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Arthur Morgan is never mentioned anywhere in the original Red Dead Redemption, and it's not an oversight. Rockstar genuinely hadn't planned a prequel at the time, and it was only after the first game sold over five million copies in three weeks that the idea of telling the gang's earlier story, and inventing Arthur, ever got off the ground.
The first Red Dead Redemption had a genuinely rough road to release, taking more than five years to finish thanks to how massive and detailed the map was. At one point the delays got so bad that Rockstar reportedly worried the whole project might not be worth it, right up until it actually launched and paid off.
The wanted posters scattered across towns in the first game weren't just set dressing, some tied into actual missions. Rockstar apparently made so many of them during development that a huge number never got used at all, and there's a decent chance a few of those leftover designs quietly resurfaced in the sequel.
