Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Summary
Spoiler Warning: Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive game. Whether you played through it and were still confused, or just want to know what happened, you’re probably found this article looking for a story summary of Red Dead Redemption 2. If somehow, you’re here by accident, this is your warning to leave if you do not want to be spoiled on the plot, and ending, of the game. If you’d rather just read our review, go ahead and click that link.
Chapter 1 of Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 begins with the Dutch van der Linde gang in dire straights. They have fled to the mountains after a robbery gone wrong. Some members of the gang are dead or missing, and those that are still with the group are trying to find shelter in blizzard conditions.
Arthur Morgan, the main character, is able to help secure temporary shelter for the group in an old mining abandoned mining camp. Along the way, he rescues John Marston, one of the members of the gang that were separated after the robbery in Blackwater went south.
The gang stumbles onto an O’Driscoll hideout (a rival gang), and after taking care of them, they discover plans for a train robbery that they were planning, and rescue a recent widow, Sadie Adler, who decides to join the gang. Dutch, the leader of the self-named gang, decides to take on the plans for that robbery in their stead.
The train is a private one owned by Leviticus Cornwall, a powerful and wealthy business owner. The robbery is successful, but Dutch, Arthur, and the rest of the gang will learn that Cornwall doesn’t take kindly to being robbed. Cornwall will hire the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency to hunt Dutch’s gang down.
Chapters 2 and 3 of Red Dead Redemption 2
Arthur, Dutch, and the rest of the gang try to settle peacefully nearby a small town called Valentine. Until Dutch decides his next move, Arthur tries his best to help out the gang. He goes on hunting trips, rescues Micah and Sean from being hanged, pulls off another train robbery with John, and does a little debt collection all to help keep the coffers full.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency led by Agent Miller takes notice though, and attempts to turn Arthur against his brothers and sisters in the gang. He refuses, but the gang eventually pushes their luck too much though after a bank robbery. It ends up in a shootout that leaves a lot of law in Valentine dead, and the group is forced to go on the move again.
They go south this time, near the plantation town of Rhodes. Rhodes is dominated by two prominent families that are in the midst of a feud, the Grays and the Braithwaites. There are long standing rumors in the town that either, or both, of the families have hidden gold. Dutch, still searching for a big score that can allow him and everyone else to retire for good, decides to try and find it.
Hosea, Dutch’s oldest friend and most trusted advisor, helps Dutch come up with the plan to play both sides against each other. They are going to try to warm up to both sides of this feud, and when their war hits its climax, run off with the gold. Arthur is complicit and helps both sides attack each other to try and escalate the tension between the two.
It seems to be going well for a while, Arthur and Dutch are even made deputies. However, it turns out that they were the ones getting played the whole time.
The Grays set up an ambush which ends up with Sean, a prominent member of the gang, getting killed, and in the midst of that, Jack Marston, John’s son, is kidnapped by the matriarch of the Braithwaite family, Catherine Braithwaite.
Arthur and the gang defeat the Grays in town, and the Braithwaites on their plantation, but Jack is gone. Catherine Braithwaite has moved Jack to Saint Denis knowing that they would eventually come for him at her manor. They all move out to a new location closer to Saint Denis as they plan Jack’s rescue, and to stay on the run from the Pinkertons.
Chapters 4 and 5 of Red Dead Redemption 2
Arthur and company do some detective work around Saint Denis, a modern industrial city in comparison to everywhere else they have been, and learn that he is being held by Angelo Bronte, a powerful crime lord.
They confront Bronte, and are able to peacefully negotiate Jack’s release. He was unharmed the entire time and actually seemed to enjoy his time with “Papa” Bronte.
Bronte provides Dutch with a tip on a score. Apparently the trolley station keeps a lot of money hidden. We’ll get to that in a moment.
While Dutch plans his next score, still with the same goal of getting enough money to retire everyone somewhere far away (Tahiti seems to be the most popular option now), Arthur assists with a riverboat casino heist, and meets Rains Fall, a leader of a Native American tribe that is being pursued by the government.
Arthur will come to develop a strong friendship with Rains Fall, but again, more on that later, it’s just worth mentioning for now.
The Pinkertons are still right on Dutch’s tail, the coffers aren’t getting any higher, and on top of all that, the O’Driscolls have learned of their location, and launch an attack on their new camp. Dutch is growing increasingly desperate, inpatient, and reckless, and in this mindset, decides to hit the trolley station without much of a solid plan. Arthur, still loyal to Dutch, decides to help him.
It turns out that Bronte played them. There’s no money at the trolley station, and now, on top of everything else, the local law enforcement is onto them as well. Dutch is livid.
Despite heavy protest from Hosea, Dutch decides to attack Bronte, and then with him out of the way, attack the Bank of Saint Denis. The bank is a “city bank” and presumably has a lot of money, but is also way more heavily guarded.
The attack on Bronte goes well enough, but Dutch is still unhinged. He murders Bronte brutally, which shocks John and Arthur, and then without much thought to it, decides to go hit the Bank of Saint Denis, despite heavy protest from Arthur and Hosea.
The attempted bank robbery is a mess. Hosea, Dutch’s best friend and moral compass is killed along with Lenny, a member of the gang that both Dutch and Arthur were particularly fond of. John is captured by the police, and key members of the gang are forced into hiding. Arthur, Dutch and Micah make off the with gold, and flee onto a boat.
The plan was to escape to Cuba with the gold, lie low, and then return for everyone else and chart a passage to Tahiti or Australia to retire. However, the boat sinks during a storm, and Arthur, Dutch and Micah are marooned on a small island off the coast of Cuba called Guarma.
Guarma is run by a brutal leader known as Fussar. He makes money off of the sugar fields he owns there, and enslaves and tortures the locals into working it. The only way off the island is to befriend and help these people in breaking Fussar’s grasp so they can cause enough of a distraction to safely escape via boat.
Arthur and the crew are successful. They aid the locals and a rebel known as Hercule, and kill Fussar in his compound after an extremely dramatic battle featuring literal warships. They escape and return to the gang still camped out somewhat near Saint Denis.
However, not long after they settle into their new temporary home, the Pinkertons show up to greet them with a massive attack. The group is once again, force to flee. This time they go north to a mountain camp near the mining town of Annesburg. A town that Cornwall has a lot of financial interest in.
Finally, before the chapter ends, Arthur mysteriously collapses and is forced to see a doctor. He learns that he has contracted Tuberculosis and will very likely not live long, especially if he continues to engage in these dangerous activities. This changes Arthur’s look on life quite dramatically for the final parts of the game.
Chapter 6 of Red Dead Redemption 2
Failure after failure has finally taken its toll on the gang at this point. Seeing that the end is near, people are beginning to flee the camp. Even Arthur has resigned that the dream is basically dead at this point, and just wants to finally do some good for once with whatever time he hast left.
He starts by helping Sadie (who has grown into quite the outlaw throughout the course of the game), free John from prison, reuniting him with Abigail and Jack. Then, Arthur tries to help Rains Fall keep the Wapiti people out of a conflict with the U.S. government stationed nearby.
Rains Fall’s son, Eagle Flies, is young and hotheaded. Dutch sees this is an opportunity. He wants to convince Eagle Flies to attack a compound owned by the U.S. government, in order to cause a big enough distraction for one last big score, the one he has been searching for the entire story.
Dutch’s plan, as heartless as it is, seems to work. Dutch confronts Cornwall and kills him, in hopes that it will relieve the pressure from the Pinkertons. Despite Arthur and Rains Fall’s attempts to dissuade him, Eagle Flies leads an attack on the U.S. government which gets himself killed, but did indeed cause a huge distraction.
Charles decides to stay with the tribe for now to help them get through what is about to be a really tough time. And finally, around the same time as all of this, Colm O’Driscoll, the leader of the rival O’Driscoll gang, is finally hanged.
In a messed up sort of way, everything is starting to come together for Dutch who is morally lost at this point. This is thanks in part to the cold-hearted guidance of Micah, who has replaced Hosea as Dutch’s right-hand man in the time since.
Thanks to the attack by Eagle Flies, Dutch is able to secure information that a train filled with Army payroll is on the way, and the plan is to intercept it, rob it, and finally have enough money to flee once and for all. Arthur, with not much else to live for at this point, begrudgingly agrees to help with this final job.
The attack is somewhat successful, well, at least for Micah and Dutch as they are able to secure the payroll. During the robbery, John is shot and presumed dead, and Abigail is captured by the Pinkertons back at the camp. The Pinkerton raid forces just about everyone else that was still hanging on to hope, such as Tilly, to flee.
Dutch, Micah, and those still loyal to Dutch such as Javier and Bill, decide to leave Abigail behind. Sadie and Arthur to try to and help Abigail.
Sadie and Arthur lead a successful attack on the Pinkertons at Van Horn, rescue Abigail and finally kill Agent Miller. However, before he died, he revealed that Micah, had been an informant for the Pinkertons ever since they returned from Guarma.
Originally, Molly O’Shea, Dutch’s girlfriend, was believed to be the informant. With Abigail now safe, Arthur goes to confront Micah and Dutch with this newly found information.
Micah denies Arthur’s accusations, and Dutch is left confused, not knowing who to believe. He ultimately sides with Micah, and things get more dramatic when John returns. He’s not actually dead as it turns out, but this is not surprising since we know he obviously survives to be the main character in Red Dead 1.
John accuses Dutch of leaving him for dead (twice now after the Saint Denis bank robbery) and Arthur also sees Dutch for who he truly is now. Dutch previously also left Arthur for dead back during Eagle Flies’ attack on the army compound.
Things are about to go down between the two factions, when the Pinkertons show up and forces everyone to scatter. Micah, Dutch, Bill and the rest of his loyalists escape. Arthur and John flee into the caves near camp.
At this point in the game, the player has two choices to change the outcome slightly. You can either help John or choose to go back for the money.
If Arthur helps John escape, he convinces him to run with his family and never look back. Arthur, knowing he doesn’t have much time anyway, tries to hold off Micah and Dutch as well as all the Pinkertons.
Micah inevitably catches up to John, and the two engage in a fistfight which more or less ends in a draw. Arthur tries to reach for a gun to finish off Micah, but Dutch interrupts him. Arthur tries to plead with Dutch and convince him them Micah is the true rat, but Dutch is left confused.
Dutch doesn’t kill Arthur, but he doesn’t help him either. Arthur, extremely weak from his sickness, and broken with nothing else to give, or live for, but notes that he tried his best to change and in the end he won in doing so. He dies looking off into the beautiful view, his tuberculosis getting the best of him.
If Arthur chose to go after the money, though, this ending is altered in that he is ultimately overpowered by Micah, and Micah then shoots him dead.
Note that ultimately what truly matters for your ending is whether you were honorable or dishonorable by the end. If you were honorable, Arthur dies peacefully knowing he truly turned over a new leaf. If you were dishonorable, Micah shoots you in the face.
This kicks off the epilogue.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Summary: The Epilogue
The game picks up a few years in the future with John Marston now as the main character. He is trying to make Abigail happy by leaving his old life behind, and staying out of trouble, but is struggling to do so. The two of them wind up on a ranch, where John works as a hand.
He still isn’t able to shake his past though. Bounty hunters confront John, and an attack on the ranch forces John to get involved in a violent defense of the ranch. Abigail can’t take it anymore and leaves with Jack.
John, upset but not broken, tries to prove to Abigail that he can change. He works at the ranch long enough to convince a bank that he’s worthy of a loan to buy land (Beecher’s Hope) that Abigail had previously told him that she wanted. He runs into Uncle and Charles, and the three of them help John build up his dump of a property into a beautiful livestock ranch of his own.
Abigail eventually returns to John with Jack, and for some time, the five of them live in relative peace. In that time period, John learns to be a better man to Abigail, and father to Jack. John eventually formally proposes to Abigail, and the two decide to get married.
However, in the time period leading up to this, John also ran into Sadie. Sadie had discovered the possible whereabouts of Micah, and not long after John and Abigail decide to get married, Sadie lets Charles and John know that it’s time to finish off Micah and get their revenge. Despite Abigail’s protests, John decides that he needs to close this part of his life once and for to feel truly free.
The three of them storm the mountain compound where Micah is hiding. Charles and Sadie are injured along the way, but not gravely. It does force John to confront Micah alone. Sadie catches up and tries to help John get the jump on Micah, but is captured and held hostage. To John’s surprise, Dutch emerges, and standoff begins.
John calls out Micah for all the terrible things that did to the gang, and Arthur especially. Dutch appears visibly torn about what to do, and isn’t really saying much. He seems completely broken, despite having made off with lots of money, and even after finally recovering the money back from the original Blackwater robbery in the time since.
Much to shock of everyone, Dutch shoots Micah. This gives John the opportunity he needs to finish off Micah. John is thankful, and although it doesn’t completely absolve Dutch of everything he did, it does appear that Dutch feels some remorse for all that he did to John, Arthur, and the rest of the gang. Dutch flees, and leaves the money behind, which Sadie and John collect.
The game wraps up with a post-credit sequence, showing Charles and Sadie going their separate ways, where various members of the gang ended up, and Abigail and John living happily in Beecher’s Hope.
However, it also shows how Edgar Ross, one of the villains of the first game, learns about John’s identity and whereabouts. This completes the link to the events of Red Dead Redemption 1.
That does it for our story summary of Red Dead Redemption 2. We hope you enjoyed the plot as much we did.
