Red Dead Online Beginner’s Guide – Top Tips for New Players in 2022

by Mike Alexander / Articles, Red Dead Redemption 2 Guides / 13 Mar 2022

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the latest cinematic action experience from Rockstar Games. This massive open-world adventure puts you in the boots and hat of a burly outlaw in the Old West and gives you a ton of freedom in how you choose to exist in that world. Outside of the single-player campaign, Red Dead Redemption 2 also includes hours and hours of gameplay in Red Dead Online, the vast multiplayer feature of the game.

Red Dead Online features the same landmass from the campaign, but with new stories and completely customizable player characters. The online features have improved and evolved since its initial release in 2018, so if you’re just getting into the game in 2022, you will be experiencing the ultimate version of Red Dead Online. If you’re planning on living the outlaw life for the first time, I have a few suggestions for you in this Red Dead Online Beginner’s Guide. So strap on your bandolier and saddle up; let’s get started!

Avoid PvP

If you load up Red Dead Online for the first time in 2022, 4 years after the game’s release, and try to hop right into PvP battles, you’re going to have a bad time. You will likely be up against players who have invested hundreds of hours into the game over the past couple of years. Therefore, they will have an arsenal of weapons, a bunch of great ability cards, and the skills to put newbies down without breaking a sweat.

If your goal is to get into PvP, you should build up your character first. Gain some levels, buy some weapons, and equip a couple of great ability cards so you might have a chance at surviving.

Turn on Defensive Mode

As long as you are avoiding PvP and building up your character, it’ll be worth it to turn on Defensive Mode from your game settings. Defensive Mode heavily reduces the damage you take from other players and prevents others from locking on you.

This will allow you to ride out of engagements on horseback fairly easily, as even headshots will not kill you immediately. Things that are typically lethal like hatchets, also do a fraction of the damage they would typically do. Defensive Mode also prioritizes missions that don’t involve plater conflict.

Your First Weapons

Besides your standard revolver and repeater, you’re going to want to buy a few other weapons when you have a decent supply of money. The weapons I would recommend picking up first are the Bow, the Varmint Rifle, and the Rolling Block Rifle.

The Bow is absolutely silent, making it great for when you want to be stealthy, and it won’t damage pelts when you inevitably go hunting. The Varmint Rifle is first and foremost the go-to weapon when you need to hunt small game and birds. The rifle easily takes those animals out without damaging them, and their high fire rate makes them decent enough for shootouts with other players and NPCs as well. The Rolling Block rifle is a fantastic, powerful sniper rifle that is perfect for picking off enemies and larger game at long range.

Level Up Your Stats

Just like in the single-player campaign, Red Dead Online has health, stamina, and dead eye bars that you can increase and level up. In the beginning, the available supply of these attributes will be fairly low, but through specific actions, you can increase them and make yourself a more effective Red Dead Online player.

To increase your health, you can kill enemies with thrown weapons like hatchets, or by just going fishing. Stamina can be increased by just running, and the dead eye bar can be increased by killing enemies with headshots or by skinning animals.

High and Low Honor

Another carry-over from the main game is the honor system. Doing nice and honorable things will increase your honor, and doing dastardly mean things will decrease it. It’ll be fairly obvious which actions do what when you play.

The main difference between the honor system in the main game and the honor system in Red Dead Online is that in the latter, your honor determines what set of missions you will get. There are different missions for high and low honor. You won’t have to worry about missing out if you choose to go one way or the other, as it is pretty easy to raise and lower your honor at any time, and doing so will allow you to access the other set of missions so you can complete both.

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Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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