Our best advice for Red Dead Redemption 2’s multiplayer mode
Red Dead Online is here, and it’s as huge and ambitious as Red Dead Redemption 2. It also requires learning some new things, even if you’ve invested dozens of hours into the campaign. In this guide, we’ll help you get started, give some detail that Red Dead Online doesn’t and offer some advice about the best things to do to get ahead.
In a game called Red Dead Online, you should play together. Others are already doing that, and a Posse of three or four will beat a lone wolf pretty much every time. (We speak from experience. We just wanted our wolf pelt, but those jerks stole it and killed us. A lot.)
If you want the kind of solitary bliss that Red Dead Redemption 2 can offer, single-player is your mode. It’s best to treat Red Dead Online as the multiplayer game that it is. And we’ll get into how you can do that below.
What can’t you do? Just about everything you can do in regular offline Red Dead Redemption 2 is available in Red Dead Online. You can still hunt, get a haircut, hunt for treasure and play story missions. The main difference here is you’ll be doing this while inhabiting the same world as other players (some of whom really want to kill you just for fun).
There are plenty of missions, events, and distractions that are unique to Red Dead Online as well. Those include:
Pause the game. Because it’s, you know, online.
Showdown Series events are team-based, competitive matches where you play with matchmade strangers, your Posse (more on Posses below) or some combination thereof.
At launch, there are several Showdown Series modes:
Posses are a way to join forces with other players. They always include a Posse Leader who sets up the Posse, but one is more, well, hardcore than the other.
There are two types:
To create a Posse, press left on the D-pad and select Form Posse from the menu. You can use the Player section of the same menu to add Posse Members.
Solo players have a Player Camp, which is like a hybrid between the gang’s Camp in the Red Dead Redemption 2 campaign than the ad hoc Camp you can create in the wilderness during the campaign. If you’re in a Posse, you’ll have a Posse Camp.
Camps offer a safe place to rest — as long as you find and raise the white flag — access to your Wardrobe, a place to craft and cook — and, after upgrading, even fast travel.
If you buy certain items like ammunition from the Handheld Catalog (it’s in your Weapon Wheel or you can press and hold left on the D-pad), they’ll appear in a Delivery Box in your Camp.
