79 amazing little details in ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’

Red Dead Redemption 2 promises an unparalleled level of depth, from its vast, sprawling world, to the people and animals within it, and how it all fits together in a way that is quite unlike any open-world game before it. You never quite know how each encounter with another character will pan out because each person is different. Similarly, it’s filled with moments where you’ll ask yourself, “I wonder if I can do that?”, and chances are you probably can, no matter how outrageous it is.

Below is a list of the cool, quirky and downright awesome little touches we’ve noticed so far with our time in Red Dead Redemption 2. If you want to know more, check out our impressions of Red Dead 2 after playing it for two hours, or how the new dialogue systems turn the game into a comedy.

1) Arthur’s facial hair grows in the game’s real-time, and his options when styling it depend on how long it’s gotten — just like facial hair in real life.

2) Arthur can shave at his tent in camp, going clean shaven, keeping a full beard and anything between. He can trim the different areas of his face – chin, cheeks, sideburns – so they’re short, medium or long.

3) To change his hairstyle Arthur will need to visit a barber in town.

4) If you don’t eat and rest, Arthur will suffer from fatigue.

5) Arthur will visibly lose or gain weight depending on how much food he eats.

6) Bodies of downed enemies are marked as a small ‘x’ on the minimap, so you can go back and loot their corpses.

7) Similarly, killed animals are marked with a paw print on the minimap.

8) Fellow gang members will also loot downed bodies, so move fast or they’ll bogart all the extra cash and ammo.

“Weapons get dirty and clogged up and need cleaning for the best performance”

9) If you lose a hat or weapon it will reappear on your horse’s saddle; if you lose your saddle it will reappear at a stable.

10) If you lose your hat, it will also appear as an icon on the mini-map.

11) You can wear animal carcasses as a hat.

12) Outfits are customizable to an insane degree. You can choose to have your pants tucked into your boot or not, or sleeves rolled up or not, for instance.

13) Weapons get dirty and clogged up over time, or if you get them wet, so you’ll need to clean them to get the best performance.

14) Similarly, your horse will get covered in mud over time, which slows it down, and will need grooming — though a horse can be cleaned by riding it through a body of water or a rainstorm.

15) Arthur’s comments while grooming or soothing his horse will change depending on the sex of the horse.

16) If Arthur is covered in mud or blood the reaction you’ll get from those around you will be different than if he were clean.

17) Snow on Arthur’s clothing will eventually melt. Mud will harden and wipe away. Blood will dry.

18) If you hold the trackpad to turn on the cinematic camera you can set a waypoint and hold X and your horse will automatically make its way to the destination. Or you can move around of your own accord.

19) You can switch camera angles while in cinematic view.

20) If you’re riding with other gang members, holding X in cinematic mode ensures you ride as a pack at the same pace as them.

21) You can choose what position you ride in when you’re in a group.

22) Dutch rides an albino horse with blue eyes.

23) Composer Woody Jackson returns to create the music for Red Dead Redemption II. There are 192 separate pieces of score, not including ambient themes.

24) As Arthur’s Dead Eye skill develops he’ll be able to target critical hit areas such as an enemy’s vital organs. This is also useful for getting clean kills when hunting.

25) Tap R2 to rapidly fire from the hip, which proves handy if you’re ambushed.

26) If you double-tap L1 Arthur puts his gun away with a flourish.

27) Hold up on the D-pad while aiming and Arthur will fire a warning shot in the air, which can be used to attract the attention of other characters or startle an animal he’s hunting.

28) Arthur dynamically shields his eyes just before dynamite goes off.

29) Horses poop dynamically.

30) The entire game can be played in first-person mode.

31) The HUD is customisable, so you can remove the minimap and other on-screen cues if you desire.

32) Pause the game or press down on the D-Pad, and the current time and temperature is displayed.

33) Arthur can swim (but not very well).

34) There are lots of weapon crafting options: so far we’ve seen molotovs (known as fire bottles), split-point bullets and ‘improved’ ammo for guns, as well as ‘improved’, fire, and small game arrows for a bow.

35) You can customise weapons at the gunsmith. Upgrades include longer and rifled barrels or improved ironsights, plus you can add etchings and engraving to both the metal casing and the handle of a weapon.

36) Items can be purchased at general stores by walking around and picking them up off shelves, but there’s also a catalog here, too. The Sears & Roebuck-esque catalog sits on the counter, and you can zoom in on every article and full-page ad and read it. The gunsmith also has one of these, with hundreds of words written about every item.

37) Visit the Stables to customise your horse, switching out its saddle, blanket, stirrups, reins and saddle horn. You can also change the style of its mane and tail, making it short, medium or long, adding braids or even changing to dreadlocks.

38) You can ‘store’ horses in stables, in case you need a ‘back-up’ horse, because…

39) If your horse dies, it’s gone; they’re not like cars in GTA V that can be resurrected via an insurance claim.

40) You can tell your horse to flee when it’s in a precarious situation to try to spare its life.

41) Your choice of clothing has an impact on the game. You’ll need to wrap up warm when the temperature drops and shed layers when it gets unbearably hot.

42) Loot that Arthur discovers will sometimes be split between him and the camp.

43) A red Wanted bar flashes on screen when you attract the attention of the law. The colour drains away as the heat dies down.

44) Putting on a bandana during a crime and then taking it off afterwards makes the Wanted meter drop faster, providing you’re out of the search radius.

45) You can pay off your own bounty by visiting the nearest Post Office during the day.

46) There’s a Victrola at camp, and certain NPC companions will serenade you with song.

47) NPCs all have individual facial animations, and the AI’s reactions to Arthur’s behavior will be more nuanced than the fight-or-flight mentality of GTA V’s pedestrians.

48) The Wild West isn’t a period known for great dental hygiene, and the denizens of Red Dead reflect that.

49) If you leave the bodies of animals where you killed them, they will attract scavengers. Carcasses will decompose over time.

50) Opossums play Opossum (they pretend to be dead when threats – including Arthur – are nearby).

51) If you get a bounty on your head in a town and then clear your name by paying the said bounty, townspeople will still remember any trouble you caused and comment on it when you return.

52) If a thunderstorm strikes, your horse will get visibly agitated.

53) The bond with your horse is important. Increasing the bond with your horse unlocks tricks such as rearing, skid turns and dressage.

54) The stronger your bond with your horse, the less skittish it will be in high-stress scenarios such as in a gunfight or under threat from a bear.

55) If you haven’t got a good relationship with a horse, watch out when walking behind them — they’re likely to kick.

56) You can buy tickets to ride trains from the Post Office. Riding the train is a form of fast travel, but you’ll leave your horse behind.

57) Then again, you can also hijack and drive trains by galloping alongside them and jumping aboard.

58) If you shoot an animal with a bullet rather than an arrow, it’ll fetch a lower price at the town butcher than a clean kill.

59) As you skin an animal, you can see where the exit wounds are.

60) Arthur’s jacket will be left bloodied if he carries a skinned animal on his shoulders, and your horse’s rear will be smeared with blood too after delivering your kills to the butcher.

61) Arthur can look at his reflection in the mirror and will comment on what he sees.

62) You can buy newspapers which will cover events that occur throughout the story.

“Arthur’s jacket will be left bloodied if he carries a skinned animal on his shoulders”

63) The game is packed with subtle visual effects, like heat haze from a pair of gelding tongs causing the characters standing behind it to shimmer; condensation from the breath of humans and horses in the snow; and the soft glow of super-heated bullet impacts from lead slamming against an armoured train carriage.

64) Snow indents and shapes dynamically around your and everyone else’s steps, including horses. Horses with larger legs and hooves will leave wider trails than skinnier-legged horses.

65) Snow will accumulate naturally in places that have been trodden over. Snow will also fall off trees.

66) Arthur has dirt under his fingernails.

67) You can pat dogs. Those dogs won’t bark at you again if you see them.

68) Some missions will take you far up into the mountains where you are literally above the cloud line, aka the game’s weather system.

69) Health and stamina bars have an “inner core” that determines how fast your bars refill

70) You can shoot off someone’s hat and then steal it. Enemies can shoot your hat off.

71) Kill cams are impacted by your honor. If you play honorably, the camera on a kill replay will focus on Arthur. If you’re dishonorable, it’ll focus on the kill, and represent it in a more intense way. The less honor you have, the less visible Arthur will be in the background of the camera view.

72) The honor system is intricate and the most obvious honorable versus dishonorable choice won’t always be apparent. Killing an O’Driscoll, one of the rival gang members, won’t be considered dishonorable. But if you escalate the conversation before killing them, it will be.

73) Arthur physically moves dead bodies and reaches into their pockets to loot them.

74) An Eagle Eye system is used to track and hunt animals. Activating it will also show the scent coming off of your body, which animals can catch wind of to track you.

75) Moving your cursor around the world map invokes a wind sound to indicate your movement.

76) You can shoot a horse to knock an enemy off its back.

77) Thanks to the fact the game is set before a time light pollution became an issue, the sky is riddled with stars and clusters of stars. It looks like a genuine array of galaxies when you look up at night.

78) Your camp runs on a schedule. In the morning, your gang members might walk out of their tents in their long johns. People will sleep at night, and gather around for food calls.

79) Just like with strangers you meet around the world, you can antagonize your own crew members at camp. But if you do, other camp members will take notice and comment on it in the future.

This article originally published at IGN
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