Summary
Comparing theachievement difficulty of the original Red Dead Redemptionto the second game is quite interesting because the single-player achievements are much harder inRed Dead 2in terms of general challenge, length, and collectibles. However, Red Dead 1 has far worse multiplayer achievements, so it kind of evens out.
Nevertheless, Red Dead 2 is on the harder end of Rockstar titles, being more challenging thanGTA5, Bully, andLA Noire. It’s akin to the difficulty level ofGTA4; just swap out the multiplayer challenge for single-player as the story of Red Dead 2 is something you’ll be playing a lot for the platinum.
20G/Bronze
You completed a Companion Activity in each camp.
One thing that’s present in Red Dead 2 that normally isn’t a problem in other Rockstar games is missable achievements. Since the camp aspect of story mode is only present when you play as Arthur Morgan, once you’re done with his part of the game, those missable achievements are, for the most part, gone.
To get Friends With Benefits, you must do one camp activity in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respectively. If you have no idea this achievement even exists, you may easily miss it. If you do know about it, it’s no problem. Just check the map for activities in the camp, and you should be good to go.
10G/Bronze
You discovered the fate of Marko Dragic.
When exploring Saint Denis, you should come across Marko Dragic, a pretty interesting character. After doing his first quest by the lake, his next one will show up at the far northeastern part of the map, close to thelocation of the Legendary Moose. After finishing that part, stuff gets confusing because the quest remains active in your quest log, but no marker on the map will ever appear.
Since you’re so used to these markers, you’ll probably wait until one shows up, but eventually, you should realize something’s amiss. In reality, you just have to visit his building again, and the achievement will pop up as soon as you enter. The absence of a quest marker makes this more confusing than it really needs to be.
You delivered 5 camp companion item requests.
Throughout your time at the camp, you’ll sometimes get item requests given to you by various people. The problem is, however, that these requests won’t simply trigger once they’re available. Sometimes, they will, but other times, you’ll have to annoyingly interact with the characters a lot until they finally give you the requests.
This means you could very well miss out on this achievement even if you do all of them that you get. To keep the amount of requests delivered in check, do at least four before the end of Chapter 4. After beating the game, you’ll get a request from Uncle that’s impossible to miss, and that is when you can get your achievement.
You found a permanent home for the squirrel statue.
Hunting requests are one of the side activities you must do for 100 percent completion. These are five total requests that will require you to obtain numerous perfect carcasses to trade in at the post office. Make sure to kill the Legendary Pronghorn and get his trinket to stop animals from spoiling on you, as several of the animals cannot be stored in your inventory and must be placed on your horse.
Some of the animals requested aren’t too bad to find, but others, like some of the birds, and especially the Bat,are very annoying to search out. Finishing all the requests is the really hard part, as the rest of the achievement process is pretty easy with finding the squirrels, as they’re in the same spot for every player.
100G/Gold
You attained 100% completion.
Of all the open-world Rockstar games, the most lengthy and difficult 100 percent completion has to be Red Dead 2. The sheer amount of stuff you need to do here is astronomical. The collectibles take a beefy amount of time, with the two most egregious being the aforementioned hunting requests, but also the exotics, in which you’ll need to collect many orchids and plumes to progress.
By far, the worst part, however, has to be the 90 challenges that must be completed. Some are just dastardly, like winning three games of Dominoes in a row, collecting every herb in the game, catching every fish type in the game, and catching a 19-pound fish. That last one is particularly brutal if you’ve already caught every legendary fish. You’llhave to search far and widefor that 19-pounder.
50G/Silver
Earn 70 Gold Medals in Story missions.
With several previous Rockstar titles, including GTA5, you had to get gold medals on missions for achievements. In GTA5’s case, it really wasn’t that bad because you could do story missions or the often far easier side missions, and you didn’t have to do all the objectives in one run.
Red Dead 2 breaks that rule, as only story missions count, and you have to do all the objectives in a single run. This makes earning those 70 gold medals way harder than GTA5, as you really have to play well to get those headshots, accuracy, and bonus objectives required to obtain the gold. It’s totally understandable why Gold Rush is the rarest achievement in the whole game.
Red Dead Online: Reach Rank 50.
The multiplayer achievements in Red Dead 2 are fairly tame compared to both Red Dead 1 and GTA5. In GTA5, you had to get to Rank 100, which was a pretty big grind, but in Red Dead 2, you only have to get to Rank 50. This provides a shorter grind on offer, but it’s still a grind, no doubt about it.
You’ll have to play Red Dead Online on a very regular basis to gain the XP required, and it can take you weeks to reach Rank 50. To boot, Red Dead Online doesn’t get the same support that Rockstar gives to GTA, which makes the latter particularly exciting to jump back in for those big content updates and more XP gain.
Description
Zoologist: 20G/Bronze Skin Deep: 30G/Bronze
Zoologist: You studied every animal across all states in Story Mode. Skin Deep: You skinned every species of animal in Story Mode.
Even though Gold Rush is objectively the hardest achievement in Red Dead 2, the one with the highest frustration factor has to be the two big animal achievements. Unlike every other collectible, animal spawns are random, and while some are pretty consistent, some feel like you’re hunting for Bigfoot.
The prime example would be the Western Bull Moose. You can look up all the core locations it can appear in, but trying that one spot over and over again is a losing battle. What works best is trying all the available spawn locations, seeing which one works, and then reloading a previous save until a Bull Moose spawns. You have to use a guide here; even then, it can take an annoyingly long time for certain animals to appear.
