Quests

Red Dead Redemption 2 tells Arthur Morgan's story in six chapters, each tied to a camp, and then hands the epilogue to John. Almost everything else in the game, from a $5 treasure map to a duel with a legendary gunslinger, is a strand that a particular chapter switches on and, in many cases, a later chapter switches off. This guide arranges the folder's 28 mission pages on that timeline: the story chapters first, then every side strand by the chapter that opens it, and finally the list of things that stop being possible once the last chapter ends. Read it before starting Our Best Selves, because that mission is a door that only opens one way.

The six chapters and what each one unlocks

Two details of the chapter pages are worth knowing in advance. Every story mission carries two to five gold medal goals, and they follow a pattern: an accuracy floor between 70 and 90 percent, a headshot count, a timer, and no health items. The chapter pages list each set, and the missions within a chapter can be played in any order, so you can leave a hard medal for a day when your Dead Eye is fuller. The other detail is that some missions vanish: the oil wagon half of Pouring Forth Oil is dropped when no other story mission is available, or once it has sat untouched for four in-game hours.

Side strands by the chapter that opens them

Opened in Chapter 2

The gunslingers page walks each duel in the Levin strand: Billy Midnight on the train out of Rhodes, Black Belle's siege in Bluewater Marsh, Emmet Granger's hog pen, and Flaco Hernandez's cabin at Cairn Lake, where threatening the guards saves the bullets. The photographs unlock the final act only after A Fine Night of Debauchery in Chapter 4, when Slim Grant is cut loose near Annesburg and Calloway shoots him in the back. Bounty hunting has an unusual unlock: Good, Honest, Snake Oil is offered from the start of Chapter 2 until Chapter 5 ends, and the posters at the Saint Denis, Valentine, Strawberry, Rhodes, Blackwater and Tumbleweed offices then open in stages, with Mark Johnson and Robbie Laidlaw after The Joys of Civilization, and Anthony Foreman, Otis Skinner, Elias Green, Joaquin Arroyo and Esteban Cortez only after Gainful Employment in the epilogue. Foreman's poster never appears if you killed him in No, No and Thrice, No.

Opened in Chapter 3

Opened in Chapter 4

Duchesses and Other Animals is the strand most people abandon, because its five lists total 150-odd plumes, eggs and orchids. The exotics page is the companion piece: it maps every orchid by color, notes which ones grow on tree trunks rather than the ground, and explains that a spawn point yields one orchid per stage, so camping and returning is part of the loop. Plumes come from egrets, herons and spoonbills in the Bayou; the gator eggs sit in nests the alligators guard.

Opened in Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter 6 also carries a run of optional honor missions that the chapter page flags one by one. Do Not Seek Absolution needs honor rank 4 or better before Edith Downes appears at the Annesburg mine. Of Men and Angels is four food items or $10 for Sister Calderon. The Course of True Love IV and V put Penelope and Beau on a train to Riggs Station. Money Lending VI and VII bring the last two debtors, John Weathers at Moonstone Pond, where absolving pays 10 honor, and Arthur Londonderry's widow at Butcher Creek, where giving money pays 20. Archeology for Beginners only exists if you agree to help Rains Fall in The Bridge to Nowhere, and finishing it without a kill earns the Owl Feather Trinket; saying yes to Monroe on that ride is what unlocks Honor, Amongst Thieves. Mrs. Sadie Adler, Widow ends the moment you tell her no.

What closes at Chapter 6

• Loansharking. Every debtor on Strauss's list disappears when Chapter 6 ends, so Weathers and Londonderry have to be visited before Our Best Selves.
• The gang's errands. Camp requests for the pipe, pen, pocket watch, harmonica and Hosea's book run out at the end of Chapter 4, and Pearson's compass at the end of Chapter 2; the items guide has each hiding place.
• Arthur's stranger content. The Veteran, the Widow of Willard's Rest and the Chapter 6 honor missions are Arthur's alone, and the chapter page's warning is plain: once Our Best Selves begins, the game runs straight through to the credits.
• Cores. After A Fork in the Road every core drains faster, which makes the timed and no-health-item medals in the last chapter harder than they look.
• The final choice. Red Dead Redemption, the last mission, forks between going back to the cave for the money and helping John up the cliffs, and the fistfight with Micah that follows plays out according to that choice and your honor. The four outcomes are in the game systems guide.

What survives into the epilogue is the New Austin content: the Tumbleweed and Blackwater bounties, the Del Lobo hideouts counted in the locations guide, Micah's revolver on Mount Hagen from the weapons guide, and the special characters and legendary animals of the desert that the characters guide files under Epilogue 1.

Choices that change what exists

Mission questions

Where do bounty targets come from?

From the boards in sheriff and police offices, once Good, Honest, Snake Oil has been played. Reading a poster marks a region; the target is somewhere inside it, usually in a camp or a fortified building, and several must be brought in alive or the job fails.

Which strands can I miss for good?

Loansharking, the companion errands, the four companion coach robberies, Chez Porter and Lonnie's Shack among the homesteads, and every Arthur-only stranger in Chapters 5 and 6. Treasure hunts, hunting requests, the exotics and the Saint Denis strands all wait for the epilogue.

Do stranger missions count toward 100 percent?

Only the story missions are compulsory. The strands pay in trophies of their own instead: Help a Brother Out is one of the honor missions behind Lending a Hand, A Bright Bouncing Boy ends with Artificial Intelligence, and the camp errands add up to Errand Boy. Every one of them is indexed with the rest of the game on the Red Dead Redemption 2 hub.