Jack Marston

Origins

Jack is the son of John Marston and Abigail, two members of the Van der Linde gang. Uncle brought Abigail into the gang around 1894, and Jack was born around 1895. In "Simple Pleasures", set in 1907, Jack tells the ranch hand Abe that he is twelve. He is therefore about four in 1899. The games name no birthplace. He is born into the gang itself and grows up among its members. He calls the men of the camp his uncles.

His father is absent for part of his early childhood. When Jack is still a baby, John leaves the gang for about a year, then comes back. Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews take him in again, while Arthur Morgan holds the desertion against him. In 1899, during "The Battle of Shady Belle", John admits to Arthur that he behaved badly toward Abigail and the boy, and that he did not want to believe Jack was his son.

In the weeks before Red Dead Redemption 2 begins, the gang is camped near Blackwater, in West Elizabeth. A ferry robbery in the town turns into a shootout with Pinkerton agents, and the gang flees north into the mountains with its wounded. John is among those who were shot. The game does not say where Jack was during the robbery.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Chapter 1: Colter

"Outlaws from the West" opens on the gang's wagons crossing the Grizzlies in a snowstorm, and Jack is among those travelling with them. The gang takes shelter in Colter, an abandoned mining town in Ambarino. John is not with them: he went out to scout and has not come back. Dutch and Arthur ride to a nearby homestead and find it occupied by O'Driscolls. Once the house is cleared, Arthur remarks that it is dry and warm and that they could move the women and Jack down there. Dutch says maybe, they will see how the others are when they get back, but that he does not want the gang to split up.

In "Enter, Pursued by a Memory", John has been missing for two days. Abigail asks Arthur to look for him, and Arthur rides out with Javier Escuella. They find John on a ledge in the mountains, his face torn by wolves, and bring him back to Colter. At the start of "Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?", Abigail brings Jack into the cabin where his father lies in bed, telling John that the boy wanted to see him. Dutch greets the boy. Jack walks over to his father. When John asks whether she came to see him too, Abigail answers that she was hoping to see a corpse, and his parents trade insults in front of the boy; Dutch sides with Abigail and calls John an idiot. Abigail leads Jack out of the cabin.

Jack has no part in the robbery of Leviticus Cornwall's train, which Dutch, Arthur and others carry out near Granite Pass. When the snow clears, the gang leaves the mountains. In "Eastward Bound", the wagons are loaded, the injured John is helped into the back of one of them, and the gang heads east to a new camp at Horseshoe Overlook, above the town of Valentine, in the Heartlands.

Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook

At Horseshoe Overlook, Jack stays close to his mother and seldom goes beyond the camp. His father keeps his distance, as several camp scenes show. In "A Fisher of Men", Abigail asks Arthur to do something with Jack, who seems down after weeks of upheaval. Arthur finds the boy playing and offers to take him fishing. Jack fetches the rod that Uncle Hosea made him, and Arthur sets him in front of him on his horse. On the ride to the Dakota River, Arthur asks whether he feels better after being a little sick, and Jack says he is fine. He says he liked the snow and asks when they are going back to the camp near Blackwater. Arthur tells him they are not, and Jack explains that he left a storybook there. Arthur says someone can get him another one.

On the riverbank, Arthur shows Jack how to bait the hook with cheese, cast with the wrist and wait for a bite, then reels in a fish and tells him small ones should go back in the water. Jack asks for a break, goes to pick red flowers and, once he has sat back down, says that fishing is boring; he weaves the flowers into a necklace for his mother. Two men then ride up: Agents Andrew Milton and Edgar Ross of the Pinkerton agency. Milton offers Arthur his freedom in exchange for Dutch and says he killed Mac Callander. When Arthur throws down his rod, Ross draws on him, and Jack hides behind Arthur. Before leaving, Ross tells the boy to enjoy his fishing while he still can. It is Jack's first meeting with Ross.

On the way back, Jack asks who the men were, why Arthur lied about where Uncle Dutch is, and whether Mac is in jail. Arthur answers that they are disagreeable men and that the gang is there to protect him from people like them, then asks whether he still has the necklace. Jack says fishing was okay, but a lot of waiting. At camp, he tells his mother they caught a fish and gives her the necklace; Abigail asks him whether he thanked Uncle Arthur. Arthur tells Jack he did well, then goes straight to Dutch's tent to report the Pinkertons.

Chapter 3: Clemens Point

The gang then moves south to Clemens Point, on the shore of Flat Iron Lake in Lemoyne, where a stray dog joins the camp and Dutch names it Cain. Dutch and Hosea set two rival families, the Braithwaites and the Grays, against each other; as part of the scheme, the gang steals the Braithwaites' prized horses. The plan collapses in Rhodes, where Sean MacGuire is killed in a Gray ambush. When Arthur gets back to camp at the end of "A Short Walk in a Pretty Town", Abigail tells him that Jack has disappeared. The game does not show the abduction. The gang concludes that the Braithwaites took the boy to get even for the stolen horses.

In "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern", Dutch, Arthur, Hosea, John, Charles Smith, Bill Williamson, Javier and Lenny Summers ride to Braithwaite Manor to get him back, while Micah Bell and Kieran Duffy guard the camp. The gang kills the Braithwaite men, searches the house for Jack without finding him and sets it on fire. Dragged outside, Catherine Braithwaite admits that her sons handed the boy over to Angelo Bronte, a crime boss in Saint Denis, and says he is either in the city or on a boat to Italy. The next morning, in "The Battle of Shady Belle", the Pinkertons appear at Clemens Point, and the gang moves to Shady Belle, an abandoned plantation house in the bayou.

Chapter 4: Saint Denis

The chapter opens at Shady Belle with Jack still missing. In "Angelo Bronte, A Man of Honor", Dutch, Arthur and John go to Bronte's mansion in Saint Denis. On the approach, Arthur warns that a fight could cost the boy his life; Dutch's answer is that a calm head will get him back. Dutch has a guard fetch Bronte, presents the three of them as simple country folk and wins the crime boss over. Bronte agrees to give Jack back in return for a favor: clearing grave robbers out of the city cemetery. On the way there, John tells Arthur that he does not trust Bronte and comes back to his failings as a father. Arthur guesses that the Braithwaites meant to hold Jack for ransom and sent him to Bronte to keep him out of the gang's reach; with no Braithwaites left to pay Bronte, the boy is of little use to him.

John and Arthur kill the grave robbers, take their stash and slip past the police. Back at the mansion, Dutch is waiting outside with Jack. On the ride to Shady Belle, Jack talks about his time with Bronte: he had his own room with a big bed, a toy box and lots of books, ate spaghetti and picked up the Italian for "horse" and "slipper". John is glad to hear it. At Shady Belle, Abigail rushes to her son, and the gang throws a party for his return, at which Javier sings and plays the guitar. That evening, John asks Abigail and Jack to share his room and live as a family. After his return, Jack spends more time with his father, as camp scenes show.

Shady Belle soon comes under attack. In "Horsemen, Apocalypses", Kieran, who disappeared during Jack's party, is sent back into camp dead on a horse, and the O'Driscolls assault the house. Jack takes cover inside with Abigail, Mary-Beth Gaskill, Leopold Strauss and Susan Grimshaw while the men defend the building. Jack has no part in "Banking, The Old American Art", the robbery of the Lemoyne National Bank. The job fails: Milton kills Hosea in the street, Lenny is shot dead, John is arrested and later sent to Sisika Penitentiary, and Dutch, Arthur, Micah, Bill and Javier escape on a ship. Abigail, who took part in the diversion with Hosea, makes it back to the camp on her own.

Chapter 5: Guarma

Jack stays on the mainland with his mother and the rest of the camp while the ship's passengers are wrecked on the island of Guarma. Those left behind move from Shady Belle to Lakay, an abandoned settlement in the bayou; Strauss later says they owe their survival mostly to Sadie Adler. In "Fleeting Joy", Arthur, Micah, Javier, Dutch and Bill find the others at Lakay; Abigail tells Dutch that they took Hosea's and Lenny's bodies from the morgue and buried them. The mission does not show Jack during the reunion or during the Pinkerton attack that follows. In "That's Murfree Country", Arthur and Charles clear the Murfree Brood out of Beaver Hollow, a cave in Roanoke Ridge, and Jack moves north with the camp.

Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow

At Beaver Hollow, tension runs high in the camp, and Jack tells the adults that the quarrels frighten him. In "Visiting Hours", Arthur and Sadie row to Sisika, take a guard hostage and force the prison to release John, then bring him back to Beaver Hollow; Dutch is displeased to see him. Arthur, who now knows he has tuberculosis, can ask Sadie in "Mrs. Sadie Adler, Widow" to help John, Abigail and Jack get away from the gang when the time comes. During "Our Best Selves", while most of the men rob an army payroll train and John is shot and falls from it, Milton's men grab Abigail outside camp, where she is with Tilly Jackson and Jack. Tilly hides with the boy.

At the start of "Red Dead Redemption", Tilly and Jack meet the gang on the road back from the train. Tilly says that she saved Jack and that the two of them hid, but that Milton took Abigail to Van Horn to be put on a boat and tried for murder. Micah argues that without John she is only bait, and Dutch agrees and rides on to Beaver Hollow with most of the others. Arthur asks whether they are going to let the boy be made an orphan. He gives Tilly a sack of money and tells her to take Jack to Copperhead Landing and wait there for Abigail and Sadie. He then calls Jack over, tells him to be brave and promises to go and get his mother, and leaves for Van Horn with Sadie.

Tilly rides away with Jack. Arthur and Sadie free Abigail at Van Horn, where she shoots Milton dead, and Sadie takes her to Copperhead Landing, where Tilly is waiting with Jack. John, who survived his fall from the train, escapes the collapse of the gang at Beaver Hollow and joins his wife and son there. Arthur dies in all four of the game's endings, and the meeting on the road is the last time Jack sees him.

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

After Beaver Hollow, the Marstons head for the Yukon, where the Klondike gold rush is under way, hoping to earn enough to buy land. They come back without having made money. Over the following years, the family moves from place to place and rarely stays anywhere more than a few weeks, so Jack spends the years from 1899 to 1907 on the road. One of John's journal entries from this period notes that Jack does not like him. A few months before the epilogue opens, John kills a man in Roanoke Ridge, and the family moves on again, this time to West Elizabeth.

Epilogue I: Pronghorn Ranch

"The Wheel" opens with the family crossing Big Valley by wagon, Jack riding in the back. According to the mission's trivia, he talks with his parents about the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The family stops in Strawberry, where John takes a false name and a delivery job, and Abigail finds work cleaning the doctor's office. At Pronghorn Ranch, John recovers a wagon stolen by the Laramie Gang, and the foreman, Tom Dickens, agrees to give the family a chance: they are offered a small cabin on the edge of the property.

In "Simple Pleasures", Abigail and Jack arrive at the ranch from Strawberry by wagon, and a ranch hand helps them unload. Jack later joins his father and the ranch hand Abe at the cattle shed, where John introduces him under an alias; Jack tells Abe that he is twelve. After the milking, Abe has father and son muck out the horse stables. While they shovel, John remarks that the boy is a long way from Angelo Bronte's mansion now; Jack does not remember it. John goes back to the cabin and leaves Jack to finish the stables. In "Farming, For Beginners", the family eats breakfast together.

In "Fatherhood, For Beginners", after a day spent helping the Geddes family with a skittish horse and a foaling mare, John comes home and Abigail persuades him to take Jack riding. Jack rides a pony borrowed from Duncan Geddes, the owner's youngest son. Father and son ride along the Little Creek River, and John challenges Jack to a race back home. Jack is also at the ranch in the next mission, "Old Habits", in which John fights the leader of the Laramie Gang at the ranch until Abigail stops him; the mission gives Jack no part in the action, and Abigail is angry at John for breaking his promise of no more violence. In "Fatherhood, For Idiots", John complains that all his skills are criminal ones. Abigail mentions a piece of land called Beecher's Hope that they could buy with a bank loan; John answers that a wanted man cannot get one, and their argument visibly upsets Jack.

John then takes Jack to Strawberry to collect mail for the ranch and a parcel for Abigail, teaching him to drive the wagon on the way. At the post office, John is forced to give his real name. Jack drives on the way back. Three riders follow them from town; John tells Jack to hide and confronts the men, who ask whether he killed a man in Roanoke Ridge, the leader's brother. John kills all three. As the wagon sets off again, Jack sees the bodies and breaks down, crying and struggling to breathe. Depending on the player's choice, John either encourages or scolds him, then tells him he is thinking of buying Beecher's Hope. At the cabin, Jack pushes past his mother and storms inside.

Jack also appears in "Jim Milton Rides, Again?", in which John rides to Hanging Dog Ranch to take back the cattle stolen in a Laramie Gang raid and kills the gang's leader; Jack has no part in the action, and Abigail is again angry at John when he gets home. In "Motherhood", John receives a telegram from Sadie and goes back to the cabin to tell Abigail. She and Jack have gone. In her letter, Abigail explains that she loves their son too much to keep him near John while he keeps running into trouble. Tom Dickens tells John that he saw the two of them leave with their luggage. Over the following months, John keeps working at the ranch, then borrows money to buy land at Beecher's Hope and prove to Abigail that he has changed.

Epilogue II: Beecher's Hope

Jack is absent from the first half of the second part of the epilogue, while John builds a house at Beecher's Hope, in the Great Plains, with Uncle and Charles, and writes to Abigail that he has changed and misses her and the boy. In "The Best of Women", Abigail and Jack arrive at the ranch and are impressed by the house. They bring a dog named Rufus, to whom Jack becomes attached. In "Trying Again", John suggests a fishing trip to Jack, who is at home with a book and Rufus. Walking down, Jack brings up his 1899 fishing trip with Arthur and the two agents who interrupted it. He asks his father during the mission whether he wishes he were more like him.

At the stream, father and son fish until Jack notices that Rufus has wandered off. They find the dog bitten by a snake, and John sucks the venom from its leg. At the house, Jack blames the outing; John and Abigail tell him Rufus will recover within days. At the start of "A Really Big Bastard", Jack calls his parents out to the porch: Sadie has arrived. Over lunch, Sadie offers John bounty work, and Abigail objects, among other reasons, to the example it would set for Jack. She finally lets John take the job on condition that he comes home safe and leaves Micah Bell alone.

"American Venom" opens with Jack reading a story aloud to his mother and Uncle: a knight, Sir Galsworthy, kills a red dragon, rescues a princess and lays down his sword to become an apple farmer, without his children ever learning that he was once the bravest warrior in the world. Uncle says he loves it. Sadie then rides up with a lead on Micah, and John leaves with her and Charles despite Abigail's pleas. On Mount Hagen, John kills Micah with Dutch's help and recovers the gang's money. When the three ride back to Beecher's Hope, Abigail calls Jack and Uncle outside, and John tells her it is all over.

The money pays off the loan, and the closing credits show John and Abigail's wedding and the couple dancing outside the house. Among the scenes that follow are Jack playing with Rufus and father and son brushing a horse together in the corral, while Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham, who have been investigating Micah's death, watch them through binoculars. Jack is there when Charles and Sadie leave the ranch. In the scene after the credits, Abigail tells John to get to work on the ranch he owns and on raising his son.

Red Dead Redemption (1911)

From 1907 to 1911, the Marstons work Beecher's Hope as a ranch, with Uncle living with them. In 1911, John tells Bonnie MacFarlane that he is married, has a son, and had a daughter who died; the game gives no more about Jack's sister. That year, agents of the Bureau of Investigation led by Edgar Ross take Abigail and Jack away from the ranch. The Bureau holds them to force John to track down Bill Williamson, Javier Escuella and Dutch van der Linde. Jack is about sixteen. He does not appear on screen until John returns to Beecher's Hope in Act III.

Act I: New Austin

John is sent to New Austin to take Bill at Fort Mercer. Shot on his first approach, he recovers at MacFarlane's Ranch, then builds a posse with Marshal Leigh Johnson and others. John mentions his son, before returning home, to several of the people he deals with, among them Leigh Johnson, Luisa Fortuna, Javier and Dutch. When Fort Mercer falls, Bill has already left for Mexico.

Act II: Nuevo Paraíso

In Mexico, John hunts Javier and Bill while the Bureau still holds his family. After Javier's capture or death, Ross and Fordham meet John and Ross tells him that his wife sends her regards. During the coach chase in "An Appointed Time", Bill shouts at John that Jack is probably not even his son. Bill dies near Escalera at the end of the mission. Jack himself is not seen in Mexico.

Act III: West Elizabeth

Back in Blackwater, in "Bear One Another's Burdens", John asks where his wife and son are. Before they leave, Ross tells him that they are doing well and that both of them should make sure it stays that way. In "Great Men are Not Always Wise", Dutch asks John how Abigail and his little boy are; John answers that the boy is not so little now, and Dutch guesses he must be fifteen or sixteen. In "And The Truth Will Set You Free", John tells an army captain that the agents threatened to kill his wife and son if he did not go after Dutch. After Dutch's death at Cochinay, Ross first claims that Abigail died in a prison riot, then says he was joking: Abigail and Jack have been sent back to Beecher's Hope.

Return to Beecher's Hope

In "The Outlaw's Return", John walks into the yard of Beecher's Hope and calls for his family. After Abigail has greeted him, Jack comes over and addresses his father as sir. They embrace, and Jack apologizes: coyotes ate all the chickens and poachers took the cattle while they were away, even though he tried. John tells him he knows he did. Uncle, who was supposed to look after the ranch, insists that nobody should blame him. With no cattle left, John tells Jack to pack his bags: they will leave the next morning to buy a herd from friends of his at MacFarlane's Ranch, in Hennigan's Stead.

On the ride, Jack says he has never been to Hennigan's Stead and asks how his father knows the ranchers. He asks whether John's illness was a gentleman's complaint, something Uncle told him about, which shocks John. He asks where his father was all that time; his mother told him it was important government business. Jack says the agents treated them well enough and that some of them told him stories, and he says he might like to become a government man or a politician one day. He asks whether John's absence had to do with Dutch and Bill, whose names he kept hearing; John says they are gone and that they will not see them again. When Jack wonders aloud what that makes his father, John calls himself a bad man who tried to be a good father.

Jack tells his father he read in the newspaper that ranching is dead, and mentions becoming a businessman who writes novels about the Old West on the side. At MacFarlane's Ranch, Drew MacFarlane sends them to Bonnie at the corral, and John introduces his son to her. Jack leads the herd while John drives it from behind and Bonnie rides with them to the edge of the ranch. Near home, rustlers attack the cattle; John tells Jack to stay back and kills them. Jack says he was not scared. They drive the herd into the pen, and John tells his son that he did a good job and that he will make a rancher of him yet.

In "John Marston and Son", John finds Jack reading under a tree. The book is a Western in which a brave man hunts down his father's killer. John takes him to hunt elk with Rufus. On the way, John asks whether he is all right after what happened; Jack says he is no longer a child and asks his father to stop making promises he has heard before. When John calls one of Jack's stories a tall yarn, Jack asks whether it is taller than a boy taken from his home and locked up in a dungeon. John suggests he spends too much time in books, and when he adds that he hopes the boy is not hiding from the real world, Jack answers that it is a little late for that. John kills a bull elk and shows him how to cut the meat, then Jack shoots elk himself and skins one, slowly.

At Manzanita Post, John sells the meat while Jack waits for him. Jack protests that he did half the work and gets nothing, and promises he will be rich one day. John tells him he is proud of him and thanks him for looking after his mother during their captivity; Jack answers that she can look after herself and soon put the men in their place. Back at the ranch, Jack says the hunt was just like in the books. In "Wolves, Dogs and Sons", John finds him practicing with a rifle and offers to correct his stance. Jack refuses, saying his father would only run off again and that he is better off teaching himself. They ride out with Rufus to drive off wolves that have been after the herd.

On the ride, Jack complains that his father cannot decide to be a father only when it suits him, then apologizes and admits that every time John leaves, he fears he will not come back. He asks about his grandfather; John says he barely knew him and that he died in a bar fight. Jack asks whether Uncle is really John's uncle, and John says no. After they kill the wolves, Jack asks whether he can go hunting alone, boasting he could kill a bear; John forbids him to leave the farm without asking. Jack then asks whether his father was a murderer, because a man where they were held called him one. Jack jokes that they could be outlaws together; John answers that that life was ugly and brutal and tells him not to waste his own.

In "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child", Uncle tells John that the boy has gone up to the pass to track a grizzly, and that John's hunting tales got the better of him. John lets Rufus lead him up into Tall Trees. At Nekoti Rock, he finds his son hurt and hiding behind a rock, and kills the bear. The bear has also killed Jack's horse. Jack climbs onto his father's horse for the ride home. When John asks what he was trying to prove, Jack says he wanted to prove himself, that his father is never around, and that he hoped John would not go away again if he did something John liked. He adds that, as a small child, he used to sit up listening to Dutch and Bill tell their stories, and that he knows who his father is.

"The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed" begins in the barn, where John finds Jack working at a lathe and praises his skill with tools. John says the ranch will be his one day. They joke about the day John Marston would stop shooting, and talk about the flying machines Jack says will tour the country the next year. Uncle then spots soldiers and lawmen riding toward the ranch. John hugs Jack, sends him into the house and makes him promise to keep the doors locked and his mother inside. After the first wave, Jack comes out onto the porch anyway, points to how many men there are and asks whether they are going to kill them. John says he will not let that happen.

Uncle is shot on the porch and dies after telling John to get Abigail and Jack away; Jack cries out in horror. John sends his wife and son to the barn to ready the horses, and the three of them run there under fire. Jack takes part in the shooting after the first wave. In the barn, John puts Jack and Abigail on a horse and tells them to ride, not look back and not worry about him. Jack says his father is coming with them; John promises to catch up. They ride away, and the player controls Jack on the ride back. When the gunfire stops, Abigail tells Jack they have to go back for his father. They find John dead outside the barn. Jack and his mother bury John and Uncle on the hill above the ranch.

Red Dead Redemption: the 1914 epilogue

The story jumps forward three years. Jack, now an adult of about nineteen, stands at a fresh grave on the hill at Beecher's Hope: his mother has died, and the game does not give the cause. He buries her next to John and Uncle, puts on his father's hat and walks away from the graves. A Blackwater Ledger article of the period reports that Great Britain is at war with the Ottoman Empire, which places these events in November 1914. From this point on, Jack is the player's character. Apart from the search for Ross, the game leaves his life in 1914 to the player.

In "Remember My Family", Jack approaches a government agent, Howard Sawicki, at the Blackwater station, asks whether he worked with a man named Edgar Ross and says he has something for him. Sawicki says Ross won a chest full of medals, retired about a year earlier and moved with his wife to a cabin on Lake Don Julio. Jack rides there and meets Emily Ross, telling her he has a letter to deliver to her husband. She complains that the Bureau will not let her husband retire in peace, apologizes for her anger, and says that Edgar and his brother Phillip have gone hunting on the south side of the San Luis River. Jack tells her not to worry about her husband.

Jack crosses into Nuevo Paraíso and finds Phillip Ross at a hunting camp near Rio del Toro. He mentions the letter for his brother and says he will head home once it is delivered. Phillip tells him Edgar has gone downriver to hunt ducks and warns him about his brother's temper. On the riverbank, Jack finds Ross, introduces himself as the son of John Marston and tells him he has come for him. Ross laughs and says he remembers his father. Jack accuses him of killing John after sending him to do his dirty work. Ross answers that John's own life killed him, threatens to shoot Jack the same way, and orders him to leave.

Jack refuses to go. Ross drops his gun, and the two men face each other in a duel. Jack draws first and shoots Ross, whose body falls into the river. Jack looks down at his revolver, holsters it after a pause and walks back up the bank. The game's logo and closing credits follow. After the credits, the player can keep playing as Jack in the open world; the game shows nothing more of his story.

Undead Nightmare (outside the canon)

Undead Nightmare, an expansion released in 2010, is not part of the series' canon. In "Love in the Time of Plague", Jack is first seen at Beecher's Hope, reading a book, with his mother nearby. John drives a wagon into the ranch on a stormy night. Uncle has not come home, and the family eats without him. Jack's book, he tells his father, is about an Aztec curse that spreads a plague; Abigail calls it nonsense. During the night, Uncle comes back as one of the undead and bites Abigail. While John goes after Abigail, Jack can be seen chasing Rufus without catching him. He then rushes to help his mother and is infected in turn.

John lassoes and hogties his wife and son. He takes them to the bedroom and leaves them a plate of food before riding off to look for a cure. John's search ends in "A Civilized Man", when he returns a stolen mask to its altar in the catacombs beneath Escalera. In "On a Pale Horse", he comes home, finds his wife and son cured, though still bound, and hugs them. Three months later, Seth Briars steals the mask again, and John rises from his grave; the expansion does not show how he died. An in-game message explains that his wife and son buried him with a flask of water he treasured, without knowing its power. Jack is not seen again in the expansion.

Rockstar's character description, published on September 6, 2018, reads: "Young Jack has grown up with the gang, although everyone has done their best to shield him from the more nefarious elements, especially his mother, Abigail. He loves everything about nature and the outdoor life, and is carefully watched over by his many aunts and uncles." A character biography page from an official guide adds: "He feels lucky to have such a loving mother and a large family of aunts and uncles to look after him, but wishes that he could spend more time with his father and that there were some other children to play with. Jack is a kind, smart, independent boy who loves everything about nature and the outdoor life."

Reading runs through each period of his life. In 1907 his books are tales of knights and dragons; in 1911 John finds him with adventure novels and the newspaper. His answers to a father who provokes him in 1907 stay polite: "Noted, sir.", "I'll try and do better.", "I must be a disappointment to you." By 1911 he holds John's long absences against him and wants to earn his respect, to the point of going after a grizzly alone.

In "The Outlaw's Return" John introduces him to Bonnie MacFarlane with a remark on his age: "The arrogance of youth. He gets a little fur on his lip and he thinks he knows best all of a sudden." Bonnie answers: "Must take after his father."

As the playable character in 1914, Jack's voice lines change with the player's honor level. With low honor he mocks the people he meets and insults lawmen, and prostitutes turn him down. With high honor he turns them down himself, with lines such as "My ma would turn in her grave". Some lines look back on his life: "Go ahead! I got nothin' to live for, anyway!" in a gunfight, "And I was gonna be a writer." when he loots a woman's body. After a crime he can ask himself: "What have I become?" In "The Prohibitionist" he asks the saloon owner Oliver Philips what is wrong with calling Blackwater a "cesspit", and in "Lights, Camera, Action" he tells D.S. MacKenna that movies "seem like drivel". He also mocks Billy West in "Flowers for a Lady" and Jeb Blankenship in "Who Are You to Judge?".

In his own words

In "A Fisher of Men" (1899), when Arthur calls him a brave kid, Jack answers: "So just like you." By the river he admits: "Fishing sure is boring, Uncle Arthur." In "Trying Again" (1907) he asks his father: "Do you wish I was more like you?" In "The Outlaw's Return" (1911), asked whether the men who took the family away hurt him, he answers: "Ah no, they were okay. Some of them even told me stories. I think I'd like to be a government man someday, or-or a politician." On the same ride, after John reminds him he wanted to be a writer: "Well I could be both. A rich industrialist who writes novels about the Old West on the side."

In "John Marston and Son", when John asks whether the past months were hard on him: "I'm not a kid anymore." When John promises it will not happen again: "Don't make no more promises, Pa. I've heard them all before." In "Wolves, Dogs and Sons": "You can't just decide to be a father when it suits you. What about the rest of the time?" On the ride home in "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child" he tells John: "You think I didn't sit up and listen to Dutch and Bill telling all those stories? You think I don't know who you are?" and "I guess there's only room for one hero in this family."

Names

The cast list in the manual of Red Dead Redemption names him John "Jack" Marston Jr., and one of his 1914 combat lines is "I'm John Marston - Jr." When he pays off a bounty he can say: "Name's Marston. Jack, not John." He calls himself Jacky in a treasure-hunting line: "Jacky's gettin' an automobile!" His mother was born Abigail Roberts. On his father's side, John describes his own father to Bonnie MacFarlane as "an illiterate Scot, born on the boat into New York".

In "A Fisher of Men" (1899) he speaks of "Uncle Arthur" and "Uncle Dutch". He also calls Hosea his uncle, and in a camp scene he speaks of Uncle Sean (see Sean MacGuire). By 1911 he refers to "Mr. Dutch and Bill". In 1907 John nicknames him Lancelot, after the King Arthur stories he is reading, and uses that name when introducing him to Abe, a hand at Pronghorn Ranch.

Appearance

The guide's 1899 portrait shows thick brown hair, brown eyes and freckles, with a blue coat, a dark red scarf and patched trousers. He is missing a front tooth at four, and he is the only protagonist of the series with freckles. By 1911 he is only a few inches shorter than his father. After "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed" he can be seen with the scars left by the bear in "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child". In 1914 he wears shoulder-length hair, a mustache and a goatee, and his father's hat.

What he learns

Jack learns to read as a child: Hosea gives him lessons at camp in 1899 (see Relationships), and in 1911 his parents encourage his reading, as he reminds John in "John Marston and Son". He tried to get his mother, who cannot read, to learn as well, but she soon gave up. His first fishing trip is with Arthur in 1899 (see Relationships); in 1907 he fishes with John. That year John also teaches him to ride, on a pony borrowed from Duncan Geddes, and to drive a wagon, a lesson given on the way to Strawberry; Jack takes the reins for the return trip.

In 1911 he leads the herd from MacFarlane's Ranch while John drives it from behind, in "The Outlaw's Return". In "John Marston and Son" he shoots an elk, skins it after watching his father, and rides with him to sell the meat at Manzanita Post. In "Wolves, Dogs and Sons" he practices with a rifle on his own. Before the final attack John finds him working a lathe in the barn and tells him he is good with tools.

Gameplay in Red Dead Redemption

From "The Outlaw's Return" to "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", Jack lives at Beecher's Hope as a non-playable character. In the daytime he carries a Repeater Carbine, and after dark he plays the harmonica by the fireplace. The player takes control of him, aged sixteen, at the end of "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", for the ride back to the ranch. He can then get off his horse, sprint with an animation of his own, loot the soldiers' bodies and use consumables such as moonshine and chewing tobacco, with his adult voice lines while looting. He can spur the horse without being thrown, and the mission fails if he leaves the area, Abigail or the horse. From that point he is the player character until the end of the game.

What carries over from John: weapons, safehouses, honor, fame, bounty, outfits, and the progress made in most stranger missions, which Jack plays with lines recorded for him. John's horse carries over too, unless the player keeps Jack's Lusitano. What changes: "I Know You", the stranger mission about his father's past, can be neither started nor continued, and "Remember My Family" takes its place. Jack has Dead Eye and most of John's animations, but no grunts or screams of his own: falls and wounds reuse John's voice or those of generic characters. Like his father, he cannot swim. His version of the Cowboy Outfit comes with a beige jacket, and he can wear three uniforms that John has no legal way to obtain: the US Army Uniform, the US Marshal Uniform and the Bureau Uniform. Bounty hunting stays open to him, and he has his own lines for confronting wanted men such as Sergio Abelda or Americus Roe. A cheat code lets the player use the adult Jack before the final mission, at the cost of locking story missions and autosave.

Weapons and horses

His weapons are a Hunting Knife, a Repeater Carbine and a Bolt Action Rifle, plus whatever the player gives him in 1914. In 1907 he rides a Morgan pony. In 1911 he rides a Standardbred Pinto or a Painted Standardbred, depending on the mission; his horse is killed by the grizzly at Nekoti Rock in "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child". A Lusitano is the reward of "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed" and his default horse as the player character.

The tables below list Jack's missions in Red Dead Redemption 2, from the arrival at Colter to the wedding at Beecher's Hope, then in Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare. In some missions he travels or lives with the gang or the family without a part of his own. Jack is absent from "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern" and "The Battle of Shady Belle", which follow his kidnapping.

Red Dead Redemption 2, chapters 1 to 6

Red Dead Redemption 2, epilogue

Jack is absent from Beecher's Hope during the first missions of the second epilogue. Uncle brings up his departure with Abigail in "Home Improvement for Beginners", and John's letter in "A New Jerusalem" says he misses them both. Neither mission shows him.

Red Dead Redemption 2: other activities

Red Dead Redemption, 1911

The Bureau holds Jack and Abigail through most of the game. Until John returns home in Act III, Jack is only mentioned: in John's conversations, and in Bill's taunt during the chase in "An Appointed Time". He gives four of the Beecher's Hope missions, the "Jack Marston" strand that runs from "John Marston and Son" to "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed".

Red Dead Redemption, 1914

Jack is the player character from here on (see Skills for what carries over from John).

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

Undead Nightmare is set outside the series' continuity. Both missions take place at Beecher's Hope.

Notable people Jack kills

The only named character Jack must kill is Ross. In "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", he also fires on the unnamed soldiers attacking the ranch, and he shoots one of their horses. In "Remember My Family", the player can also kill Ross's wife and brother; killing them costs honor unless Jack wears the bandana, and killing Ross restores the honor lost.

The lines below are given as spoken in the game, in the original English, with the mission and the person addressed. The free-roam lines of 1914 and the camp lines of Red Dead Redemption 2 are not tied to a mission. Lines already quoted under Personality do not appear again here.

Red Dead Redemption 2, chapter 2

• I forgot a story book there. We left so quick.

  A Fisher of Men (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, who asks why he wants to go back to the camp near Blackwater

• Why did you lie about where Uncle Dutch is?

  A Fisher of Men (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, on the ride back after Milton and Ross leave

• Great, we caught a fish... And I made you this necklace.

  A Fisher of Men (RDR2, chapter 2), to Abigail, who asks how the boys got on

Red Dead Redemption 2, epilogue

• So... with the red dragon dead... and Princess Brea rescued, Sir Galsworthy put down his sword and-a took up his plough... He became the greatest apple farmer in the kingdom.

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue 2), reading aloud to Abigail and Uncle as John comes into the house

Red Dead Redemption 2, camp lines

The quote list sorts these lines by Jack's age and by the player's action, without naming a mission. The first is said by the child of 1899 when Arthur antagonizes him, the second when Arthur defuses the exchange; the last is said by the boy of 1907.

• I hate you, Uncle Arthur!

  Red Dead Redemption 2, 1899, when antagonized by Arthur

• Arthur's being mean to me!

  Red Dead Redemption 2, 1899, when Arthur defuses

• You okay sir? You don't normally dress like that.

  Red Dead Redemption 2, 1907, when John wears an unusual outfit

Red Dead Redemption, Act III

• Coyotes ate all the chickens and, poachers took the cattle. I tried, father, I tried.

  The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, Act III), to John, who asks how he has been

• I don't often get a chance to ask them. Was it a gentleman's complaint? What do they call it, the morning drip?

  The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, Act III), to John, who says he was sick and that Jack has a lot of questions; Jack adds that Uncle told him about it

• I've never seen you herd anything, Pa. Apart from the odd pack of drunks.

  The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, Act III), to John, who asks whether he is ready to learn about herding cattle

• No, I'm fine-I'm fine. I-I wasn't scared. Honest.

  The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, Act III), to John, after the rustlers are killed

• It's an adventure, sir. Set out in the West, and it tells this amazing story about how people killed the savage redskins and how this man, this brave man, hunts the man who killed his father.

  John Marston and Son (RDR1, Act III), to John, who asks what his book is about

• Taller than a boy being taken from his home and locked up in a dungeon?

  John Marston and Son (RDR1, Act III), to John, who calls his story of a girl raised by wolves a tall yarn

• What do you mean, "get" old. You are old.

  John Marston and Son (RDR1, Act III), to John, who hopes Jack will look after his parents when they get old

• You'll show me and you'll just...run off again or something. It's better I teach myself.

  Wolves, Dogs and Sons (RDR1, Act III), to John, who offers to show him how to hold the rifle

• Just imagine it though! John and Jack Marston, most wanted men in the West!

  Wolves, Dogs and Sons (RDR1, Act III), to John, on the ride home; John asks about his mother, then tells him he lives in a dream world

• I was trying to prove myself.

  Spare the Love, Spoil the Child (RDR1, Act III), to John, who answers "Prove what? By gettin' yourself killed?" on the ride home

• Yeah, maybe I'll do that..."The day John Marston stopped shooting."

  The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (RDR1, Act III), to John, who suggests he put it in one of his books if he ever finds something he does not like shooting

• No! Uncle! Please! Oh my God! They killed him!

  The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (RDR1, Act III), on the porch, when Uncle dies

• You're coming with us, Pa.

  The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (RDR1, Act III), to John, in the barn, as John puts him on a horse

Red Dead Redemption, 1914

• Did you work with a man named Edgar Ross? I have something for him.

  Remember My Family (RDR1, 1914), to Howard Sawicki at Blackwater

• I sure will, ma'am. And don't worry about a thing. I'm sure your husband will be just fine.

  Remember My Family (RDR1, 1914), to Emily Ross, who tells him to be careful crossing the river

• Forgive me for startling you sir, I have a message for you. My name is Jack Marston, you knew my father.

  Remember My Family (RDR1, 1914), to Edgar Ross, on the bank of the San Luis River

• You sent him to do your dirty work, then you shot him like a dog!

  Remember My Family (RDR1, 1914), to Ross, after Ross says John killed himself with the life he lived and Jack insists he saw him do it

• I ain't going nowhere old man!

  Remember My Family (RDR1, 1914), to Ross, who orders him to leave before he kills him too

Red Dead Redemption, 1914, free roam

The quote list groups Jack's free-roam lines by situation. A selection follows, with the situation the list gives.

• I'm John Marston's boy!

  Red Dead Redemption, in combat

• Somebody taught me well!

  Red Dead Redemption, in combat

• My pa knew Landon Ricketts, friend!

  Red Dead Redemption, in combat; Landon Ricketts is also named in one of his Dead Eye lines

• I guess I am my father's son.

  Red Dead Redemption, when slitting the throat of a hogtied person

• I did it, Pa.

  Red Dead Redemption, after killing a bear for the first time

• Just like you showed me, pa!

  Red Dead Redemption, when skinning an animal; also heard in "John Marston and Son"

• Sorry, friend. My father was a killer, nothing more!

  Red Dead Redemption, when stealing a horse or a cart

• That old feller Uncle used to told me stories like that.

  Red Dead Redemption, after a campfire story (original grammar)

• The only thing worse than a lawman is a government's man!

  Red Dead Redemption, to a lawman, with low honor

Casting

In Red Dead Redemption (2010), Jack is played by Josh Blaylock. The cast list printed in the game's manual credits the role as John "Jack" Marston Jr.; the end credits of the Game of the Year Edition list him as John "Jack" Marston. Blaylock is an American actor, born on 29 March 1990 in Plano, Texas, who later played BrianD in the web series Video Game High School (2012 to 2014). He also voices Jack in Undead Nightmare, the 2010 expansion. The game's motion capture cutscenes and dialogue were directed by Rod Edge. Rob Wiethoff, who plays John, did the motion capture for Jack in his duel with Ross.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) recast the role and split it by age. Marissa Buccianti plays Jack as a young child in 1899, and Ted Sutherland plays him at about twelve in the 1907 epilogue. Polygon, in an article by Cass Marshall published on 3 May 2019, explained that the character needed several actors because he grows up over the course of the game, and that a young child also provided the motion capture for the early scenes. Cali Elizabeth Moore, who plays Abigail, told Polygon that the boy who played Jack at his youngest was about five, and that during her first few months on the project only she and the actors playing John and Jack were working together. Rob Wiethoff plays John in both games; Abigail (Sophia Marzocchi, then Cali Elizabeth Moore) was recast, like Jack.

Making Jack the player character

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, one of the writers of Red Dead Redemption, described the decision in an interview with IGN, reported on 13 October 2026. He discussed the death of John with the game's lead designer, Christian Cantamessa, and both liked the idea. Houser's concern was practical: "how does an open-world game work if you've killed the protagonist?" In an open-world game, he explained, players finish the story and then return to the world to complete the side content, so "We'd have to play as someone else for that." The team chose Jack. Houser said the switch raised questions about side characters with arcs of several missions: what would happen if a player had done one mission as John and came back as Jack? "We had to think through all of that stuff and concluded we could probably make it work, but we were still scared."

Houser said there was "broad consensus" inside the studio that it was the right decision, but that the team was surprised by how angry some players were when the game came out: "There were people who were livid with you." He took that anger as a sign that players had "really engaged in the story and the characters". As a writer, he added, he felt John had to die for the story to have weight, something he had wanted in several Grand Theft Auto games but had never done for technical reasons. The interview was reported by GamesRadar+ (Anthony McGlynn) and Game Rant (Sarah Fields).

Cut content

The files of Red Dead Redemption 2 contain unused clothing for Jack: a pair of pants, a vest, a hat and two coats. A cut epilogue mission labeled "jck1" was set at Beecher's Hope and would have opened with John handing Jack a book in his room while John was writing; John would then have taught his son to ride. In the released game, the riding lesson takes place earlier, at Pronghorn Ranch, in "Fatherhood, For Beginners". A piece of concept art shows Jack with Arthur, John and Abigail.

Three camp encounters with Jack were also cut. At Colter, Kieran Duffy, held in the stables, would have tried to bribe Jack into fetching him food; Arthur would have stepped in and threatened to cut Kieran's throat if he spoke to the boy again. Animations suggest that the dog Cain was first meant to join the gang at Horseshoe Overlook, with an encounter in which Jack plays with him there. At Beecher's Hope, Jack would have asked whether Uncle Dutch was coming to visit; John would have answered that he hoped not, told him that Dutch was a bad man, and asked him to stay away from Dutch if he ever saw him again.

In Red Dead Redemption, the US Marshal and Bureau uniforms, which only Jack can wear, first carried a sheriff's badge, as their menu icons, a texture and some pre-release screenshots show.

Before the release of Red Dead Redemption 2

In a Game Informer feature on the seven characters returning from the first game, published on 28 September 2018, Jill Grodt described Jack as "Curious and bookish". She wrote that he feels John does not see him as a real man and tries to prove himself with tasks too dangerous for a boy, and that he is good-hearted "when the angst of youth isn't acting up". She noted that he calls Bill and Javier his uncles and remembers their adventure stories, a sign to her that he was kept away from the gang's actual crimes. Her profile ends with Jack becoming a frontier gunslinger and taking revenge on Ross, despite his gift for learning and his parents' hopes.

The 1914 epilogue

• Game Informer, 16 April 2014: in a feature by Shin Hieftje on memorable game endings, Red Dead Redemption illustrates "Closure". Hieftje describes the search for Ross as Jack and the final duel, and calls the result "a manifestation of the title: redemption, in a bloody and final fashion." He concludes that the game has "the perfect ending".
• GamesRadar+, 2015: in a list by David Roberts of gaming's most satisfying character switches, the move to an "older, angrier, hairier Jack" after John's death is called "brilliant", because it opens the post-story world and also "calls directly back to the cyclical nature of violence and tragedy" that runs through the game.
• The Guardian, 19 July 2017: Stuart Heritage sums up the ending as a son who finds his father's killer and murders him, and writes: "The violence is cyclical, and you've failed to break free of it. There never was any redemption." He calls the sequence spectacular as storytelling, "But that's all it is": the player is funneled down a track that can only end one way, unlike the ride into Mexico, which he calls his favorite moment in any medium.
• The A.V. Club, 20 May 2020: a list of gaming's best endings, published for the game's tenth anniversary, devotes its introduction to Red Dead Redemption. The writers consider John's death unremarkable as a story beat, and place "The revolutionary moment" in Jack taking up his father's guns to avenge him and becoming the player character. Other media had treated the cycle of vengeance, they write, but "Red Dead forced its players to live it out."

Jack in Red Dead Redemption 2

• Mashable, 7 December 2018: in a critical review of the prequel, Jess Joho writes that it reveals a flaw the first game hid, namely that Abigail and Jack are "shallow cardboard cutouts of Wife and Child". For most of the game, she writes, Jack is "just a representation of innocence contrasting the cruelty of his surroundings", before becoming the more fleshed-out character of the first game. She regrets that the prequel never asks how "a sensitive, shy boy mostly raised on a ranch" turns into "the cold-blooded killer of the first game's epilogue".
• Game Informer, 27 December 2018: 19th of the 24 members of the Van der Linde gang in the staff ranking. The staff found Jack interesting from the start, but mostly because of what players know of his role in the first game, and called him "essentially a callback machine more than a character" in the prequel.
• Game Rant, 27 March 2020: Joshua Duckworth reads Jack and Edgar Ross as a rivalry spanning both games. He points out that, in chronological order, Ross's first words are addressed to Jack, then four, during the fishing trip of "A Fisher of Men", and that his last words, in 1914, are addressed to the grown Jack, who confronts him while he is out by the river.

Multiplayer

Jack became a playable character model in the multiplayer mode of Red Dead Redemption with the Liars and Cheats Pack, detailed by Rockstar on August 27, 2010 and released on September 21, 2010. The pack added 15 characters from the story, as well as Poker, Liar's Dice, horse races and the Stronghold mode. Players select Jack in the Redemption section of the Outfitter, alongside John, Abigail, Bonnie MacFarlane, Leigh Johnson, Luisa Fortuna, Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars.

The versions of Red Dead Redemption released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17, 2023, then on PC on October 29, 2024, contain the story and Undead Nightmare but not the multiplayer mode, so the Jack model is not available in them.

Achievements and trophies

Two achievements of Red Dead Redemption are tied to the missions that make Jack the protagonist. "Into the Sunset" is awarded for completing "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", the mission that unlocks Jack as the player character. "Nurture or Nature?", an achievement worth 50 Gamerscore (a gold trophy on PlayStation), is awarded for completing "Remember My Family". As a stranger mission, "Remember My Family" also counts towards "Strange Things Are Afoot" and "People are Still Strange".

Marketing

For Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar released official artwork of Jack. On September 6, 2018, Rockstar posted his portrait and character description on Twitter, in a series covering the members of the gang, and The Hollywood Reporter reproduced the series the next day. In the composite image of the 23 gang members, Jack stands in the front row, between Abigail and Strauss.

In other Rockstar games

Grand Theft Auto V (2013), another Rockstar game, refers to Jack and to Red Dead Redemption: a book titled "Red Dead" by a J. Marston can be found in Franklin's house.

Across the series

• Jack and Edgar Ross are the only central characters of the series who appear in all four periods: 1899 and 1907 in Red Dead Redemption 2, 1911 and 1914 in Red Dead Redemption. Ross dies in 1914; Jack is alive at the end of every period.
• On screen, Jack and Ross meet only twice, in "A Fisher of Men" and "Remember My Family". Both meetings take place by a river, and Ross carries a long gun both times: a rifle in 1899, a duck-hunting shotgun in 1914.
• Jack is the third youngest playable character in a Rockstar game, after Jimmy Hopkins in Bully and Red Harlow at the start of Red Dead Revolver.

Red Dead Redemption 2

• In "A Fisher of Men", the horse cannot crash into obstacles while Jack is on board, and riding off a cliff fails the mission at once with the message "Jack was frightened". Crossing the deeper part of the Dakota River with him also fails the mission.
• If Arthur has already bought Jack new clothes, Jack thanks him for the new pants during the fishing trip. Started at night, the mission opens with Arthur promising to take him fishing in the morning.
• On the ride back from Bronte's mansion, Jack says the Italian words for slipper and horse incorrectly: "pantafòla" for "pantòfola", and a Spanish-sounding pronunciation for "cavallo".
• In "Horsemen, Apocalypses", throwing dynamite or a fire bottle at the start of the playable section fails the mission because it frightens Jack.
• In "Fatherhood, For Idiots", one of the three pursuers shoots John if he tries to hogtie them all. If the player still manages it, the cutscene is unchanged and Jack is just as shaken.
• Started at night, "Trying Again" opens with John knocking on the bathroom door to ask Jack whether he wants to do something the next day.
• The story Jack reads aloud before "American Venom", about the knight Sir Galsworthy, comes from a Frank Heck dime novel.
• A random audio glitch in Red Dead Redemption 2 gave the player character a voice very close to Josh Blaylock's Jack. Players speculated about it until the lines were traced to an ordinary non-player character also voiced by Blaylock.

Red Dead Redemption

• In "Wolves, Dogs and Sons", John tells Jack that his tense back is making the rifle jump. Landon Ricketts gives John the same advice in "The Gunslinger's Tragedy".
• In the opening scene of "Wolves, Dogs and Sons", Jack cocks the hammer of his Repeater Carbine by hand, as on the real Spencer carbine. In normal gameplay, the weapon fires by working the lever alone.
• Jack's horse in "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child" uses the model of a cut "Dead Horse". Looking at Jack resting on his bed after the mission shows the bloodied model used in it.
• Flying machines, which Jack and John discuss at the start of "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", are also the subject of Jenny's conversation with the preacher on the train in "Exodus in America", the game's first mission.
• Left idle, the playable Jack talks to himself, sometimes addressing his dead father.
• In "Remember My Family", Jack tells Ross he saw him kill John. In "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", he was riding away when the shots were fired and found the body afterwards.
• "Remember My Family" is the only stranger mission John cannot complete. With "I Know You", it is one of two stranger missions that cover all three regions: it starts in West Elizabeth, passes through New Austin and ends in Nuevo Paraíso.
• Aiming at Ross, his wife or his brother through a rifle scope fails "Remember My Family", even without firing. After the credits, Ross's body can be looted for 400 dollars.
• The epilogue outfit shows a bandolier even if the player has not bought it. It stays cosmetic until it is bought.

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

• Rufus appears only once in Undead Nightmare, in the background of "Love in the Time of Plague", when Jack chases him.