Here are the best and worst places that Red Dead Redemption 2 players can visit.
Fans had to wait for a sequel for eight long years. When it finally came out, Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the best-selling games of all time, and many people still love the story-based cowboy simulator. A lot of that is because of Red Dead Online and how it keeps getting updated, but most of it is just because the main game has so much to do.
Rockstar Games is known for its huge open-world maps, which can be seen in games like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption 2. Both of these games had a number of towns that players could visit throughout the story, with some towns having a bigger impact than others. All of these towns have their pros and cons, but Red Dead Redemption 2 is sure to have a few well-built places where you can see which town is the best.
Colter
Armadillo
In Red Dead Redemption, Armadillo is the first town that players visit. However, when John Marston gets in the town in RDR2, it looks like the end of the world. Soon, the players find out that the town has been hit by a number of plagues. The most recent one, Cholera, has killed or driven away most of the town’s people.
Even though there are some interesting questions about Armadillo, Herbert Moon (the owner of Armadillo’s General Store), and the Strange Man that need to be answered, there isn’t much to do in Armadillo to find the answers, so the player should avoid the town when traveling through New Austin.
Van Horn Trading Post
The Van Horn Trading Post is on the Lannahechee River in Roanoke Ridge. It looks like it was once a healthy, growing town. When Arthur and the rest of the group get to Van Horn, they find a dirty, dying town with not much to offer.
Van Horn’s main attraction is the Post Office, but Blackjack is played in the bar. Van Horn doesn’t have much for players to do besides a fence and a few story tasks, but it is one of only two towns where players can have duels. There are also no police in Van Horn, but if someone breaks the law, the people there won’t hesitate to shoot. If nothing else, it’s a fun place to mess around in if players want to go on a typical Rockstar spree.
Lagras
The small settlement of Lagras isn’t much of a town, but the small group of buildings in the bayou does have a very important Bait & Tackle Shop for players who want to catch a few Legendary Fish. It also has exciting missions that introduced players to the Legendary Bullgator, which can be hunted down after the mission.
But the main reason Lagras is higher than a few other towns with more shops is because the Night Folk can only be found in the swamp and area around Lagras. The Night Folk are cannibalistic humans or monsters who live in the swamp and beat up their victims. If players don’t wander around the bayou at night, it’s easy to miss this task. Even though the town itself might not be the most interesting part of the Bayou area, it’s still a great place to feel safe after facing the dangers of the swamp.
Annesburg
Near the end of the main story, players spend a lot of time in Annesburg, but the town has a feeling of fear. It’s likely because Arthur, Dutch, and Micah have been having problems that have been getting worse over the last few chapters. The gang’s problems drown out any beauty or fun in Annesburg.
No matter how the town feels, it gives players a sense of closure with Arthur’s interactions with the Downes family, and the mine can be a fun diversion. But unlike some of the other places on this list, most players didn’t go to Annesburg very often if the story didn’t need them to. Even so, it’s still fun to look around the town if you like the way Rockstar designs the many places where you can live in the game.
Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed is a town in New Austin, like Armadillo. It also shows up in the first Red Dead Redemption. But in the first game, Tumbleweed isn’t much more than a ghost town and gang hideout, which shows what a few bad years can do to a place.
Armadillo and Tumbleweed seemed to switch places in each game, with Tumbleweed doing well in the second and Armadillo doing well in the first. Tumbleweed has a number of amenities and a few prizes that players can check out after the game is over. This makes the game last a little longer for those who want to do more.
Saint Denis
The industrial city of Saint Denis is amazing to see in person. It also shows how the world is slowly changing, leaving behind people who aren’t used to such technology advances. Even though the city is dirty, it looks beautiful at night. The busy streets, crowded market, and large number of police officers make it feel like the player isn’t allowed to go on a killing spree. It doesn’t help that there are way too many bounties for “Disturbing the Peace” or “Assault,” so that even running too fast in a crowd can lead to an unintentional crime that the player has to either pay money to fix or avoid any excited lawmen while the bounty on their head is slowly forgotten.
This feeling of claustrophobia, small places, and tight crowds is, of course, on purpose, since this is where Arthur and the Dutch van der Linde gang have been running away from. Arthur and the player feel not only out of place but also stuck, and the city will punish players very quickly for any “uncivilized” mistake.
Blackwater
It might seem strange that Blackwater is so high on the list, since players can’t even go there until the end of the game. However, the big town has a different vibe than some of the other towns in the sequel, which might make Blackwater stand out.
Even though it has a lot of cops like Saint Denis, players didn’t have too many problems in the town after Arthur died because they didn’t play the same way. In the sequel, Blackwater is a town full of new starts, and the tasks to build Beecher Hope show that. Still, there are a lot of shops and story tasks in Blackwater that keep most people coming back.
Strawberry
Even though there isn’t as much to do in Strawberry as the Mayor would have players think, it is still a good place to start because it leads to the northern part of Big Valley, where there are Legendary Fish, Animals, Stranger missions, and even the exciting Mount Shann UFO.
The town has the same basic comforts as other towns, but what makes it important to Penalty Kick Online is that Arthur and Micah escape from it, which leads to their final showdown in the ending. Strawberry is also the only town in RDR2 where players can hang themselves instead of watching from the crowd. However, besides finding a lost dog, it doesn’t have much else to offer in terms of side tasks.
Rhodes
The town of Rhodes is in the Scarlett Meadows area of Lemoyne. This is where the Confederate Lemoyne Raiders live, and it’s always fun to stop them from doing something bad. Scarlett Meadows also has one of the Gang’s best camps and a strange side business that can be… experienced at the Gunsmiths.
Players can watch Dutch’s gang in Rhodes as they try to turn the rival Gray and Braithwaite families against each other. Even when things started to go wrong, it was still fun to be in Rhodes. The fact that Pearson runs the general shop in Rhodes shows that Rhodes had a lasting effect on the gang.
Valentine
In Red Dead Redemption 2, players first set up camp in the old town of Colter and then head to the lovely town of Valentine. Valentine is the first real town they visit. Even though Valentine has most of the shops and shows players how to make money by robbing side companies, it is still most players’ favorite town for a number of reasons.
Valentine is the easiest place in the game to cause trouble because the police aren’t very good and there are many quick ways to get out of town. It also has a lot of fun missions and strange people to meet, like the hilarious “A Quiet Time” mission with Lenny and the competitive twin brothers Proteus and Acrisius, who you shouldn’t miss.
You can play Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
