I hope you enjoyed my 25 Things We Wish We Knew Before Starting Red Dead Redemption 2 article, because I’m back with another. This time I thought it would be fun to point out some of the inconsistencies, plot holes, and stuff that generally don’t make sense about Red Dead Redemption II. I know topics like this seem like cheap punching bags. I mean when you get right down to it, video games don't make a lot of sense in general.

It's more than just pointing out that people can't come back for the grave. There are no continues in real life. That much is obvious. What I will say though is that I'm coming at this from a humorous perspective. I'm engaging my fellow fans in a conversation to laugh about all of the ridiculous stuff that goes down in Red Dead Redemption II. Maybe the things that happened to me didn't happen to you and vice versa. Some of these issues may not even be alarming to others. That's fine too. Again, all I'm trying to do is engage in the conversation. I also want to make it clear that I'm having an enormously good time with the game. It's everything I wanted from a sequel and more. Well, mostly. I would have preferred it not to be a prequel, but that's a whole other rant. There are some light mission spoilers ahead, but I keep the exact details to a minimum.

25 Your Bandana Does Nothing

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During certain missions, you are prompted to cover your face with a bandana, which is typical of Westerns. It looks cool. This is to keep your identity hidden, right? Well despite this, somehow you always get fined with a bounty. It doesn't make any sense. I tried wearing masks too and that doesn't do anything either. It feels like Rockstar put them in as an obligation to the genre. They didn't want to implement it as a real disguise. It might have broken the game otherwise, or something.

24 Not Being Able To Run In Camp Is Just Silly

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This is just a small problem, but it doesn’t make sense to me why you can’t run in camp. I get that they want you to slow down and talk to your crew, but come on. Sometimes they have nothing to say and all I need to do is get to my tent so I can fast travel, or go to bed. Arthur's bed, I should mention, is always the furthest away from the gate. It's like a weird punishment.

23 Why Is Whistling For Your Horse So Useless?

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Whistling for your horse carries a litany of problems. For example, the distance it can hear it in isn’t that great. Even when you do whistle, within distance, it takes forever for your steed to trot to you even when you have a good relationship. It’s weird in games where you turn around and your horse is there like in The Witcher 3, but as ridiculous as that is I would much prefer that silliness to this. Thankfully there are cheats...

22 Why Can You Walk In Icy Water Without Getting Colder?

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Another thing that doesn't make sense is the beginning concerns water. No matter what you do, there are certain areas in the snow-covered mountains you need to tread water in. How is there not a scene immediately afterward of Arthur freezing himself to the bone, or at least getting sick? In the grand scheme of problems, this is a very minor one, but it was enough where it got me to think. Again, the beginning just has a lot of issues with it.

21 Just How Old Is Dutch Anyway?

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Dutch’s age in relation to Arthur’s doesn’t make sense. They look the same age and yet Dutch always refers to Arthur as his son. Arthur even says Dutch and Hosea raised him as a child. How young a "child" is in this game could vary.

They also don't say how old Dutch was. Hosea, on the other hand, looks like the appropriate age to be a father figure for Arthur. Who knows, maybe Dutch dies his hair black. I'm sure they had dye back then, right?

20 If Arthur Is A "Bad Man" Why Is He Constantly Doing Good Deeds?

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The game has a weird dichotomy when it comes to making Arthur seem like a bad man. Even when he does good deeds he always says something along the lines of he isn't a very good guy. Despite that, he constantly does good things. There's the morality meter too. Here you are, at the height of the Van der Linde gang, a bad guy through and through, and yet the game sort of pigeonholes you into doing virtuous deeds. It sends a mixed message.

19 Inventory Management Makes NO Sense At All

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In Rockstar’s effort to create a realistic game, like horses that have packages that shrink in cold weather, they certainly didn't go all the way in some regards. For example, you can somehow store a near infinite amount of random items in your beginning pouch, but heaven forbid you to put more than one animal carcass on your horse. Also, somehow, you can store an army of guns on your sidesaddle, but not on Arthur's person. There are a lot of inconsistencies, but hey, that's video games.

18 That’s Not How The Law Works

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Wanted levels have never made sense in Rockstar games and they are always a joke. In the Grand Theft Auto games, even though you can steal a tank, and destroy literally hundreds of people, all that happens when you get caught is you lose some money.

Sorry for destroying Strawberry, here’s $300.

That's how the law works, right? You just pay some money for it to go away? Well, that's how it works in regards to bounties in Red Dead Redemption II. All except for story bounties like Blackwater. It’s a little more than ridiculous.

17 Fast Travel Is Broken

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There’s basically no good version, of the two options, for fast travel in the game. Here is what they give you. Right off the bat once you enter the first town, Valentine, you can take a taxi coach to other towns and big landmarks that you have visited. For a fee, of course. You can eventually upgrade your camp so you can fast travel from there, but that's all. It makes tackling the side activities needlessly tedious more so than a lot of them, like hunting, already are. Rockstar, this is 2018. You need a better system!

16 Selfie Like It Was 1899

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For those unaware, Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899. I say that to make it clear, as if it wasn't clear enough already, that phones do not exist in this period. That means you can't take selfies like a millennial. Well, Rockstar found a way to work around that. You can get a camera from the first Stranger mission that appears in Valentine. You can then take selfies by putting the camera on the ground. Here's the thing though. Who's operating the camera? Is it the ghost of one of your lost comrades? Spooky!

15 Why Do These 'Hardened Criminals' Fall For Obvious Traps?

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There are pretty much two big bads that constantly chase the Van der Linde gang. One, the law that is pretty obvious. The second is a rival gang, the O'Driscolls. Dutch put down Colm O'Driscoll's brother and Colm destroyed the love of Dutch's life.

There's some bad blood, but about a third of the way through you're told Colm wants to make peace. It's an obvious trap so what do they do? Bring three guys to the meeting. Guess what? It was indeed a trap.

14 Knob Problem Partner

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There are some points in the game where all that is holding you back from opening a door is a normal doorknob. Sometimes you can shoot down these doors and sometimes you can’t. This works for chests and other locks too. However, only when the game dictates it as okay. It's about as ridiculous as not being able to vault over a waist-high fence. That's just video games. It doesn't make me furious, but it is ridiculous to be sure.

13 The Way Civilians React To You Is Ridiculous

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Stealing doesn’t make sense. After crashing into a villager in Valentine, I dropped my hat. I accidentally picked up the stranger’s hat and a wanted level automatically blossomed up. In real life, I would just apologize and say sorry, my mistake, this is not my hat. You know, since almost all hats look alike especially smoothed against the ground. It gets even more ridiculous when you get into Saint Denis. Accidentally bumping into someone will cause no less than a dozen random citizens to come after you. It's intense!

12 Too Many Tutorials

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This game is not only huge in terms of the literal size of the maps, but it's jam-packed with stuff to do. On top of that, there's a lot of mechanics you are constantly learning. I'm not kidding when I say it introduces new stuff well into the latter half of the game.

Press up on the left analog stick to walk right up your own bum.

It's a bit overboard. I just wish it would stop giving tutorial messages on stuff I've already completed before. Look, I know how to freaking duel with pistols already!

11 The Choices (Often) Don't Make Sense

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There’s a debt you need to collect for Leopold Strauss in Rhodes from the coffin maker. He doesn’t have the money, but he says he knows someone in the graveyard that will have something nice in their coffin. Instead of raiding the church at night, you instead go in the daylight.

This is weird considering there are missions that let you choose to go at night, or force you to wait. Why not force players to wait for this one?

10 When The Gang Is Poor, Why Don't They Take The Clothes Of People's Back?

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In the beginning, you’re desperate for food, money, clothes, and so forth being in the frozen tundra of the mountains. There are a few times where your gang is prompting to loot bodies. In this case, looting is barely grazing their pockets.

Loot the bodies, but only take the cash we can't spend right now.

In desperate measures, it seems weird to leave guns and other trinkets behind. Admittedly it makes more sense to leave things behind later on, but again, the beginning makes this premise odd.

9 Plot Hole Likes

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On this same idea, story beats repeat themselves even though you should know stuff already. I experienced this first by getting a debt back for Leopold Strauss at the Emerald Ranch. Later on, I went back with Hosea to steal a coach for one of the workers. It's played off like I was never there before. It gets even more ridiculous later on like in Saint Denis. I bought a brand new, proper suit, and got a good haircut and bath. Even though I did that, everyone kept telling me I should clean up. I did! Just look at me!

8 This Is Strawberry!

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There's a mission fairly early on where you have to rescue Micah from the jail in Strawberry. The sheriff is keen on not letting him go. Good plan on the town's part for putting a winch right next to the bars on the outside. Anyway, instead of running straight out of town, Micah wants you to take on the town in order to get back his guns. You eliminate, as it's said in the game, half the population. You can then pay off your bounty and walk back in like nothing happened. Hmm, something's not right here.

7 Make It Bun Dem

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When you go with Sean to burn down the Gray fields, there is one guard on duty at the gate. You take him out and then hide in the horse stable with your wagon until nightfall. No one tried to look for this guard, or go into the stable in the meantime? That's weird.

What's stranger is that this mission is basically just like the one from Far Cry 3 wherein you're tasked with burning everything as "Make it Bun Dem" plays. Except with less dubstep and more banjo in this case.

6 The Pinkerton Encounter Is Silly

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There's kind of a sweet mission where Abigail asks Arthur to take Jack fishing. It's a cute scene even though it's super weird Jack doesn't sound great, but that's another story. Anyway, as you're about to leave Detective Milton from the Pinkertons and his partner confront you. Now I understand why they didn't fight there, but I find it hard to believe Milton wouldn't at least trail Arthur back to camp. In fact, all of Milton's actions from here on out are weird, which is to say, he has bad plans.