Red Dead Redemption 2 Beginner Guide: Tips for Your First Chapters

What should you know before you start?

This guide is for story mode. Red Dead Online is a separate mode with its own rules. The 2025 PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2 release was the first Red Dead Redemption, not this game.

Chapter 1 is a long, linear tutorial in the snow. The open world starts in Chapter 2, so don’t judge the pace by the first hours.

What are cores, and why do they matter?

Health, stamina and Dead Eye each have two parts: the outer bar, which you use up in a fight or a sprint, and the inner core, which controls how fast the bar refills. When a core is empty, its bar recovers very slowly.

• Cores drain on their own over time. In extreme heat or cold the health core drains much faster, so dress for the weather.
• Eat, sleep and use tonics to refill them.
• Cores do not drain while you are in camp.
• Eating also changes Arthur’s weight. At his ideal weight, his cores drain about 15% more slowly.

How does Honor work?

Honor goes up when you help strangers, spare an opponent or let a target surrender peacefully. It goes down when you hurt innocent people or steal. It changes some dialogue, scenes and how the story ends.

Honor can’t reach the very top or bottom until after the mission “A Fork in the Road”. So you won’t lock in a good or bad Arthur in the first hours.

How does Dead Eye improve?

Dead Eye slows time so you can mark targets. It gets better through the story, not through experience:

How do you unlock fast travel?

1. Finish the mission “Money Lending and Other Sins” to unlock the camp ledger.
2. In the ledger, upgrade Dutch’s tent ($220).
3. Then buy the lodging upgrade for Arthur’s tent ($325). It adds a fast travel map next to his bed.

Fast travel only takes you to places you have already visited. Using it several times in one day drains your horse’s stamina core. You can also ride the stagecoach between towns.

What else should you do early?

• Clean your guns. Weapons get dirty and lose performance. Use gun oil ($1.50 at general stores, gunsmiths and the Trapper) from the weapon wheel, or pay a gunsmith.
• Bond with one horse. You will spend hours in the saddle, and a bonded horse is tougher and responds better. Once you can afford one, see the best horses guide.
• Watch for witnesses. A crime only becomes a bounty when a witness reports it. Stopping witnesses still costs Honor.
• Start hunting in Chapter 2. Hosea’s mission “Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego” gives you the legendary animal map. See the legendary animals guide.

What is the easiest early money?

The Jack Hall Gang treasure. In Chapter 2, get the first treasure map from Maximo near Flatneck Station. Then follow the maps to Caliban’s Seat, Cotorra Springs and finally a small island at O’Creagh’s Run. The reward is two gold bars worth $500 each. Sell them to a Fence for $1,000 in total, which covers most of the price of a top horse.

Sources: Rockstar Newswire (cores and Honor guides, PC launch), the Steam store listing (release date and languages), Red Dead Wiki (Dead Eye, fast travel, gun oil and bounty pages) and rdr2.org (Jack Hall Gang treasure). Last checked October 16, 2026.

Images: official Red Dead Redemption 2 artwork and screenshots. © Rockstar Games.