Red Dead Redemption 2 presents you with moral choices throughout the course of its campaign. These choices can come in the form of helping prisoners, aiding old friends, or assisting random strangers found within the game world. Your choices are linked to your honor system and depending on which way it skews towards the end of Arthurs’ journey, your ending will change, in addition to one final choice that you have to make.
In this guide, we’ll explore what choices you need to make to get each ending in Red Dead Redemption 2. We’ll also go over how your honor rating affects the outcome and explain what it means. Without any further ado let’s get into it.
Red Dead Redemption 2 keeps track of all choices and decisions you make, through its honor system. The honor system tracks whether you are honorable (good) or dishonorable (bad)
All of these choices affect weather conditions, cut scenes, music, and the endings of the game. Your game is affected depending on how Arthur skews.
If you play the game as a dishonorable character, you’ll occasionally see flash cut-scenes of a wolf in the night, suggesting that you’re on the wrong path.
On the other hand, if you make honorable choices, you’ll see a deer in a better environment, hinting at your benevolence.
No matter what you do throughout the game, towards the end of Arthur’s story, you’ll arrive at a point where Arthur and John split from the Van Der Linde gang.
You’ll get two different options in the final mission. You can either save John and help him escape or pursue Dutch’s money, which he’s hidden since the events of Blackwater.
There are two distinct endings in Red Dead Redemption 2 based on your choice. Your honor system rating adds subtle differences to certain dialogues and outcomes, which brings the total number of endings to four. There is no true ending in Red Dead Redemption 2.
Good Ending + High Honor
To get the good ending, choose to help John. You’ll have to help him escape through a cliff while fighting off a couple of Pinkertons. Eventually, you’ll get to fight Micah but it ends in a draw.
If your honor meter is high; Arthur says that he tried his best to change, unlike Dutch and Micah. Though he’s already dying from tuberculosis, both of them leave Arthur to die in peace while he looks at the sunset.
With this ending, you’ll once again see a deer sequence because of the honorable deeds you did throughout the game.
Good Ending + Low Honor
If your Honor meter is low, Arthur states that both he and Bell are horrible people. Bell kills Morgan with a gunshot to the head. The Dishonorable ending results in a Wolf sequence before the credits start to roll.
Bad Ending + High Honor
RDR2’s bad ending involves you going out for money by going back to the camp in Beaver Hollow. You’ll have to fight Micah in the cave which ends in a draw. Soon after, Dutch will arrive to stop you from killing Micah, but he does manage to stab Arthur.
Arthur then tries to convince Dutch by telling him that Micah is a rat, Dutch leaves, leaving Arthur in the Hands of Micah. Micah does not kill him and leaves him to die of his sickness and stab wound. The deer sequence will play out as it did in ending #1.
Bad Ending + Low Honor
If your honor is low, this ending will play out quite similarly, but instead of leaving Arthur to die, Micah will finish the job by stabbing Arthur once again. The wolf cutscene will appear like it did in Ending #2.
Epilogue
Like the first game, the main story’s ending is followed by an extensive epilogue. After a few years, you play as John Marston, alongside fellow outlaws Sadie Adler and Charles Smith.
You set out for revenge against Micah Bell, who you track down in the mountains. After a fight, Adler and Marston have Micah at gunpoint, only for Dutch to appear with weapons aimed at both.
Micah takes Sadie hostage, while John tries to convince Dutch that siding with Micah is the wrong play. Micah is then shot by Dutch, and then John finishes him off. Dutch then silently leaves.
John and Sadie take the Blackwater money and leave. The story ends with John’s return to the ranch, where Abigail, Jack, and Uncle are waiting, and the credits will roll, leading perfectly into the events of the first Red Dead Redemption.
