Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game that strives and pushes for realism beyond anything any other game has done before. This includes the in game economy too. While you need money for everything you do in the game, you won’t find it easily—money can be hard to come across in this game. Hey, I told you it’s realistic.
In this guide, we consider different ways of earning money: by doing so legitimately in game, and then by using exploits to try and, well, game the system.
EARNING MONEY LEGITIMATELY
- It goes without saying, but you want to complete the missions. Missions typically give you money in large amounts, so they’re the easiest way to get some
- Hunt: hunting lets you skin animals for pelt, which you can then sell to trappers for cash. The better the quality of the pelt you are selling, the more money you get
- Bounties: walk into the Sherrif’s office in town, and you’ll see bounties posted. Complete those bounties, and you get a cash injection. Plus, they’re fun little side missions as well
- Loot dead bodies: they will always give you some ammo and consumables, but they are often carrying treasure maps (that can lead you to cash), and valuables that you can pawn off for money
- Fence carriages. Early in the story, you unlock the ability to sell off a carriage you’ve stolen. This can earn you a pretty penny, but of course, it comes with its risks, as do…
- Robberies and heists: you can rob banks and trains, as well as stores and people. All of this will make you money, and the higher profile your target, the more the cash payout you get. Of course, you also risk getting caught and/or a huge bounty on your head, so keep that in mind…
- Help people: you’re an outlaw, but if you ever run into someone along the way who needs help, go ahead and help them. At best, they give you something valuable, while at worst, they give you information on where to find something valuable
EARNING MONEY ILLEGITIMATELY
Even for a game about an outlaw in the Old West, there are illegitimate ways of earning money. Usually, that means exploiting a glitch in the game. And sure enough, there is an item duplication glitch you can leverage to earn a whole lot of money in game.
Now, before we proceed:
- Turn off autosave
- Make sure to keep a backup of your save to revert to should something go wrong
- Do keep in mind that this exploit could be patched, and you won’t be able to use it any more
With that in mind, here’s what the glitch works on: the principle of you selling a gold bar (which goes for a lot of money). If you have a lot of gold bars, you can have a lot of money. This glitch can be used to duplicate the gold bar infinitely, potentially giving you infinite money. Here are the steps:
- You need a gold bar to begin with. I recommend the one found in Limpany
- Go to the Sherif’s office and find the lockbox. Open it, but don’t pick up the gold
- Save the game here
- Pick up the gold—as soon as the Gold icon shows up on the right of the screen, hit pause and manually save, overwriting the latest save
- Now, load the save you just made
- You will find the gold bar in your inventory and also in your box—from here, you can keep reloading the save over and over to have as many gold bars as you want
- You can sell your gold in Emeral Ranch
Just in case you want a good visualization, the video below walks you through these same steps:
