Red Dead Redemption: The Franchise's Biggest Mysteries and Trivia

Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption franchise has left its mark on the gaming industry and still features on numerous lists of the greatest games of all time, considered Rockstar's greatest creation to date.

Beyond its masterfully written story, memorable characters, and well-constructed world, Red Dead is a series full of references, easter eggs, mysteries, and curiosities that continue to engage the community, generating many theories and discussions.

In this article, we address the main curiosities and mysteries surrounding the three games in the franchise.

Red Dead Revolver

In the game, you take on the role of Red Harlow, a bounty hunter seeking revenge for the death of his parents in the past. In Redemption, Red is mentioned as a kind of ancient legend, a myth among gunslingers.

Arthur's Absence in Redemption

Much of Red Dead Redemption 2's success is due to its protagonist, Arthur Morgan, a very well-written character who captivates us as we follow his story of redemption. However, something that didn't go unnoticed after the game's release is the fact that Arthur isn't even mentioned in Redemption.

It becomes clear, after playing both games, that Arthur didn't exist when Rockstar rebooted the series with the first Redemption and that the character was created in RDR2. However, during the epilogue, where we play as John Marston and can freely explore the entire game map, it's possible to see a dialogue between Jack and Abigail at Beacher's Hope Ranch, where the boy questions his mother about Arthur, about his father's old friend having saved the entire Marston family before dying.

Abigail explains to Jack that her father doesn't like to talk about the past, and John adds that the past should remain forgotten, which would explain why Arthur is never mentioned in 1911.

References to Pop Culture

Western movies

There are several references to classic Westerns, such as in Coot's Chapel in New Austin, where there's a tombstone with the inscription A Cowboy Without a Name, a clear reference to Clint Eastwood's character in the Dollars Trilogy.

Another interesting Easter egg found in RDR2 is a scene where we find a dead bear and a dead person underneath it, suggesting that both died in a deadly fight for survival. It's possible to obtain a unique knife from the bear's body, with a handle made of horn. Many players believe this scene is a reference to the 2015 film The Revenant, where Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is attacked by a huge grizzly bear.

Bigfoot

In RDR, you can find Bigfoot in the Undead Nightmare expansion. One of the trophies obtained in the game requires you to kill a sasquatch, the Bigfoot. This trophy is titled Six Years in the Making and is a reference to the myth of Bigfoot's existence in GTA: San Andreas, a game that was released six years before Redemption.

Nosferatu

In RDR2, it's possible to find a series of messages on the walls of the city of Saint Denis that indicate the way to find the Vampire of Saint Denis. After finding the vampire's location, the player will see it drinking the blood of one of its victims, and the creature will threaten Arthur/John. If you antagonize the vampire or remain in the area, it will attack immediately.

After finishing off the creature, it's possible to obtain a unique dagger from its body.

Strange Man

In Redemption, at a certain point in the story, you can find a mysterious, well-dressed man who asks John Marston to do some things for him. After completing the missions, the strange John confronts him and ends up shooting him a few times, but John turns out to be much more than he seems, as he’s unaffected by the bullets.

In RDR2, there are several mentions and near-appearances of the Strange Man. In a cabin in Lemoyne, it's possible to find a painting of the Strange Man that will be unfinished if the player visits it as Arthur and complete if they visit as John. John even sees the man standing behind him in the reflection of a mirror, but when he turns around, there's no one there.

In New Austin, when we arrive in Armadillo, we find the city ravaged by a cholera epidemic, with its inhabitants devastated by the disease. Only one person remains immune to everything that happens there: the town's shopkeeper, Herbert Moon, who even has a portrait of the Strange Man in his shop and, when questioned, says that the portrait was given to him by someone.

Community theories suggest that the Strange Man is actually the personification of Death in the game, which would explain everything that happens around this enigmatic character.

Serial Killer

Right in Chapter 2, in Valentine, while adventuring with Arthur, the player may stumble upon a bizarre scene that could be in a crime film about serial murders. After finding all the locations where terrible crimes occurred and piecing together the clues left by the mysterious perpetrator, the player is led to an abandoned house, where they meet the serial killer Edmund Lowry Jr.. The man has been operating in the region for five years, and his hideout is filled with tools and the remains of his victims.

Where’s Gavin?

No mystery has captivated the Red Dead community more than the whereabouts of the never-before-seen NPC, Gavin. Early in the game, we find an NPC calling out for Gavin in the streets of Rhodes, Saint Denis, and various other regions of the map, always asking for help finding his missing friend.

The man searching for Gavin is named Nigel, and this can only be discovered by stealing from the NPC, uncovering a letter mentioning Nigel and Gavin. The letter also reveals that Nigel's father died and that Gavin's mother misses her son.

Curiously, there’s no NPC named Gavin in the game, and nothing more about this character is shown, only Nigel wandering, searching for his missing friend. In the epilogue, John also finds him on the streets of Blackwater, dirty and ragged, seemingly confused, but still searching for Gavin.

Theories suggest that Nigel suffers from some kind of mental disorder, something we can observe in the epilogue, since he spent years searching for someone he never found, but he didn't give up his search, even forgetting what his friend looked like.

The letter Nigel carried mentioned his father, but said nothing about Gavin's father, only about each of their mothers. Because of this, some theorize that Nigel suffers from some kind of disorder that made him imagine Gavin and that his friend doesn't exist in reality.