Red Dead Online Guide: Best Tips, Tricks, Free Roam, Setting Up Camp, And More

Some tips and tricks to get started with Red Dead Online.

Red Dead Online is now live—well, at the very least in beta it is. If you’ve played Grand Theft Auto Online, you have some idea of what to expect (though hopefully Rockstar are better prepared off the bat this time than they were back then). So, join as you jump into this bold new frontier, this guide is here to help you with your Red Dead Online journey.

TIPS AND TRICKS:

  • Prioritize building up your DeadEye skill. DeadEye is extremely helpful in Red Dead Online, because actual shooting in Red Dead is a bit underwhelming. So build it up as much as you can from the get go.
  • Your horse. You want to a) set it to private (so no one else can steal it); you do this in the Options menu. And b), you want to insure it, so that if your horse “dies”, it really just faints, and comes back to you.
  • Bonfires heal you. Red Dead Online is the Dark Souls of Red Dead games, because resting at a campfire recharges your core.
  • Ammo can be bought in mission lobbies. You don’t actually have to go to the gun store to buy it each time.
  • Buy the horse brush. You don’t have one to begin with, and need to get it from the catalog.
  • Make sure to redeem your pre-order bonuses. They’ll be in the catalog, and they’ll be free.

FREE ROAM

Free roam is just you playing around in Red Dead Online’s open world, coming across Free Roam missions or events. However, much like in RDR2 proper, you can’t just access the free roam to begin with. Instead, you must first complete the game’s introduction section, which can take up to an hour, before you will be given access to the free roam.

CAMP

Players get camps in Red Dead Online. If you play solo, you get a Player Camp, whereas if you are a part of a Posse, which is this game’s equivalent of a guild, you get a Posse Camp.

Once you raise the White Flag at your camp, you can rest there, access your Wardrobe, craft, cook, get deliveries for items you buy, and even fast travel to them, after they are upgraded.

POSSES

Posses are groups of players who play together. There are two kinds:

  • Temporary Posses, which are just ad hoc groups that you can create to play with friends for a single session
  • Permanent Posses, which are persistent, and require currency to be set up. These are the game’s equivalent of guilds, and if you and friends are planning on playing through the game together in the long run, might be what you want to look into
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