In 1899 the era of the Wild West is coming to an end as the federal government asserts its control over the lawless territories. Realizing that their fortunes are fading, Dutch Van der Linde's notorious gang plots one last major bank robbery that could set them for life. However, the heist goes awry with several gang members dead or captured; the gang is forced to flee across the country with the law pursuing them. Undeterred, Dutch hopes to pull off one last heist and flee the country. However each scheme ends in failure and Dutch's most-trusted lieutenant, Arthur Morgan, sees his loyalty to the gang put to the test as he is forced to come to terms with the changing times.
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Rockstar can never resist a Sasquatch nod, and RDR2 hides one on Mount Shann, north of Strawberry. Climb high enough and you'll find an enormous skeleton lodged in the rock. The game never says what it is outright, but most players are fairly certain it's meant to be Bigfoot.
Out in the wilderness sits a corpse with a strange, almost feline curl to his lip. Dig through the game's internal files and he's actually labelled COUGAR_MAN, which has led people to tie him back to an old glitch from the original Red Dead Redemption where a human character model somehow ended up with a cougar's attributes.
Deep in the swamps of Bayou Nwa, past the gators and the outlaws trying to kill you, there's a genuinely tiny little church. Arthur can only just fit through the doorway, and the pews inside look like they were built for someone a fraction of his size.
Take a proper look behind the counter at the Saint Denis general store and you'll spot the Undead Mask from the first game's zombie-themed Undead Nightmare expansion sitting on a shelf. It's purely a display piece this time around though, you can't pick it up or wear it.
Near Braithwaite Manor there's a chained-shut outhouse that's easy to walk straight past. Get close enough and you'll hear a woman inside muttering gibberish to herself. Switch to first-person and peer through the gaps and she might just lunge at you. The game never tells you what, exactly, she is.
Head into Bluewater Marsh after dark and you might come across a crying woman, or grim little scenes of bodies strung up in the trees. Get too close to either and the Night Folk will crawl out of hiding to come after you. Anyone who played the original game's Undead Nightmare DLC will recognise the vibe instantly.
Years after release, players including Pariah87 and goldenplaysterraria stumbled on a spider-web symbol carved into a telegraph pole that nobody had ever documented before. It went viral in the community all over again, and even with plenty of digging, nobody has managed to fully explain what it's actually referencing.
The way the gang gets talked about in-game echoes two very real crews from the era: Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and the Dalton Gang, both of whom actually rode through the American West around the same period the game is set in.
The character Black Belle borrows from two very different real-life figures at once, Belle Starr, the outlaw known as the 'Bandit Queen', and Annie Oakley, the famous sharpshooter. Rockstar seems to have blended traits from both into the one fictional character.
The name Billy Midnight is a reference to Robert Ford, the real outlaw remembered for shooting his own gang leader Jesse James in the back. He's one of several characters scattered through the game built around real names from Wild West history.
