A Canon Run of Red Dead Redemption 2

[MontyGamerGame]

I have played through Red Dead Redemption 2, roughly, four times or so. I have loved every single playthrough, but now I want to do a final "canon" playthrough. I play through the game as close to canon as possible, essentially playing it out more like Arthur is another NPC than he is, well, me.

 

He has canon (Or what I believe to be canon) hair levels, clothes, weaponry, mounts, the mission order is Arthur doing his jobs as he is told, up until his death, and naturally John applies here too. To that end, this is what I've come up with, let me know what you think:

 

Hair and clothing:

Hair levels are Level 3 for both beard and hair. This is the beard and hair levels he has in the Prologue. You could argue that it grew to that level while he was running from the Pinkertons, but I don't really see that since everybody else has the same beard and hair levels as they normally do. It's weird that he does have a beard though since in all the promotional material and in his default player model in the game files he has no beard either. I'll just ignore this entirely. Clothing runs with just the Gunslinger outfits. Chapter 1 is the Winter outfit (Since you can't change it), Chapter 2 is the regular Gunslinger outfit, Chapter 3 and 4 is his Summer outfit, Chapter 5 is his remnants of his suit (Also the only time where the hair rules don't apply), Chapter 6 is when Arthur goes back to the regular Gunslinger outfit.

John's canon hair levels I don't really know how to get. His hair operates weirdly, and I know there's probably a mod on PC that rectifies this, but I don't have the PC version, I have the PS4 version. I think I'll just have his hair grow long, and have him be clean shaven. Any help with this would be awesome actually. John naturally runs default outfits until after Motherhood, where he is given his Cowboy outfit. He'll run this until he goes to the mountain where he'll dress in his Winter outfit.

 

Weapons:

Arthur can wield any weapon he likes. The Red Dead Wiki however comes in clutch and actually lists the weapons he wields. A customized Cattleman Revolver, a customized Schofield, a customized Carbine Repeater, and a Bolt Action Rifle (I assume the one he gets in Preaching Forgiveness as he Went). I think this is a good indicator of what he'd use, since that's two revolvers and two longarms. He would naturally compensate for whatever situation he's in too, using his knife or bow for stealth, etc. 

John is simpler, I believe, I haven't done the full run + epilogue in a while. According to the wiki, you can use John's custom revolver after Motherhood, he has his own knife (John's Knife) and he has his own custom Lancaster Repeater (Though, as far as I know, you can't wield it). I feel like unlike Arthur, he wouldn't use a bow as he was never properly trained with it, and he'd only ever really use one revolver as I believe he never dual wields in RDR1 (I haven't played that game in well over a year). 

 

Mounts:

Arthur can rise any horse he pleases, as the player can too. However, like the weapons, the wiki comes in clutch and details Arthur's mounts too; the Mahogany Bay Tennessee Walker you get in Chapter 1, the Raven Black Shire you get (Which you can either sell or stable), the Reverse Dapple Black Thoroughbred (The pre-order/special/ultimate edition bonus horse) and finally, Buell. Now, I am in a pickle here. I own the Standard Edition of the game. I cannot get the Ultimate Edition bonus (Unless someone is willing to donate a $150 PSN Australian voucher?) as I do not own the Ultimate Edition. I own the Standard Edition. Besides, the Special edition isn't even being sold nowadays anymore, so the marginally cheaper option is impossible to get.

 

Now, I have three options to work around this: 1, I get access to the Special/Ultimate Edition bonuses somehow, either through legitimate (expensive) or illegitimate means (Illegal, hard to come by anyways). 2, ignore this horse entirely, and stick with the Shire instead until I get Buell. Or 3, I run the Shire throughout Chapter 2, then when Chapter 3 rolls around, I get the Brindle coat horse from the stable in Strawberry. It has the same stats as the Dapple Black one, and looks sorta similar anyways, just with brighter colours. if anybody can help me with Option 1 though, I'd be very happy.

 

John is way simpler. He gets given Rachel, a noble steed, that I'll just use.

 

Missions:

Missions is quite hard, because I am unsure on whether or not to use the Chronological Mission order listed here. Would it be much simpler? Absolutely. But I also feel better just, going from mission to mission much like Arthur would. What do you guys think? Stranger missions I'm split on too. Collectables I'll use the very useful RDR2 Map. However, for mission strands like the Noblest of Men (And a Woman), do I just, do the missions when Arthur is in the area/has already been there (Like, doing Flaco Hernandez' mission after Emmet's as Arthur has already been to the snow). Or do I do them ASAP?

 

That's pretty much it. Sorry for the worst vomit. This is just something I've been working on forever, and any help would be appreciated.

[luckycanadian95]

You can still order the special edition, at least here in Canada. But I have the standard edition as well and these are the horses I usually own:

• Chapter 1: Tennessee Walker, Mahogany Bay
• Chapter 2: American Standardbred, Palomino Dapple [Valentine Stables]
• Chapters 3-5: Thoroughbred, Brindle [Strawberry Stables]
• Chapter 6: 'Buell' Dutch Warmblood, Cremello Gold
• Epilogue: 'Rachel' Thoroughbred, Seal Brown

The brindle Thoroughbred is a beautiful horse, with appropriate midgame stats, and size and build comparable to Arthur's original horse, Boadicea.

For the mission order, a chronological list would make more sense for a 'canon' playthrough in my opinion. But if your goal is just to get immersed as Arthur then yeah play whatever feels natural at the time  That's probably the best approach for stranger missions anyway.

[Buddy Hightower]

In my opinion, a cannon run would see Arthur rushing through the yellow quests and not doing any side missions or hunting/fishing legendries or any collections at all.

 

The Pinkertons are hot on our trail and if we don't get the f*ck out of here like now, we are all dead!

He would be low honor to ANYONE not in the gang, and high honor to anyone who is in the gang,

 

Whenever I do a playthrough where I try to do as much as I can with Arthur, the flow of the game seems off.

Save all of that for John, but John's drawings suck, so that makes me want to draw all points of interest with Arthur.

Can't win!

Edited December 15, 2022 by Buddy Hightower

[MontyGamerGame]

On 12/13/2022 at 1:01 PM, luckycanadian95 said:

You can still order the special edition, at least here in Canada. But I have the standard edition as well and these are the horses I usually own:

• Chapter 1: Tennessee Walker, Mahogany Bay
• Chapter 2: American Standardbred, Palomino Dapple [Valentine Stables]
• Chapters 3-5: Thoroughbred, Brindle [Strawberry Stables]
• Chapter 6: 'Buell' Dutch Warmblood, Cremello Gold
• Epilogue: 'Rachel' Thoroughbred, Seal Brown

The brindle Thoroughbred is a beautiful horse, with appropriate midgame stats, and size and build comparable to Arthur's original horse, Boadicea.

For the mission order, a chronological list would make more sense for a 'canon' playthrough in my opinion. But if your goal is just to get immersed as Arthur then yeah play whatever feels natural at the time  That's probably the best approach for stranger missions anyway.

I can imagine using all of those horses. But I ended up buying the Ultimate Edition of Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC since it was $42 AUD. I'm grateful that I did, because now I'm using Lenny's Mod Loader, which is just, plain awesome.

 

I might just follow the Chronological Mission Order, since that may be better anyways. Though I'll do the Stranger Missions whenever I'm comfortable. I thought about doing the stranger missions as John but watching the cutscenes feel very wrong. Arthur's voice is just so much more fitting for most of them

On 12/16/2022 at 3:03 AM, Buddy Hightower said:

In my opinion, a cannon run would see Arthur rushing through the yellow quests and not doing any side missions or hunting/fishing legendries or any collections at all.

 

The Pinkertons are hot on our trail and if we don't get the f*ck out of here like now, we are all dead!

He would be low honor to ANYONE not in the gang, and high honor to anyone who is in the gang,

 

Whenever I do a playthrough where I try to do as much as I can with Arthur, the flow of the game seems off.

Save all of that for John, but John's drawings suck, so that makes me want to draw all points of interest with Arthur.

Can't win!

I would agree, but Rob's line delivery feels very off. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll get used to them, but Idk

Edited December 25, 2022 by MontyGamerGame
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