By Kaylee Kuah | Step right up, it’s Red Dead Redemption 2 time! You’ll find a ton of secrets, Easter Eggs and references hidden all over the place. Some are creepy, some are funny and others are just downright weird. We’ll see you at sundown for a list of our favorite Easter Eggs in Red Dead Redemption 2.
1) Still A Better Vampire Story Than Twilight
It’s the wild wild West, but that doesn’t mean it’s all leather chaps, guns and horses (although there is a lot of that). Rockstar has left us with a whole bunch spooky stuff to find like ghosts, witches, UFOs and even a vampire. Yes, in Red Dead Redemption 2, there’s a vampire in Saint Denis. Sadly, he isn’t played by Tom Cruise.
All throughout the city, you’ll find clues in the form of emo vampire poetry written on the walls. It’s a lot of flowery language about blood and necks and darkness, typical vampire stuff. Once you’ve found all his poetry, a small X will appear on the map, marking his location. He tells you to stay away but of course, you don’t and you shoot him in the face. At least, I did. Loot him for some stringy meat and bat wings. Yum.
2) The Donkey Lady
The Donkey Lady refers to a pretty famous glitch from Red Dead Redemption 1, where you were able to ride this lady with the head of a donkey and a body of a woman. It was pretty hilarious and kinda disturbing, and it looks like Rockstar is taking this glitch in stride by referencing it in the second game.
Near Two Crows in Cholla Springs, you’ll find the remains of a woman with a donkey’s skull tied to the post. It’s scary as heck but funny if you get the reference. Best not to look this gift donkey in the mouth.
3) Red, Red, Harlow
It’s bad, bad, Red Harlow, baddest man in the whole damn town. If you’ve never played Red Dead Revolver, you may not know who Red Harlow is. But in Red Dead Redemption 2 you’ll probably have heard his name mentioned a dozen or so times at a campsite or in a saloon.
Red Harlow is the stone cold main protagonist in Red Dead Revolver. In the 1880s, a couple of years before the events of Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Harlow is the deadliest gunslinger this side of the Mississippi River. The murderous bounty hunter is tracking his parents’ killer, and becomes somewhat of a legend across the frontier.
He has yet to appear in the Red Dead Redemption games, but we’re still holding out hope that we’ll catch a glimpse!
4. Welcome to the Jungle
It’s a swamp out there! In the marshlands of Lemoyne, the dense foliage hides a fun surprise. East of the Kamassa River, look up in the trees and you’ll come across a giant orange snake hanging from the branches. If you’ve watched the Jungle Book, you’ll notice that the snake is a dead ringer for Kaa, the large orange hypnotic snake that’s always trying to eat Mowgli. Keep those creeper peepers off me! Oh, it’s dead, thank goodness.
So there’s Kaa up in the trees, but where’s Mowgli? All grown up, apparently! A man raised by wolves can be seen running in the woods in the Roanoke Valley in North Annesberg. Just listen for the unmistakable human howl. Be warned though: unlike Mowgli from the Jungle Book,’s this guy is Not Safe For Work. If you keep following him to his cave you’ll be attacked by a handful of grey wolves. Here you can choose to hunt him down or leave him be, but I know you’ll probably kill him, gunslinger.
5) Nikola Tesla Meets Frankenstein
One of the best missions in Red Dead Redemption 2 mashes up Nikola Tesla, Frankenstein and A.I. Too bad it’s pretty easy to miss this one.
You’ll find Serbian inventor Marko Dragic hanging out at the park in Saint Denis, and he shares a lot of parallels with the most famous Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. Talk to him and you’ll be invited to his lab at Doverhill to start ‘A Bright Bouncing Boy’ questline. You’ll notice that Dragic’s lab is pretty much a shot for shot replica of Nikola Tesla’s lab in The Prestige. And if you haven’t watched The Prestige you need to watch stop everything and watch it immediately. Well after this video anyway.
In the lab, Dragic will introduce you to his latest creation, his presumably bright bouncing boy – a sentient robot. All is well and you leave the somewhat bizarre inventor and his creation. Don’t forget about him altogether though, because if you return 2 days later you’ll find that tragedy has struck.
Marko Dragic is dead and his baby boy is missing. It’s up to you to speculate what happened but I think we can all agree that he tried to hug Dragic but accidentally activated the buzzsaw function. Oh, robot! Your love was real but you are not. Take the electric lamp and you’ll find the robot somewhere in the mountains of Colter slowly mumbling “Papa”. Reboot system! Reboot!
6) Bears, Pigs and Men, Oh my!
This is hands down the most unsettling thing I’ve seen in Red Dead Redemption 2 and there’s some stiff competition. I’ve seen mysterious pentagrams, heard voices and met some crazy people. How about those Evil Dead locked up in a small cabin near Braithwaite Manor? Peer in and you can see a possessed woman just counting numbers. No thank you.
But nothing gave me the heebie jeebies more than the mutant experiment in New Hanover. Located at Roanoke Ridge, near the Van Horne Trading Post, you’ll find an abandoned-looking house with one of the second floor rooms lit up. Climb up and discover the horror that is the Manmade Mutant. What is it? Why did somebody make it? Is it going to come alive at some point? What happened to the person who made it? So many questions, with none that I want the answers to. I only need to know one thing: is it the legendary Man-Bear-Pig?
7) The Return of Charles Kinnear
Inventors always get laughed at, but the people that laugh at them don’t laugh for long… because the inventors die young. At least in Red Dead Redemption. Charles Kinnear is one of the minor characters that you meet in Red Dead Redemption 1, in the quest ‘Deadalus and Son’. With John Marston’s help, he builds himself a flying machine and proceeds to immediately plummet to his death. Into the wild blue yonder, Kinnear.
In Red Dead 2 you’ll find reference to his father, Aldus Kinnear, at one of the picture shows. Aldus wanted to learn how to fly, but like Icarus, flew too close to the sun—or lantern in this case—and died in a blaze of glory when his giant wings caught on fire. His death paved the way for his sons Percival and Charles Kinnear to live out his unhealthy obsession. In Cholla Springs near Armadillo, you’ll be able to spot a crashed flying machine with the name Charles Kinnear. Another one can be spotted in the north-west corner of West Elizabeth.
8) For Those That Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Rockstar knows you miss your Van Der Linde Gang buddies. As a somewhat nostalgic or morbid touch, you can visit all the graves of everyone that has died throughout the story. They’re not marked on the map, so good luck hunting them all down.
You’ll find the graves of Jenny, Davey, Sean, Kieran, Lenny, Hosea, Eagle Flies, Susan and of course Arthur Morgan. Arthur’s epitaph reads “For those that hunger and thirst for righteousness”, which makes sense if you didn’t play him like a murdering outlaw, as I did.
Here’s a fun Easter Egg: If you head near Coot’s Chapel you’ll find a gravestone that’s written “Cowboy Of No Name”. It’s a reference to the famous Clint Eastwood spaghetti western film, Man with No Name.
9) My Bonnie Lass
Bonnie MacFarlane is one of the main characters in Red Dead Redemption 1. She doesn’t appear in Red Dead Redemption 2, but we do get a clue as to why she’s remained single for so long. Not that she needed a man; she had a ranch to run!
Travel South of Armadillo to Latneck Station and you’ll find a deserted town that’s been evacuated due to an outbreak of cholera. There’s not much to see, but if you head on over to the Van Horn Trading Outpost, you’ll come across a body on the ground. Now, there’s no reason to touch some bacteria infected corpse out in the middle of nowhere. But if your curiosity gets the better of you, he’ll suddenly spring to life!
Recover from your mini heart attack and he’ll say “tell her I never stopped”. In his hands is a letter for our very own Miss MacFarlane which reveals the back story to her mistrust of men and distaste for romance. We don’t see her in Red Dead 2 so I’m guessing she never gets this letter. Sorry, Bon.
10. Cowboys and Aliens
Let me introduce you to the excellent Western movie mashup Cowboys and Aliens, first released in 2011 starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. The movie is ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure the team at Rockstar has watched and embraced its wisdom.
In an abandoned shack in New Hanover, you’ll find a pretty gory scene. It looks like some sort of cult ritual has taken place and it did not seem to go well. I told you not to look into the light! Go up to the cult leader and read the Mysterious Sermon that will tell you to come back at 2am. Return at said time and you’ll be treated to a mysterious green light emitting from a hovering UFO. It disappears pretty quickly when you leave the cabin.
The second half of the sermon hints at another UFO as they “worship once again at the peak of Mount Shann”. So hike up there, and at 1am a UFO will appear in the sky. It’s smaller than the first one but it’s most definitely a UFO. The truth is out there.
11) I Ain’t Afraid Of No Ghost
When the sun goes down, it can get pretty creepy in Red Dead Redemption 2. If you find yourself in foggy weather in the Bluewater Marsh, walk around and you’ll suddenly hear a ghostly apparition saying “I always loved you”. What in tarnation?!
She comes out of nowhere to scare the bejesus out of you! But if you return the next couple of nights, her appearance is a little less of a surprise. You’ll be able to encounter the ghost 16 times and after the last time, she disappears forever. With each bit of her one-way dialogue, you’re able to piece out the tragic story of a girl who fell for the wrong guy. In your last encounter, she asks her phantom lover to meet her by the tree where a noose hangs.
Her grave is in Shady Belle by the river and it reads “Aged 19. Tragically took her own life and others on September 4th 1883”. Her entire family is buried there so I’m guessing the “and others” was them.
She’s not the only ghost haunting the game. Also found near those creepy ass swamps is the ghost train. It only appears at night and your horse gets pretty spooked by it. We really can’t blame it.
12) O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Another movie reference makes an appearance in Red Dead Redemption 2, this time to the Coen Brother’s movie ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou’. In the movie, three convicts escape their hard-labor sentence in Mississippi. Still in their shackles, the trio runs around the country to pursue freedom and buried treasure.
If you travel through the border between Lemoyne and West Elizabeth you’ll, come across a chain-gang of three prisoners. If you watch the scene, eventually they’ll feign a fight and murder the marshals, take off into the woods and escape. This is a pretty close rendition of how the trio in the movie escaped.
13) Achievement Unlocked
If you’re a fan of watching video games on YouTube—and we know you are—you might be familiar with Rooster Teeth and their ongoing series Achievement Hunters. Founded by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Patillo, the guys go around and complete achievements in games.
Rockstar has immortalized their dedication to gaming by making them characters in Red Dead Redemption 2. If you’re fans of the show you’ll be able to recognize their voices pretty easily. Jack Patillo is a hotel owner in Valentine, while Geoff is the Clerk over at the Valentine train station. Check out that trademark bushy moustache.
14) The BFG – Big Friendly Giant
One of the longest running Rockstar gags is Bigfoot. The Sasquatch has been mentioned in almost every Rockstar game beginning with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In Red Dead 2 he’s pretty difficult to find, and to even begin the quest you’ll, need to study over 30 animal species.
To hunt the giant, you need to travel up to the Wapiti [wah-PEE-tee] Indian Reservation where you’ll randomly find a flock of birds leading you east. Embrace your inner outdoorsman and zoologist, and follow them along the mountain where you’ll eventually find a rocky den. Approach and an extremely friendly voice will call out to you. “Hello there, friend!” You’ll then hear Bigfoot’s woes of being too big to have friends.
15) It’s A Dog Eat Dog World Out There
For the sidequest ‘The Noblest of Men and a Woman’, you get to bounty hunt some of the Wild West’s most famous gunslingers. After killing the last one, Jimboy Callaway, you’ll be given a custom Schofield revolver with the words ‘Canis Canem Edit’ carved on its barrel. Translated from latin as ‘Dog Eat Dog,’ it’s the tagline for Rockstar’s game Bully. If anyone from the company is watching this, we’re still waiting on that Bully sequel!
Well, there partner we’ve reached the end of our list. Red Dead still has about a hundred or so easter eggs. Maybe more! Let us know in the comments on our video which were your favorite! Thanks for reading.
Executive Producers: Carrie Miller, Fred Seibert, Jeremy Rosen Producers: Adrian Apolonio Project Manager: Jessica Ferrer Head Writer: Casey Gonzalez Graphics and Thumbnail by: Alexandria Batchelor Programming Manager: Darrian P. Mack
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