.
21. You can tap R2 to rapidly fire from the hip, which proves handy if you’re ambushed.
22. When reloading, Arthur adds individual bullets into each chamber. If you double-tap L1, Arthur puts his gun away with a flourish.
23. When using a repeater, you can pause the lever-action mid-co*ck for dramatic effect.
24. Gunshots make different sounds depending on whether you’re in a tighter indoor corridor versus the outdoors.
The moon operates on accurate lunar cycles.
“
26. Arthur dynamically shields his eyes or ears just before dynamite goes off.
27. Horses poop dynamically.
28. In the settings of First Person Mode, you can opt to hide certain visual encumbrances in first-person mode, like your horse’s bobbing head.
29. The HUD is customizable, so you can remove the minimap and other on-screen cues if you desire.
30. Pause the game or press down on the D-Pad, and the current time and temperature is displayed.
31. The moon operates on accurate lunar cycles.
32. You can customize weapons at the gunsmith with usual upgrades like longer and rifled barrels or improved iron sights, but you can also add little details like etchings and engravings to both the metal casing and the handle of a weapon. There are various designs that can also be customized with a variety of colors.
33. Items can be purchased at general stores by walking around and picking them up off shelves, but there’s also a catalog, too. The Sears & Roebuck-esque catalog sits on the counter, and you can zoom in on every article and full-page ad and read it. The gunsmith also has one of these, with hundreds of words written about every item.
Putting on a bandana during a crime and then taking it off afterwards makes the Wanted meter drop faster.
“
35. If your horse dies, it’s gone – they’re not like cars in Grand Theft Auto 5, which can be resurrected via an insurance claim.
36. You can tell your horse to flee when it’s in a precarious situation to try to spare its life.
37. Your choice of clothing has an impact on the game. You’ll need to wrap up warm when the temperature drops and shed layers when it gets unbearably hot.
38. You can customize and decorate your camp with the pelts and bones of animals you’ve hunted.
39. Putting on a bandana during a crime and then taking it off afterwards makes the Wanted meter drop faster.
40. The wildlife operates as a functioning ecosystem – predators hunt and feed on prey, even hawks and eagles will dive to catch fish or small game like squirrels or rabbits.
If you leave the bodies of animals where you killed them, they will attract scavengers. Carcasses will decompose over time.
“
42. Occasionally, at camp, you can sing along to the music. You can continue to sing while walking around – even if you don’t know all the words.
43. Arthur will sing to himself while he’s riding alone.
44. NPCs all have individual facial animations.
45. They also have varying personality types that determine how they react to your actions towards them.
46. The Wild West isn’t a period known for great dental hygiene, and the denizens of Red Dead reflect that.
47. If you leave the bodies of animals where you killed them, they will attract scavengers. Carcasses will decompose over time.
48. Opossums pretend to be dead when threats – including Arthur – are nearby.49. Nearby predators will scare your horse if you don’t run away from it or deal with it in time.
50. If you get a bounty on your head in a town and then clear your name by paying the said bounty, townspeople will still remember any trouble you caused and comment on it when you return.
51. Similarly, if you save someone out in the wilderness, they’ll remember you – and often thank you – if they see you again in town.
52. If a thunderstorm strikes, your horse will get visibly agitated.
53. Lightning will sometimes strike trees, which you can see burst into flames and sparks in the distance.
54. The bond with your horse is important. Increasing the bonding with your horse unlocks tricks such as rearing, skid turns, and dressage.
55. The stronger your bond with your horse, the less skittish it will be.
56. If you haven’t got a good relationship with a horse, watch out when walking behind them – they’re likely to kick.
As you skin an animal, you can see where the exit wounds are.
“
58. Then again, you can also hijack and drive trains by galloping alongside them and jumping aboard.
59. If you shoot an animal with a bullet rather than an arrow, it’ll fetch a lower price at the town butcher than a clean kill.
60. As you skin an animal, you can see where the exit wounds are.
61. Arthur’s jacket will be left bloodied if he carries a skinned animal on his shoulders, and your horse’s rear will be smeared with blood too after delivering your kills to the butcher.
62. Arthur can look at his reflection in the mirror and will comment on what he sees.
63. Newspapers will cover events that occur throughout the story.
64. You can see the heat haze from a pair of gelding tongs, often causing the characters standing behind it to shimmer.
Bullet impacts briefly heat the objects that they strike.
“
66. Bullet impacts briefly heat the objects that they strike.
67. Mud, snow, and dirt indent and shape dynamically around your and everyone else’s steps, or around bodies should you fall over.
68. Horses with larger legs and hooves will leave wider trails in snow than skinnier-legged horses.
69. Snow will accumulate naturally in places that have been trodden over. Snow will also fall off trees.
70. Arthur gets dirt under his fingernails.
71. You can pat dogs. Those dogs won’t bark at you again if you see them.Honor can also affect Arthur’s dreams – higher honor makes his dreams more peaceful, while lower honor results in more troubling visions.
“
73. You can shoot off someone’s hat and then steal it. Some hats around the world are considered Special.
74. Kill cams are impacted by your honor. If you play honorably, the camera on a kill replay will focus on Arthur. If you’re dishonorable, it’ll focus on the kill, and represent it in a gorier way. The less honor you have, the less visible Arthur will be in the background of the camera view.
75. The most obvious honorable versus dishonorable choice won’t always be apparent. Killing an O’Driscoll, one of the rival gang members, won’t be considered dishonorable. But if you escalate the conversation before killing them, it will be.
76. Honor can also affect Arthur’s dreams – higher honor makes his dreams more peaceful, while lower honor results in more troubling visions.
77. Arthur physically moves dead bodies to loot them.78. If Arthur hasn’t bathed in a couple of days, you can see his body odor when using Eagle Eye.
Just like with strangers you meet around the world, you can antagonize your own crew members at camp. But if you do, other camp members will take notice and comment on it in the future.
“
80. Moving your cursor around the world map invokes a wind sound to indicate your movement.
81. When Arthur comes across a point of interest not on his map, he draws it in himself.
82. You can shoot a horse to knock an enemy off its back.
83. Your camp runs on a schedule. In the morning, your gang members might walk out of their tents in their long johns. People will sleep at night, and gather around for food calls.
84. Just like with strangers you meet around the world, you can antagonize your own crew members at camp. But if you do, other camp members will take notice and comment on it in the future.
85. Different hunted-and-killed animals get placed on different spots on Arthur’s horse (i.e. rabbits hang off of the saddle, deer are slung over the back of the horse, etc.)
86. Your jacket gets claw-tears on it if an animal melee/grapples you.87. You can find references to other Red Dead characters, like Dutch’s mother or famed gunslinger Landon Ricketts, among others.
Fellow gang members will sometimes break you out of prison.
“
89. The inclusion of horse testicl*s are, generally speaking, historically inaccurate, as un-gelded horses are incredibly dangerous to ride.
90. Arrows will wiggle once you hit a target.
91. NPCs will carry away dead bodies.
92. Fellow gang members will sometimes break you out of prison.
93. NPCs will protect each other.94. If you shoot the bottom of your boat it will take on water and eventually sink.
95. Your footsteps sound different depending on what you're wearing in houses.
96. Your clothes will only get partially wet depending on how far into water you go.
If your horse is dirty, and you remove its saddle, you’ll see the lines of where the saddle once was.
“
98. Your beard will only grow so long on its own, but you can use hair tonic to keep growing.
99. Your beard has its own physics – once it gets long enough it will bounce around under its own shifting weight.
100. If you aren’t paying attention, hogtied NPCs can wriggle out of their ropes.
101. If your horse is dirty, and you remove its saddle, you’ll see the lines of where the saddle once was.
