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So, you’ve finished the main game, and the epilogue but like many, you just can’t seem to get into Red Dead Online. Let’s face it, you need Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC badly and Rockstar needs to get cracking on some expansion offerings. Well, the good news is that Rockstar has a good pedigree in this area - anyone who can remember The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony from GTA 4 or Red Dead Redemption’s Undead Nightmare DLC content knows Rockstar can come up with the goods.
With so many great characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 and so many story arcs left unfinished due to the bridge into timescale fitting with the original Red Dead Redemption, which routes could Rockstar explore to build on the huge open world of the five states and deliver some epic DLC?
1. Arthur Morgan - The early days
This is the expansion pack that everybody wants to see - a prequel to the prequel. How exactly did Arthur fall in with Dutch and Hosae? What was Arthur like as a young gun, rather than a world-weary veteran in the throes of tuberculosis? What incredible heists did the Van der Linde gang throw in the days when the West was at its wildest, rather than coming to an end? The story should be able to work within the five states, though it would be even cooler if Rockstar could introduce another additional world in the same way they did with Guarma.
2. Sadie Adler - The bounty hunter years
Perhaps no other character undertook such a drastic transformation in the main Red Dead Redemption 2 game. One minute she’s playing house (okay ranch) with husband Jake Adler and the next her world has been ripped apart by those rotten O’Driscoll boys. Sadie’s trauma serves to toughen her up and leave her hell bent on revenge - who can forget the Chapter 6 mission at Hanging Dog Ranch when she gets her final revenge on what’s left of the O’Driscoll gang. By the epilogue, Sadie has a new career, bounty hunting, and it’s assumed she’s headed to South America. Not only would an expansion pack based around Sadie have plenty of substance to it (old bounties seeking revenge, O’Driscolls looking to settle scores), it would also show how women could be just as tough as men during the wild west era. Rockstar has already seen the potential of Sadie Adler, introducing the character to Red Dead Online in Free Roam mission plots.
3. Charles Smith - Bare knuckle bruiser
Ah Charles, Arthur and then John couldn’t wish for a more loyal (and straight up bad ass) buddy to have by their side when the brown stuff hits the fan. In the epilogue, John finds Charles plying his trade as a bare knuckle boxer in the slums of Saint Denis before heading northwards after watching Abigail making an honest man of John and getting hitched. Charles’ family roots - he’s half African American/half native American - would be an interesting angle to explore, as would a return to his backstreet fighting career.
4. Rains Fall - Righting many wrongs
Surely no other character suffers more in Red Dead Redemption 2 than Rains Fall. Come, on, not only does the poor guy lose his son, Eagle Flies, but he’s also seen his whole way of life ripped apart - train tracks cutting through sacred land, forts build on his doorstep and one broken treaty after another. An expansion pack couldn’t totally heal all the hurt, but it could see Rains Fall build a new life elsewhere in the five states, tangle with new foes and, finally, find some peace in the fast-changing times of the early 1900s.
5. Back to Guarma
For many Red Dead Redemption 2 players, the adventure to Guarma was all too short and it’s felt Rockstar could have made more of this departure to a whole new world outside the five states. Hercule Fontaine is an amazing character whose arc was far too rushed and it would be great to see the revolutionary finally overcome the tyrannical Colonel Alberto Fussar.
6. Into Mexico - A new frontier
Despite the huge open world landscape the five states offers, perhaps the biggest frustration about the game’s landscape was the inability to cross the San Luis River and head into Mexico. Sure, there are glitch ways to make it there, but you what we mean, we want towns, NPCs and, ultimately, some surprises. Smart money would be on Rockstar bringing some sort of Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC where players could take a trip south, perhaps taking on the role of Javier Escuella, and learning how he winds up in cahoots with Colonel Allende.
7. Leviticus Cornwall - the ultimate revenge story
Until Dutch went rogue and took Cornwall out in cold blood right next to his own mine in Annesburg, Cornwall seemed set to tighten his grasp on the whole five states. Railroads, kerosene & tar, mines, you name it, every buck went back to Cornwall. Surely Rockstar could think up a character from the Cornwall tribe to seek revenge for a lost empire.
8. Pinkerton Agency
Anybody who has played either Red Dead Redemption or its sequel will know that the Pinkerton Agency are the enemy, but what if the script was flipped and the expansion pack put the player in the shoes of a Pinkerton Detective, trying to solve train robberies and bank heists. Of course, Rockstar may choose to stay clear of this route as, of course, the Pinkerton Agency is a real life company and litigation between Take-Two and Pinkerton has been an issue already.
9. Captain Lyndon Munroe - On the run in the Wild West
Despite being an honest and loyal soldier, Munroe gets royally screwed over by Colonel Henry Favours and is last seen heading off on a train from Emerald Station with a pocket full of cash from Arthur Morgan. This means he is effectively on the run from the US Army and any Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC pack could task players with evading authorities as he makes his way through the five states.
10. Arthur Morgan’s son - What if he didn’t die?
Morgan was dealt a poor hand from the start, with his mother dying when was very young and his father following when Arthur was just 11. Legend says that Arthur fathered a son called Isaac with a young waitress called Eliza but would only visit them sporadically and on the final visit, was greeted by the horrific sight of two crosses in the ground. Apparently murdered for just 10 dollars, the tale is one of the saddest in the game, but what if Arthur had been lied to - just to another kick in the teeth to the man who tried to be good in a bad world? What if Isaac had grown and was now ready to not only learn about his father, but maybe to follow in his footsteps?
11. Charlotte Bafour - Learning to love the wilderness
One of the more low key supporting characters, Charlotte’s story starts out as one of the most vulnerable. After leaving Chicago to start a new life with her banker husband, the selfish chap decides to snuff it, leaving Charlotte weeping by his grave when she is found by Arthur, who teaches Charlotte how to shoot, skin rabbits and general survive in the wilderness. In fact, Charlotte would later tell John Marston in the Epilogue that; ‘He found me at my lowest point and he lifted me up.’ Perhaps the expansion pack could explore just how Charlotte manages after meeting Arthur, how she flourishes in the hard environment, fighting off the Murfree Brood that lurk around Roanoke Ridge.
Want more on Red Dead? Check out our interview with the voice actress Alex McKenna, on the making of Red Dead Redemption 2's incredible Mrs. Adler.
