With the Red Dead Redemption 2 community having recently discovered series of mysterious clues that may or may not lead to a satisfying conclusion, a major question has been whether it has all been a wild goose chase, or if it was an intentional series of clues left behind by Rockstar Games. Adam Butterworth, a former QA (quality assurance) professional, has taken to social media platform X to confirm that it was completely intentional. He also expressed surprise that players found these clues at all.
“Absolutely wild people have found this,” he wrote. “I remember hearing about this and thinking it would never be discovered.”
Butterworth’s post also reiterated the fact that these clues have been in Red Dead Redemption 2 since its 2018 release. While Rockstar Games hasn’t made any major updates to the open-world title that would indicate that it was a recent addition, the studio has also been quiet about the ongoing scavenger hunt, allowing the community to find and solve these hidden puzzles on their own.
The scavenger hunt started just last month when players discovered a mysterious spider symbol that had been carved into one of several telegraph poles all over the in-game map. This symbol was discovered to then sit quite nicely on top of the Red Dead Redemption 2 map, with its appendages pointing to the locations for more clues throughout Lemoyne and New Hanover. Players would eventually discover spider webs on many telegraph poles, each of which also had red and white bird feathers stuck to them. The point where the center of the spider carving intersected with the map was also discovered to have a well-hidden, large spider web that had strands spelling out the letter “N” and forming a glyph to denote a telegraph pole.
The secret-finding community of Red Dead Redemption 2 would then leap into action to discover more telegraph poles that had well-hidden carvings that could only be seen when the poles were shot. The carvings would give players more varied directions before eventually sending them to Fort Wallace with a carved-out glyph of an acoustic guitar. The fort itself was home to a few of these guitars that were laid out to point in different directions, which would culminate with players heading to the roof of one of the fort’s towers. On this roof, players discovered a pair of crude carvings in the shape of birds with their wings outstretched. At this point, the community is still working on what it could mean, with some pointing to the direction of the carvings pointing towards Calumet Ravine, which is also home to the Giant’s cave.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Players with current-gen consoles can use backwards compatibility if they want to join in on the scavenger hunt. In the meantime, there have been rumours about remastered release coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, though Rockstar Games hasn’t yet made any official announcement.