Alright, so the tutorial in Red Dead Redemption 2 can be a bit lacking, and at times misleading. Here are some tips and things you may want to keep in mind when exploring the vast landscape of this game and trying not to lose your shit when you can’t figure things out.

  • HORSE BREAKING: If you take the horse breaking tutorial literally, you’re going to have a bad time… The tutorial makes it seem like, once lassoed, you’re supposed to continuously press the Calm option while getting closer to the horse – of course, if you’re like me, you end up flipping your lid because Arthur runs out of stamina and the core drains completely before you can even mount the damn horse. Well…WRONG! So, you find a horse you want to snag, lasso that nag, (hop off your own horse while keeping your new horse lassoed) press Calm like two or three times at most, then HOP ON IT! While the horse is trying to buck you off, keep your left thumb stick pulled down the entire time, and just rock the stick in the direction Arthur starts to lean (but still, keep the stick down as much as possible.) Props to my husband for helping me figure this out.
  • You can feed your horse while riding it. Just bring up your item wheel, scroll over to Horse, hold your stick left to where it says either Horse Meal or some sort of food item, scroll through your options with the right and left triggers, and let go once you find the treat you want to feed your horse. The horse will keep running so you don’t have to take time to hop off and feed your steed, and without having those stable owners bitch about how skinny your horse is.
  • You can actually DRIVE the trains! This is actually going to come in handy for a challenge where you have to shoot flying birds from a moving train. (Thanks hubby for letting me know this one, too.)
  • In a bind during a gunfight? When your weapon is empty, enter Deadeye mode and you’ll be instantly reloaded!
  • If you tap down on your D-pad, you’ll see your Morality gauge (honor vs. dishonor), but if you hold it down you can change your mini-map preferences. I know they mention this in a tutorial but every time that one popped up, I was in the middle of getting my ass shot off.

UPDATE 1/18/19:

  • So, if a man in shackles runs up to you asking for help, you can shoot the chain of his shackles. As thanks, he will tell you of a potential spot for a robbery. I’ve had this happen twice so far.
  • Giving to the blind, the poor, the homeless, etc. will not only give you some Honor points, but most of the time the person you give money to will give you a gift of snake oil or some other tonic. The random guy who’s always yelling “help a blind man…” out in the middle of nowhere, generally just does some creepy blind prophet type shit though.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll update as I come across any other useful tips and tricks.