John Marston

Origins

John Marston was born in 1873, the year carved on his gravestone. In 1907, he tells Hamish Sinclair that he was born "further north" and spent a lot of time out west. His mother, a prostitute, died giving birth to him. In Red Dead Redemption, he describes his father to Bonnie MacFarlane as "an illiterate Scot, born on the boat into New York". The father never saw Scotland but talked about it constantly. He also hated the English for what had been done to his great-grandparents. To his son Jack, John later says his father drank heavily and that he barely knew him.

His father died in 1881, when John was eight. John gives two accounts of what happened to him. To Bonnie, he says his father was blinded in a bar fight south of Chicago. To Jack, he says his father died in a bar fight, adding "at least, that's what they told me". The boy was then placed in an orphanage, which he ran away from to live on the streets. In an optional camp conversation in Red Dead Redemption 2, John says he was eleven the first time he shot a man.

According to the official guide to Red Dead Redemption 2, John was twelve, in 1885, when he was caught stealing and about to be hanged. Dutch van der Linde intervened and took him in. Dutch already rode with Hosea Matthews and Arthur Morgan. The gang raised John. Dutch taught him to read, to shoot and to hunt. John tells Bonnie in 1911 that the leader of his gang taught him "to see all that was good in the world". In his 1907 journal, he calls the writer Evelyn Miller "the writer I grew up with, Dutch's favorite". John also tells Jack that Uncle "was old when I was a kid"; Uncle is only known to have joined the gang before 1894.

John grew up as one of the gang's outlaws, taking part in robberies across the West alongside Dutch, Hosea, Arthur and later Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella. Rockstar's character description for Red Dead Redemption 2 calls him an orphaned street kid who has "always had to live by his wits", and names him and Arthur as Dutch's "proudest protégés". In 1911, when Bonnie asks whether he killed people in those years, John answers: "Sure, and I've suffered for it." The official guide describes him in 1899 as Abigail's husband "in all but lawful status".

Abigail Roberts joined the gang in 1894, according to the official guide. She and John became a couple, and their son Jack was born around 1895. The gang members became aunts and uncles to the boy. When Jack was still a baby, John left the gang for about a year, then came back. Dutch and Hosea welcomed him back; Arthur held the departure against him. In 1899, when John goes missing in the snow, Arthur suggests he may have kept riding north and adds: "wouldn't be the first time". Throughout 1899, John is uneasy as a father, and Abigail reproaches him for it.

By 1899, the gang had taken in newer members such as Micah Bell and Charles Smith, and had settled for a time in Blackwater, a port town in West Elizabeth. John was part of the crew on the ferry robbery there, weeks before the start of Red Dead Redemption 2. Pinkerton agents arrived while the gang held the money, and the job ended in a shootout. During the robbery, Dutch killed a young woman, Heidi McCourt. Davey Callander, Mac Callander and John were all shot, according to Javier. Jenny Kirk was killed and Sean MacGuire went missing. The gang hid the money in Blackwater and fled north into the mountains.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Chapter 1: Colter

The gang reaches the abandoned mining town of Colter, in Ambarino, during a snowstorm. Davey Callander dies of his wounds on arrival. In "Outlaws from the West", Dutch and Arthur go looking for supplies and for Micah and John, who had both been sent out to scout. They find Micah, but not John. In "Enter, Pursued by a Memory", John has been missing for two days, and Abigail asks Arthur to look for him. Arthur is reluctant. Hosea insists and sends Javier with him. Javier says John was last seen heading up the river, and that John would do the same for him.

Arthur and Javier follow tracks past an abandoned campfire and across a river, then find John's horse dead in the snow. Javier fires a shot into the air and John answers with calls for help. They find him lying on a ledge, his face freshly torn by wolves. "Never thought I'd say this, but... it's good to see you, Arthur Morgan", he says. Arthur carries him on his shoulder. When the wolves return, Arthur hands John to Javier and holds the pack off. On the ride down, Javier mentions the bullet John took in Blackwater, and Arthur jokes that they will need "a better story for that scar".

Back in Colter, Bill and Lenny Summers carry John inside. Abigail thanks his rescuers, then tells John that this is "a new low, even by your standards". At the start of "Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall?", John lies in bed with Reverend Swanson beside him. He tells Arthur "I owe you". When Dutch announces the train job, John asks to come and tries to get up: "I was always ugly, Dutch... it's just a scratch." Dutch tells him to lie still. Abigail brings Jack to see him, and the couple trade insults in front of the boy. In "Eastward Bound", the injured John is helped into the back of a wagon for the move to Horseshoe Overlook.

Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook

In "Paying a Social Call", Kieran Duffy, a captured O'Driscoll, gives up a hideout at Six Point Cabin under threat of torture. Arthur rides there with Bill and John, Kieran leading the way. When Kieran compares the O'Driscolls to the Van der Linde gang, John tells him the two have nothing in common. The three men take out the lookouts quietly before a shootout breaks out. Inside the cabin, Kieran shoots an O'Driscoll who has jumped Arthur. Colm O'Driscoll is not there. Arthur lets Kieran stay with the gang, and sends Bill and John back to camp with him.

Sean MacGuire is brought back to the gang during this chapter, and a party is held at camp for his return. John gets drunk and argues with Abigail. The player, as Arthur, may also see him make drunken advances to Karen Jones, who says no because of Abigail. In "Pouring Forth Oil I", John brings Arthur a lead that came from Mary-Beth Gaskill through Uncle: a train full of wealthy passengers crossing Scarlett Meadows, south of the state line. Arthur hesitates, because stopping a train is difficult.

John has a solution: park a wagon full of oil across the tracks, so that the driver must stop or burn. Arthur calls the idea "kinda brilliant", then teases him about the wolf eating half his brain. John goes to Valentine for supplies (and on an errand for Abigail), while Arthur steals an oil wagon from Cornwall Kerosene & Tar in "Pouring Forth Oil II". Arthur leaves it at Old Trail Rise, north of Dewberry Creek, where John told him to hide it. If the player skips that mission, John gets the wagon himself. In "Pouring Forth Oil III", Arthur suggests taking Charles, and John goes to fetch him.

In "Pouring Forth Oil IV", Sean has joined Arthur at the wagon despite John telling him he was not coming. Sean mocks John for lying in bed "playing sick" and fondling his new scar. That night, the four men park the wagon on a crossing at the border between New Hanover and Lemoyne. John reminds the others that the passengers are innocent and that nobody needs to die. Charles knocks out the engineer. John works the passenger cars with a loot bag while Arthur backs him up, then sends Arthur ahead to help Sean in the baggage car. Lawmen arrive quickly. After the escape, John asks whether it was a setup, then says he will head to Valentine to "get something started".

That plan is "The Sheep and the Goats". John meets Arthur near the Valentine auction yard. Arthur buys a rifle at the gun store because John is not on good terms with the gunsmith. On the ride, Arthur tells John he cannot "be two people at once" with Jack. John's plan is to scatter the hands driving a flock from Emerald Ranch, then sell the sheep at auction. Arthur fires at the ground from a cliff, and the two men herd the animals into town. When the auctioneer, Morris Peyton, becomes suspicious, John talks his cut down from 25 to 18 percent.

John and Arthur then join Dutch and Leopold Strauss at Keane's Saloon. Dutch sends John and Strauss to collect the money for the sheep. Leviticus Cornwall arrives with armed men, has John and Strauss held at gunpoint outside, and calls for Dutch. While Dutch talks, Arthur draws and frees the two hostages. The gang shoots its way out of Valentine, and Dutch decides to move camp again.

Chapter 3: Clemens Point

From the new camp at Clemens Point, near Rhodes, the gang plays the feuding Gray and Braithwaite families against each other. At the start of "Advertising, The New American Art", John waits with Hosea at a stash of stolen moonshine they plan to sell back to the Braithwaites. Dutch has asked John to look into something else, so he hands his place to Arthur and leaves to scout the Braithwaites' prized race horses. In "Horse Flesh for Dinner", John, Arthur and Javier meet Tavish Gray at the Caliga Hall stables. Tavish wants the horses stolen and says they will sell for 5,000 dollars.

At Braithwaite Manor, a guard stops the three men. John tells him they have come to make a large investment in the stables, and they are let through. Arthur deals with the stablehand, and Javier ties the three horses together. John leads the escape across Scarlett Meadows while Arthur covers the rear. At Clemens Cove, the horse fence Clay Davies tells them the horses are only worth 700 dollars, a fraction of what they were promised. The three men sell anyway.

The scheme falls apart. Sean is killed in an ambush in Rhodes, and Jack disappears from camp. In "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern", the gang concludes that the Braithwaites took the boy in revenge for the stolen horses. John rides to Braithwaite Manor with Dutch, Arthur, Hosea, Charles, Bill, Javier and Lenny. The gang kills the Braithwaite men and sets the house on fire. Catherine Braithwaite, the matriarch, finally reveals that her sons handed Jack over to Angelo Bronte, a crime boss in Saint Denis.

The next morning, in "The Battle of Shady Belle", Dutch and Hosea try to reassure John about Jack. Pinkerton agents Andrew Milton and Edgar Ross then walk into the Clemens Point camp. Milton offers the others three days to run off and disappear if Dutch comes with him. Nobody accepts, and Milton leaves promising to come back with fifty men. Dutch sends John and Arthur to Shady Belle, an old plantation house in the bayou found earlier by Lenny. On the way, John blames the feud scheme for bringing the Pinkertons back, and says that Jack, unlike them, did not choose this life. The two men kill the Lemoyne Raiders occupying the house and throw the bodies into the swamp. John then rides back to guide the gang to its new camp.

Chapter 4: Saint Denis

In "Angelo Bronte, A Man of Honor", John, Arthur and Dutch go to Bronte's mansion in Saint Denis. Dutch has a guard fetch Bronte, presents the gang as "simple, country folk" and gains the crime boss's sympathy. Bronte asks for a favor in return for Jack: clearing grave robbers out of the Saint Denis cemetery. On the way to the cemetery, Arthur tells John he kept his head well in front of Bronte. John answers that he would not trust the man an inch, and comes back to his failings as a father. The two men kill the grave robbers, find their stash and slip past the police who arrive. Back at the mansion, Dutch is waiting with Jack. The boy says he was treated well, and John is relieved.

The gang throws a party at Shady Belle for Jack's return. That night, John offers to share his room with Abigail and Jack, an offer she did not expect and welcomes. Dutch, in camp conversations during the chapter, presses John on where his loyalty lies: the gang must come first. In a later exchange he calls him ungrateful. In "Horsemen, Apocalypses", Kieran, who disappeared during the party, is sent back into camp dead on a horse, and the O'Driscolls attack. Dutch posts John, Charles and Arthur at the house to defend it. After the fight, John and Arthur clear away the bodies.

Bronte's tip on a trolley station robbery turns out to be a setup. In "Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten", John, Dutch, Arthur, Bill and Lenny land by boat near Bronte's mansion and storm it. John finds Bronte upstairs and knocks him out, and the gang carries him to the boat under police fire. On the water, Bronte insults Dutch and offers money to any gang member who will kill him. Dutch drowns Bronte and feeds the body to an alligator, to the shock of Arthur and John.

"Banking, The Old American Art" is meant to be the last big job: robbing the Lemoyne National Bank in Saint Denis. John is inside the bank with Dutch, Arthur and the others when the Pinkertons surround it. Outside, Milton holds Hosea hostage; when Dutch tries to bargain for his friend, Milton answers that there will be no more deals and shoots Hosea. The gang blows a hole in a wall and escapes over the rooftops. Lenny is killed. John is arrested by the Pinkertons and sent to Sisika Penitentiary. Later, John tells Arthur that Dutch saw him being taken and did nothing to stop it.

Chapter 5: Guarma (John in Sisika)

John does not appear in chapter 5. While Dutch, Arthur, Bill, Javier and Micah escape Saint Denis by ship and are wrecked on the island of Guarma, John is held at Sisika Penitentiary, on an island in the Lannahechee River off the coast of Lemoyne. He works in the fields there as part of a prison work gang. Abigail stays on the mainland with Jack and the rest of the gang, at Lakay. In "Fleeting Joy", the last mission of the chapter, the Guarma group rejoins them, and Abigail tells Arthur there is talk of hanging John. Dutch refuses to make his rescue a priority. The Pinkertons then raid Lakay, and the gang moves to Beaver Hollow.

Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow

Arthur and Sadie Adler decide to free John anyway. In "A Fork in the Road", a mission on the seam between chapters 5 and 6, Arthur collapses in Saint Denis and is diagnosed with tuberculosis; at high honor, one of the voices he remembers afterwards is John's ("Sometimes I wonder if things are ever the way we remember 'em"). In "Icarus and Friends", Arthur flies over Sisika in Arturo Bullard's hot air balloon and spots a prisoner in the fields who is almost certainly John. Guards open fire on the balloon. Sadie then proposes that the two of them get John out themselves.

In "Visiting Hours", Abigail asks to come along at Copperhead Landing; Arthur and Sadie refuse. They row to the island, take a guard named Milliken hostage and demand John at the main gate. The guards bring John out, Arthur releases Milliken, and the three fight their way back to the boat. On the way back, Arthur tells John that Dutch did not want him rescued. John replies that Dutch watched him get taken by the Pinkertons and did nothing. At Beaver Hollow, Dutch is displeased to see him: he says he had a plan, and that the law will now come for all of them.

Dutch grows more suspicious, and Micah encourages it. Bill and Javier also come to doubt John's loyalty. Dutch accuses John, in camp, of speaking against him, and admits that he would have left him in Sisika. At the end of "The Delights of Van Horn", John waits with Micah near Beaver Hollow, and Micah tells him to take the stolen army dynamite to Bacchus Bridge. In "The Bridge to Nowhere", John says Dutch could have saved him at the bank and chose not to. Arthur tells him to take Abigail and Jack, leave, and not look back.

The two men push the crates out on a handcar, fix the charges under the bridge and race a train back to the end of the span before Arthur triggers the detonator. The middle of the bridge falls into the river. John says he does not understand Dutch's plan, and that he feels he no longer knows him. Arthur repeats that loyalty has done neither of them any good, and that John will need money to leave. John says Abigail thinks she knows where Dutch has hidden the gang's money. Arthur tells him to come back to him when she is sure.

In "My Last Boy", Eagle Flies rides into Beaver Hollow to raise a war party against the U.S. Army, and the gang, John included, rides to the oil fields to fight alongside the Wapiti warriors. Micah, Cleet and Joe stay out of it. At the start of "Our Best Selves", Arthur agrees to take part in a final robbery of an army payroll train on one condition: that John and his family be allowed to leave. Dutch appears to accept. On the way, Arthur rides with John to collect dynamite John has hidden. Arthur promises to do all he can to get the family to safety, and John thanks him for always looking out for him.

The train does not stop as planned, and the gang boards it at full speed. When a carriage catches fire, John jumps onto the back of Bill's horse to get past it. On the next car, John works on uncoupling the burning carriage, is shot in the shoulder and falls from the train. Dutch says he will go back for him and rides off with Javier, Micah and Joe. After the robbery, Dutch and Micah tell Arthur that John "didn't make it". The gang returns to camp believing him dead.

In the final chapter mission, "Red Dead Redemption", Milton captures Abigail at Van Horn. Micah argues against rescuing her: "Without John, she's just bait." Arthur and Sadie go after her anyway. Before he dies, Milton tells Arthur that Micah has been informing for the Pinkertons. Arthur, believing John dead, tells Abigail that John loved her and Jack. Sadie takes Abigail to Copperhead Landing, where Tilly Jackson is hiding with Jack. Abigail tells Arthur where Dutch's money chest is hidden in the caves under the camp, and gives him the key.

Back at Beaver Hollow, Arthur accuses Micah in front of Dutch. During the standoff, John walks into camp, wounded, and shouts at Dutch: "You left me... you left me to die!" Dutch answers that he had no choice. John and Susan Grimshaw side with Arthur. Susan aims a shotgun at Micah; when Javier warns that Pinkertons are coming, Micah shoots her. Dutch demands to know who is with him and who is betraying him. Bill, Javier, Micah, Cleet and Joe stay with Dutch and turn their guns on Arthur and John. The Pinkertons open fire before anyone else shoots, and the camp scatters.

Edgar Ross orders his agents to take Arthur and John dead or alive. The two men escape through the caves under the camp. On the way, Arthur tells John that Micah was the informant, as Milton revealed before dying ("We should've killed him months ago", John replies); when Arthur mentions the money hidden in the caves, John says there is no time. Once outside, Arthur says that Abigail and Jack are safe with Sadie at Copperhead Landing. John thanks him and calls him "brother". The pair outrun Dutch's men, but Pinkerton agents shoot their horses from under them. Surrounded by Pinkertons, Arthur has a choice to make.

If Arthur goes back for the money, John refuses to follow: "I head down there, I'm dead in five minutes. I got a family, that's more important." Arthur gives him his satchel and puts his hat on John's head, and they part. If Arthur helps John escape, the two fight their way up the mountain until Arthur, exhausted by his illness, stops. He gives John his hat and satchel, tells him to go to his family and stays behind to hold off the Pinkertons. "You're my brother", John tells him. "I know", Arthur answers. In both versions, John gets away and Arthur does not survive.

John reaches Copperhead Landing, where Abigail and Jack are waiting with Sadie and Tilly. If Arthur helped him escape, Arthur tells Dutch at the end of his fight with Micah: "John made it. He's the only one." In 1907, during "Gainful Employment", Sadie and John refer to an agreement made after the gang's collapse: to kill Micah if they ever found him. "I know what we said we'd do. That ain't changed", John tells her. They keep that promise on Mount Hagen, eight years after Beaver Hollow.

Between 1899 and 1907

After escaping Beaver Hollow in 1899, John rejoins Abigail and Jack. The family heads for the Yukon, where the Klondike gold rush is under way, with the aim of earning enough to buy land. The venture fails. In "Gainful Employment", set in 1907, John tells Sadie Adler that they came back without striking it rich. His journal describes the years that followed as a period of wandering across the north in which everything he tried went wrong. John still has a price on his head, which rules out an ordinary bank loan.

The Marstons rarely stay anywhere for more than a few weeks. In "The Wheel", Abigail asks John to try to live somewhere for longer than that. In "Fatherhood, For Idiots", she reproaches him for always showing people that he is not the Jim Milton he claims to be, as soon as the family starts to do well. In 1907, a few months before the epilogue begins, John kills a man in Roanoke Ridge. He later confirms the killing to Sadie, and tells the dead man's brother that the man had tried to rob him. His journal gives a different reason. The family then spends several months on the move to stay ahead of the law. Another journal entry records that Jack does not like him and that Abigail cannot stand him.

• Killed a feller because he looked at me funny. Abigail wants me to settle down. To what?

  John's journal (RDR2, epilogue)

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

Epilogue I: Pronghorn Ranch

The epilogue opens in 1907; a letter from the mayor of Saint Denis received during this part is dated June 1907. In "The Wheel", the Marstons cross Big Valley by wagon and stop in Strawberry. Using the name Jim Milton, John takes a job at Coopers General Store delivering supplies to Pronghorn Ranch, while Abigail finds work cleaning the town doctor's office. At the ranch, foreman Tom Dickens first turns him down: the owner, David Geddes, prefers unmarried hands. Two members of the Laramie Gang then steal the supply wagon. John chases them, brings the wagon back, and Dickens agrees to put in a word with Geddes. The family is given a small cabin on the edge of the property. The mission also gives John a horse, Rachel.

In "Simple Pleasures", John gives his real first name to Geddes before correcting himself to "Jim Milton". Geddes thanks him for dealing with the Laramies. A ranch hand named Abe takes him to the cattle shed, where he milks a cow, and asks whether he is a gunslinger; John says he is just a ranch hand. Abigail and Jack arrive from Strawberry, and Abigail warns John that his recklessness puts them in danger. John introduces Jack to Abe as "Lancelot". While they muck out the stables, he reminds Jack how far they are from Angelo Bronte's mansion; Jack does not remember it. That evening, Abigail tells him she is tired of running.

Two missions follow, in either order. In "Farming, For Beginners", Dickens shows John how to build a fence and leaves him to finish it. Later, a bull knocks down Geddes's son Angus and another hand; John ropes it and leads it back to the barn. The next morning, Abigail tells him she has a job at the doctor's office. In "Fatherhood, For Beginners", Geddes asks John to help his wife and his youngest son, Duncan. John calms Duncan's Morgan horse, Jeremiah, and teaches the boy the basics of bonding with it. He then helps a mare give birth to a foal, and turns down Mrs. Geddes's invitation to come up for a drink by saying he is married. At Abigail's urging, he takes Jack riding along Little Creek River on a pony borrowed from Duncan, and they race back home.

In "Old Habits", John is woken by a disturbance: the leader of the Laramie Gang and two of his men are harassing Abe. John threatens the leader and they come to blows. Abigail stops the fight before John can finish it. The leader turns on Abigail, then leaves with a promise to return. Abigail is angry, because John had promised her there would be 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, which they could buy with a bank loan. John answers that a man with a price on his head cannot get one, and the argument upsets Jack.

John then drives to Strawberry with Jack to collect the ranch's mail and a parcel for Abigail. At the post office, he is made to give his real name and Abigail's. On the way back, three riders follow the wagon. Their leader asks whether John killed a man in Roanoke Ridge a few months earlier: the dead man was his brother. John says the brother tried to rob him, the riders reach for their guns, and John kills all three. Seeing the bodies, Jack begins to cry and struggles to breathe. The player chooses whether John comforts or scolds him. To calm him, John talks about buying Beecher's Hope. Back at the ranch, Jack pushes past his mother. John admits that someone who knew him shot at them, and blames Abigail's parcel; she replies that it was a present for him.

In "Jim Milton Rides, Again?", the Laramie Gang raids Pronghorn Ranch at night, setting fire to buildings and driving off the cattle. Geddes sends John, Tom Dickens and Abe after the herd. At Hanging Dog Ranch, the gang's hideout, they kill the raiders. In the barn, the gang leader ambushes John, who overpowers him and kills him with his own weapon. Geddes thanks him, but Abigail is angry that he got involved; John replies that he was doing his job. Whichever of this mission and "Fatherhood, For Idiots" is completed first is followed by a flashback in which John remembers advice from Arthur Morgan.

In "Motherhood", John receives a telegram from Sadie asking him to meet her in Valentine. When he returns to the cabin, Abigail and Jack are gone. Her letter says she can no longer live with his habit of getting into trouble, and that she is leaving to keep Jack safe. She has left him a shirt as a gift. Tom Dickens, who saw them leave with their luggage, asks John who he really is; John answers that he is a family man. John then goes to see Geddes, asks whether a man can change, and requests help to buy land at Beecher's Hope so he can prove to Abigail that he has. Geddes agrees and sends him to a distant cousin, the banker Ansel Atherton, of the West Elizabeth Co-Operative Bank in Blackwater.

In "Gainful Employment", John finds Sadie in Smithfield's Saloon, in Valentine, where she drives a knife through the hand of a man harassing her. She has a bounty: Nathan Kirk, a banker who embezzled money from his New York employer and is hiding near Strawberry. On the way, they talk about the Yukon and about a possible lead on Micah Bell. In Strawberry, John tracks Kirk to the Welcome Center; Kirk jumps from his balcony and flees on horseback, and John catches and hogties him. Kirk claims his wife made him do it. Depending on whether John has already taken out his loan, he either defers his share or asks Sadie to send it straight to the bank.

"The Landowning Classes" takes place entirely in one cutscene at the bank in Blackwater. John gives Atherton his real surname, then tries to pass off "Milton" as a local joke. Atherton mocks the request, then agrees to a loan on terms favourable to the bank, provided Geddes guarantees it; if the payments stop, the bank takes the property back. He warns John that squatters occupy the land. In "Home of the Gentry?", John finds three squatters in a ruined shack at Beecher's Hope. He either pays them ten dollars to leave or kills them when they draw their guns. Back in Blackwater, he signs the papers. Outside the bank, he runs into Uncle, who decides to help him build the ranch whether John likes it or not.

Epilogue II: Beecher's Hope

In "Bare Knuckle Friendships", Uncle tells John that Charles Smith is alive and in Saint Denis. They take the train there and find Charles at a boxing match in the slums; he had believed John dead. Charles bets on himself and beats "Simon of Wales"; the player can bet on the fight and cheer or boo. Walking to the docks, John tells Charles that Micah betrayed the gang, and Charles tells him that Leopold Strauss was arrested by the Pinkertons and died in custody. Four of Guido Martelli's men, angry that Charles won a fight he had promised to throw, attack them. John and Charles kill them and escape the city by wagon, then ride back to Beecher's Hope with Uncle.

In "An Honest Day's Labors", John meets Sadie at the Blackwater saloon. A rival bounty hunter, James Langton, has taken her prisoner Shane Finley from her. They track Langton to Pike's Basin, in New Austin; the player can sneak in, threaten Langton's men or open fire, and Langton is killed in every case. On the ride back, they fight off the rest of his men. In Blackwater, Sadie tells the police chief that Langton died trying to rob her, collects the 400 dollar bounty and splits it with John.

In "The Tool Box", John buys a pre-cut house from Albert Cakes's lumber yard in Blackwater, then collects tools at Manzanita Post. Charles joins him with two hired guns, Wayne and Devon, to escort the wagons through Tall Trees. The Skinner Brothers ambush the convoy and carry off Wayne with a tool box. John and Charles follow, kill the Skinners on the trail, and find Wayne dead, tied to a tree. Charles takes the body home for burial. In "A New Jerusalem", John and Charles spend several weeks assembling the house while Uncle, pleading his "lumbago", gives orders. Once the roof is on, the three drink a toast. John then writes to Abigail about the land, the house and his reunion with Charles and Uncle, and tells her he has changed and misses her and Jack.

In "A Quick Favor for an Old Friend", Uncle suggests buying a pre-cut barn, which John orders from Albert Cakes. At the bank, Atherton refuses a second loan. Sadie, who needs help on a dangerous job, takes John after Ramón Cortez, a Del Lobo gang member hiding at the Painted Sky ranch. John beats Cortez in a fight in the barn, and they lock him up in Rhodes. The next morning, the Del Lobos attack the town and blow a hole in the cell; Cortez escapes. The sheriff will only pay once Cortez reaches Saint Denis, and Sadie gets him to add 75 dollars to the bounty. John and Sadie find the gang's camp, stop Cortez as he rows away, and hand him over. John asks Sadie to send his share to the bank.

In "Uncle's Bad Day", John, Charles and Uncle celebrate the new house and barn until they pass out. In the morning, Uncle is missing, and tracks show that the Skinner Brothers have taken him. John and Charles ride after them, leave the horses near the gang's camp and go in on foot. At the camp, Uncle is tied to a spit over a fire with his back burned. Each saves the other from an attacker, then they free Uncle and fight their way back to the horses. Charles tends to Uncle's burns at the ranch and says most of the gang is now dead. Later that day, in "The Best of Women", Abigail and Jack arrive at Beecher's Hope and see the house John has built.

In "Trying Again", John takes Jack fishing; Jack recalls going fishing with Arthur before the Pinkertons arrived. Their dog, Rufus, is bitten by a snake, and John sucks the venom from its leg. In "A Really Big Bastard", Sadie comes to lunch at the ranch. Abigail learns that John has been doing bounty work in her absence and objects, then lets him go with Sadie on a low-risk job, on condition that they leave Micah alone. On the ride to Tall Trees, John tells Sadie he intends to propose to Abigail with the ring Arthur once offered to Mary Linton. Their target, the accountant Marshall Thurwell, has fled his camp for a run-down cabin nearby. There a large scarred grizzly charges them and mauls John before a shot from Sadie drives it off. They deliver Thurwell to Blackwater, and Sadie promises to tell John as soon as she hears where Micah is.

In "A New Future Imagined", Duncan and Angus Geddes bring furniture to Beecher's Hope to thank John for saving Pronghorn Ranch from the Laramie Gang. John and Abigail then spend a day in Blackwater: they pose for a photograph at a studio, watch a moving picture, and row out onto the lake in a borrowed canoe. There, John proposes, and Abigail accepts.

In "American Venom", Sadie arrives with news: Cleet, one of Micah's men, has been seen drinking in Strawberry. Charles agrees to come at once. Abigail begs John to stay, but he tells her that the ranch would not exist without Arthur, Sadie and the gang members who died. In Strawberry, the three capture Cleet, who claims not to know where Micah is. They drag him onto the town gallows, with a crowd watching, until he names Mount Hagen. The player then chooses whether John hangs Cleet; if John spares him, Sadie shoots him.

On Mount Hagen, a sniper hits Charles in the shoulder. Further up, one of Micah's men stabs Sadie in the torso; Charles shoots her attacker. Sadie tells John she is not dying and sends him on alone. John kills Joe and two other gang members, then reaches Micah's cabin. After a short exchange, they open fire, and the gunfight ends in a stalemate. Sadie comes up behind Micah and holds him at gunpoint. Dutch van der Linde then steps out of the cabin with his revolvers drawn. Sadie is distracted, and Micah takes her hostage. With Dutch also aiming at him, John reminds Dutch that he always did his best for him. Dutch shoots Micah in the chest and holsters his guns. Micah tries to fire at both men, and John shoots him several times. Dutch walks away without answering John's thanks.

Inside the cabin, John and Sadie find a large sum of money and gold, most of it from the Blackwater ferry robbery of 1899. The three return to the ranch, and John tells Abigail it is over. The money pays off the Beecher's Hope loan, and John and Abigail marry at the ranch. Charles leaves, saying he will head north to Canada and try to start a family; Sadie later leaves too, mentioning South America. During the credits, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham examine Micah's frozen body on Mount Hagen, find no trace of the Blackwater money, question people across the region, and end up watching John at work on his ranch.

Between 1907 and 1911

With the loan paid off, John works Beecher's Hope as a rancher for the next few years. In "This is Armadillo, USA", in 1911, he tells Bonnie MacFarlane that he has a small holding in the Great Plains and has been farming for "three years or so". In "John Marston and Son", he tells Jack about a huge bear he once hunted in Tall Trees. In "Women and Cattle", he tells Bonnie that he is married, has a son, and had a daughter who died. The game does not give the daughter's name, the date of her birth or the cause of her death.

Red Dead Redemption (1911-1914)

Act I: New Austin

The game is set from October 1911, a date deduced from the issues of the in-game newspaper, the Blackwater Ledger. The Bureau of Investigation holds Abigail and Jack, and uses them to force John to track down his former companions. In "Exodus in America", John arrives in Blackwater on the ferry Morningstar, and Ross and Fordham walk him through the town and put him on a train to Armadillo. There, a guide named Jake, hired by Marshal Leigh Johnson after a telegram from Blackwater, takes him to Fort Mercer, where Bill Williamson and his gang are holed up. From the walls, Bill refuses to give himself up, mocks John and says neither he nor Dutch gives him orders anymore. John reaches for his revolver, and one of Bill's men shoots him in the side.

Bonnie MacFarlane and her ranch hand Amos find John unconscious by the road and take him to Doctor Nathanial Johnston in Armadillo. Bonnie then gives him room and board at MacFarlane's Ranch in exchange for work, a way to work off the 15-dollar doctor's bill she covered (the sum is never deducted from his money). In "New Friends, Old Problems", he patrols the ranch with her at night. "Obstacles in Our Path" is a horse race against Bonnie. In "This is Armadillo, USA", he drives her into town. In "Women and Cattle", they drive the cattle out of the pen to the far pasture. In "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions", he breaks horses for the ranch, including a Kentucky Saddler he keeps. In "A Tempest Looms", he brings the herd back during a thunderstorm.

In "The Burning", John and Bonnie find her father, Drew MacFarlane, standing among several dead men, then return to find the barn set on fire by Bill's gang. John gets the trapped horses out. For Marshal Leigh Johnson, John first tracks the outlaw Walton Lowe from the Armadillo saloon to his hideout ("Political Realities in Armadillo"), after a misunderstanding in which deputy Jonah takes him for one of Bill's men. He then recovers cattle and ranch hands taken by rustlers at Pike's Basin ("Justice in Pike's Basin"), and rides in a posse against outlaws at Ridgewood Farm ("Spare the Rod, Spoil the Bandit"). In "Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane", Bill's gang kidnaps Bonnie and demands the release of a prisoner, Norman Deek. At the exchange, near Tumbleweed, the gang opens fire and Deek is killed. John saves Bonnie from the noose.

To assemble a posse for Fort Mercer, John works with the con man Nigel West Dickens. In "Old Swindler Blues", he finds him wounded beside his wagon and drives him to Armadillo while fighting off angry customers. In "You Shall Not Give False Testimony, Except for Profit", John poses as a farmer in the crowd to show off the effects of Dickens's elixir, by fighting and shooting. "Liars, Cheats and Other Proud Americans" is a cart race at Gaptooth Breach. In "Can a Swindler Change His Spots?", two riders denounce Dickens as a fraud and John protects him from the crowd. In "The Sport of Kings, and Liars", John wins a horse race at Rathskeller Fork, and the winnings pay to fit out Dickens's wagon for the assault.

John also recruits the treasure hunter Seth Briars. In "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", he finds Seth digging up graves at Coot's Chapel, then draws two deputies away from the Benedict Point jail so Seth can reach his former partner, Moses Forth, who holds half of a treasure map. In "A Gentle Drive with Friends", they look for another piece of the map while bandits chase them. In "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead", John clears armed men from around Tumbleweed and Gaptooth Ridge so Seth can search for his treasure. With Irish, John kills two men drowning him in a horse trough ("A Frenchman, a Welshman and an Irishman"), takes a Gatling gun from miners and rides it out of the mine in a cart ("Man is Born Unto Trouble"), then stops Irish from robbing two nuns and rescues his contact Shaky to get ammunition for the gun ("On Shaky's Ground").

In "The Assault on Fort Mercer", the posse is Johnson, his deputies Eli and Jonah, Dickens and Seth; Irish, who supplied the Gatling gun, misses the fight. Seth slips inside the fort first. Dickens drives his wagon through the gate as if to sell his elixir, then raps on its side; John, hidden in the back with the Gatling gun, opens fire on the gang. The posse searches the fort and fights off reinforcements, but Bill is not there. A captured gang member reveals that he left for Mexico to join Javier Escuella.

Act II: Nuevo Paraíso

In "We Shall Be Together in Paradise", Irish takes John across the river at Brittlebrush Trawl, under attack from men he owes, and leaves him in Nuevo Paraíso. In Chuparosa, in "The Gunslinger's Tragedy", John kills bandits who demand a toll, and meets Landon Ricketts, a retired gunslinger who teaches him shooting techniques. In "Landon Ricketts Rides Again", they learn that the army is holding Luisa Fortuna, blow open her cell with dynamite and escort her to Diez Coronas. "Lucky in Love" ends a poker game with a duel against Andreas Müller, who accuses John of cheating, a second standoff with a stranger holding a knife to a girl's throat, and a shootout with four of their accomplices. In "The Mexican Wagon Train", John and Ricketts free prisoners condemned by the army and drive them across the border.

To get information, John also works for the government side. In "Civilization, at Any Price", Captain Vincente de Santa holds him at gunpoint as a joke, then takes him to escort a decoy train out of Chuparosa, a trap to draw out the rebels of Abraham Reyes. In "The Demon Drink", John helps De Santa and Captain Espinoza attack the village of Tesoro Azul and burn its houses. In "Empty Promises", he fights rebels at Torquemada. In "Mexican Caesar", Colonel Agustin Allende promises him 20,000 pesos and information for escorting a train across the province, and does not pay. In "Cowards Die Many Times", De Santa leads John to Chuparosa on the pretext that Bill and Javier have been captured, and betrays him. Reyes's rebels arrive in time, and John kills Captain Espinoza in the battle that follows.

On the rebel side, John escorts Luisa's sister Miranda to the docks ("My Sister's Keeper"). In "Must a Savior Die?", he slips into El Presidio, shoots Reyes's executioner with a sniper rifle and rides out with him. In "Father Abraham", he shows the rebel demolition team where to set charges on the road near the Frontera Bridge, then sets them off and destroys an army supply convoy. In "The Great Mexican Train Robbery", he knifes the guards on an army train in Chuparosa and uncouples its rear cars for the rebels. In "Captain De Santa's Downfall", he stops a massacre of rebels at Sepulcro, hogties De Santa and beats him until he names Casa Madrugada as Javier's hiding place. The player chooses whether John kills De Santa or leaves him to the rebels, who shoot him. Casa Madrugada turns out to be a trap held by soldiers.

In "The Gates of El Presidio", John sends a wagon loaded with dynamite into the fortress gate, and the rebels storm in. He finds Javier in the barracks. Javier offers to give him Bill and says that Dutch is in Colombia and that he can take John straight to him, then pushes a crate onto John, jumps from a window and flees on horseback. After the chase, the player chooses whether John hogties Javier or kills him; alive or dead, Javier is handed over to Ross and Fordham, who have come to Mexico; Fordham disapproves if he is dead. In "An Appointed Time", Luisa is shot dead by soldiers while trying to save Reyes from execution in Escalera. John kills the two soldiers, beats Raul Zubieta in a duel, frees Reyes and other prisoners, and joins the assault on Allende's villa.

As the rebels break in, Allende and Bill flee in a stagecoach. John and Reyes give chase and stop it. Allende tries to buy his freedom by handing over Bill. The player decides which of the two John shoots, if any. Reyes executes the rest. The rebels take control of Nuevo Paraíso, and John returns to Blackwater to report to Ross and Fordham.

Act III: West Elizabeth

In "Bear One Another's Burdens", John learns in Blackwater that his task is not over: Ross wants Dutch, and the Bureau keeps Abigail and Jack until then. Ross gives John a High Power Pistol. Acting on a tip, John and Fordham search the wreck of the Serendipity and find Nastas, the agents' informant, beaten and tied up; Dutch's men surround them, and John carries Nastas to safety. In "Great Men are Not Always Wise", the agents wait for Dutch at the Blackwater bank. A standoff inside ends with the death of a bank employee, Muriel Scranton, and Dutch's escape. Sheriff Hopkins blames John: "This is your fault, Marston!" The posse later finds the automobile burning by the road, and once Dutch has got away, Ross asks John whether he was scared to shoot him.

John also works with Harold MacDougal, a Yale professor studying the region's Native Americans. In "At Home with Dutch", Nastas reports that young men from the reservation are joining Dutch's gang in the hills of Cochinay. In "For Purely Scientific Purposes", a meeting arranged with Dutch's men turns out to be an ambush; Nastas is killed, and John escorts MacDougal back to Blackwater. In "The Prodigal Son Returns (To Yale)", MacDougal is packing to leave when Dutch shoots out a window and calls to John. John gets the professor out of town and puts him on a train at Manzanita Post.

In "And You Will Know The Truth", Ross once more refuses to let John see his family. With the US Army, John mans a machine gun on an armored car, defends a camp against Dutch's gang and destroys a wagon packed with dynamite; an explosion overturns the car. In "And The Truth Will Set You Free", the army and the agents assault Dutch's fort at Cochinay. John enters alone, puts Dutch's machine gun out of action and follows him to a cliff edge. Dutch tells him "Our time is passed, John" and warns that the government will always need a new monster to justify itself. He then lets himself fall. Ross borrows John's gun and shoots the body, saying it looks better in the report that way.

Beecher's Hope

Released by the government, John returns to Beecher's Hope, to Abigail, Jack, now sixteen, and Uncle. In "The Outlaw's Return", he finds the livestock gone, lost to wildlife and rustlers during Uncle's watch. With Jack, he buys cattle at MacFarlane's Ranch, where Bonnie helps start the herd, and fights off rustlers on the way home. In "Pestilence", Abigail sends him to shoot the crows eating the corn in the silo. In "Old Friends, New Problems", a telegram from Bonnie asks for corn. Abigail, who cannot read, has John read it aloud, rides with him to MacFarlane's Ranch and questions him about Bonnie on the way; the two women meet and part on good terms.

In "By Sweat and Toil", John and Uncle drive the cattle to pasture when bandits blow up the tracks to rob a train and the herd stampedes. The player chooses whether John stops the robbery or stays with the herd. In "A Continual Feast", John and Uncle break three wild mustangs. In "John Marston and Son", Jack, who has been reading adventure books, goes elk hunting with his father, and they sell the meat and hides at Manzanita Post. In "Wolves, Dogs and Sons", they kill wolves that have been attacking the cattle. In "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child", Jack goes after a grizzly alone; John follows Rufus to Nekoti Rock and kills the bear before it reaches his injured son.

In "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", soldiers, federal agents and marshals led by Ross attack the ranch. John and Uncle hold off the first wave, and Jack fires from the porch. Uncle is shot in the chest, tells John to get Abigail and Jack away, and dies. John leads his wife and son to the barn and puts them on a horse; Abigail kisses him before they ride off. John looks through the gap in the barn doors at the men waiting outside, opens the doors and draws. He kills several of them before being shot down. Ross lights a cigar and leaves with his men. Abigail and Jack return to find his body. They bury him on the hill above the ranch, beside Uncle. His headstone reads "Blessed are the peacemakers".

1914

The story moves to 1914, three years after John's death. Abigail has died; the game does not give the cause. Jack, now an adult, buries her on the hill next to John and Uncle. From then on, the player controls Jack, who keeps John's weapons, clothes, money, horses, safehouses, fame and honor. In "Remember My Family", a Bureau agent, Howard Sawicki, tells Jack in Blackwater that Ross lives near Lake Don Julio. There, Ross's wife, Emily, says he has gone duck hunting in Nuevo Paraíso with his brother. Jack finds the brother, Phillip, at a camp, then Ross on the bank of the San Luis River. Ross admits nothing to regret about John and tells Jack he will kill him too. Jack stands his ground and kills Ross in the duel that follows.

Undead Nightmare (outside the canon)

Undead Nightmare is a single-player expansion for Red Dead Redemption, released in October 2010. Its events are not part of the series' canon and have no effect on the main story. The expansion is set at a point where John, Abigail, Jack and Uncle are all alive at Beecher's Hope: after "The Outlaw's Return" and before "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed". A plague raises the dead across the whole map. John crosses West Elizabeth, New Austin and Nuevo Paraíso in search of a cure. The game splits its content into eight main missions and six side missions, several of them given by characters from the main game.

West Elizabeth

In "Love in the Time of Plague", John comes home to Beecher's Hope on a stormy night. Uncle is missing: Abigail thought he was out with John. The family eats without him. After dinner, Jack talks about the book he is reading, a story of the ancient Aztecs and a curse that brings a plague; Abigail calls it nonsense. During the night, Uncle walks into the bedroom covered in blood and goes for John, who hits him with a lamp and runs to fetch his gun in his union suit. Uncle gets up, chases Abigail outside and bites her. John shoots him in the head. Abigail then bites Jack, and both turn. John lassoes and hogties his wife and son, leaves them in the house and rides to Blackwater for help.

"Curious Tales from Blackwater" opens in an empty town. John meets Harold MacDougal, back from Yale to continue his research, who admits he has no idea what is going on. When the professor goes down an alley for his medical bag, an undead Nastas attacks and devours him. John must kill or avoid both of them. The niece of Mordecai Robbard sends him to the Blackwater cemetery, where he burns the coffins and kills the undead Robbard; the player receives the Repeater Carbine. Back in town, John defends the survivors. A family on the roof of the Auto Livery only argues among themselves. A second group gives him two leads on the origin of the plague: a "snake oil merchant" and a "freak with a glass eye".

The side mission "Birth of the Conservation Movement" starts at Tanner's Reach. A frightened frontiersman fires blindly into the woods and tells John he has seen Sasquatches. He asks John to hunt them in Tall Trees. After six kills, John finds the last of the creatures, which speaks to him: its family is dead and it is now alone. It asks John to end its life. The player chooses whether to shoot it or leave it.

New Austin

John follows the glass-eye lead in "Get Back in That Hole, Partner". At The Old Bacchus Place, Seth Briars is playing poker with his friend Moses Forth, now one of the undead. Seth plays down the plague ("It ain't nothin'"). John reports what people in Blackwater are saying about the glass eye he dug up. Seth loses his temper and urges Moses to attack, but the undead man does not move. He then tells John to clear three cemeteries: Coot's Chapel, Odd Fellow's Rest and Tumbleweed. When John comes back, Seth says the cause has something to do with the Aztecs, "or, or Incas", and that the answer is in Mexico.

The other lead points to Nigel West Dickens. In "A Cure for Most of What Ails You", John finds him at Fort Mercer selling a tonic to the refugees for 100 gold coins and forces him to hand it out for free. Dickens claims the undead will not approach anyone who uses it. A man walks out to test it and is torn apart. Dickens gives John the tonic to use as bait, then sends him to gather five Desert Sage and five Violet Snowdrop, in Gaptooth Ridge and Tall Trees. With the plants he makes a phosphorus coating for John's ammunition. He then asks for old parts stored at Riley's Charge and uses them, at Benedict Point, to build a Blunderbuss, which he presents as the right weapon against the undead.

Four side missions take place in New Austin. In "Paternal Pride", Bonnie MacFarlane asks John to look for her father Drew, who has been inside the barn for a day trying to keep the undead locked in. John climbs in through the upper floor, clears the barn and finds Drew turned; he has to kill him. He tells Bonnie, who says her father died protecting the people he loved. In "Dinner for Two", Marshal Leigh Johnson gives John a Sawed-off Shotgun and asks him to find his deputies Eli and Jonah. John passes the shopkeeper Herbert Moon, who is killed and turned outside his store, then finds Eli eating Jonah behind the saloon and kills both.

In "Filth and Other Entertainment", the director D.S. MacKenna, camped at Plainview, wants to shoot a film about the undead and asks John to capture a Retcher. Once John brings it, MacKenna unties it and a second captive, and orders them to "eat human flesh". They obey: MacKenna is killed and turned, and John deals with all three. In "Missing Souls", Captain Cody Hixon is putting up missing-person posters at Fort Mercer. John finds Millicent Waterbury surrounded by undead at Pleasance House and brings her back to her family. Hixon tells him other people are still missing.

In "American Imperialism", Dickens meets John at Solomon's Folly. He has heard that the plague is less severe in Mexico, and that a U.S. Army train at Benedict Point is about to leave for the border. Disguised as a soldier, John could board it. Dickens points him to a group of deserters camped at The Scratching Post. John either helps them fight off the undead and receives a uniform, or steals it. At Benedict Point, he helps defend the train and rides on a flatbed car, fighting off undead until the train stops at Frontera Bridge, blocked by debris. The captain orders the men to clear it; the soldiers flee when the undead attack. John holds alone, releases the brakes and drives the train into Mexico. He does not see Dickens again.

Nuevo Paraíso

In "Mother Superior Blues", John reaches the Las Hermanas train station as an undead is strangling the Mother Superior. She frees herself and shoots it in the head. Afraid she has sinned, she is reassured by John: she was defending herself. She asks him to clear the convent so her nuns are safe. To understand the plague, she then needs a "fresh" undead: John hogties one and brings it back. She pours holy water on it, and the body burns briefly in blue flame without dying. She sends John to cleanse the Sepulcro cemetery, where an undead Vincente de Santa rises from his grave. Holy Water becomes available to the player. On his return, she tells him a woman linked the plague to something Abraham Reyes did, and sends him to Escalera.

The side mission "Biographies and Lies" takes place in Casa Madrugada, which Landon Ricketts is defending on his own. John had expected Mexico to be quieter. Ricketts admits that in all his years he never saw anything to match the dead getting up. He suggests luring the undead in to kill them in numbers. John mentions that Dickens' elixir works as bait, and Ricketts asks him for a few bottles and some dynamite. He puts a stick into an opened bottle, throws it at an undead and fires at the ground to set it off. He gives John two of these Boom Baits, and the two men part.

In "A Civilized Man", John enters the presidential mansion in Escalera and finds an undead Reyes chasing a young woman round the table. John shouts at him and Reyes turns on him; John kills him. The woman explains that Reyes removed a mask from the catacombs beneath the town, and that putting it back will end the plague. The entrance is in the stands of the bullring behind the mansion. John fights through the catacombs and notices that the undead leave the woman alone. Once the mask is back on its altar, she reveals that she is Ayauhtéotl, then vanishes; her voice tells John to go back to his family.

Epilogue

"On a Pale Horse" is listed as the last mission but has no title card of its own. John returns to Beecher's Hope and finds Abigail and Jack still tied up, but cured. The family is reunited. Three months later, Seth steals the mask again from the Escalera catacombs. By then, John has died, as in "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", and the plague raises him from his grave. An in-game message explains that his wife and son buried him with a flask of water he valued, without knowing its power: he comes back with the body of an undead but the soul of a man. The player keeps control of him. Seth and the mask cannot be found, and the catacombs are sealed.

After this mission, towns can still be overrun and must be cleared again, and the remaining challenges and "Missing Souls" posters stay available. In this state, John walks and runs with a lopsided gait, which straightens when he draws a weapon. Other undead ignore him until he provokes them, for instance by shooting at them, walking too close or carrying a lit torch near them. His left foot is twisted, and his stance is the one he has when he collapses in "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed".

Rockstar's official description of the 1899 John calls him "shrewd, fearless and strong-willed" and names him, with Arthur Morgan, as one of Dutch's two "proudest protégés". The Complete Official Guide to Red Dead Redemption 2 adds that he "isn't always sure about where his priorities lie" between the gang and his family. The Game of the Year Edition guide to Red Dead Redemption describes the 1911 John as a former believer in Dutch's ideas who gave up that life to become a farmer, and as "a man who understands that human beings change".

In 1899, John acts on impulse and keeps his family at arm's length: he doubts he is Jack's father, bristles at Abigail's reproaches, and drinks and argues at camp parties. The gang also relies on his practical streak. Parking a stolen oil wagon across the tracks to stop a train is his idea, and he talks the Valentine auctioneer's cut down from 25 to 18 percent. In 1911, he is terse with the people he works for and tells them what he thinks of them: Seth Briars's grave robbing, Nigel West Dickens's swindles, the speeches of Abraham Reyes and Colonel Allende, which he answers with sarcasm. He stays formal with women and goes on calling Bonnie MacFarlane "Miss MacFarlane" after she asks him to use her first name. He finds the automobile slow and prefers his horse.

In his own words

Bedridden after the wolf attack, he waves off Dutch's concern about his face: "I was always ugly, Dutch... it's just a scratch." To Abigail, in 1907: "I am always honest... maybe not always good... but I'm always honest." His journal that year reads: "Killed a feller because he looked at me funny. Abigail wants me to settle down. To what?", and later: "Jack don't like me, and Abigail cannot stand me, or is it the reverse?" At Beaver Hollow, refusing to go back for the gang's money: "I got a family, that's more important." In 1911, to Marshal Leigh Johnson, killing is a crime "unless it's ordered by a court of law", and "most men can't handle power". When Nigel West Dickens quotes Emerson, John calls the writer "another fool with his head in the clouds". To Bonnie, about his past: "People don't forget. Nothing gets forgiven."

Names and nicknames

Besides Jim Milton, the alias he works under at Pronghorn Ranch in 1907, John collects names from the people around him. Arthur calls him "Little Johnny Marston" and "Wolf Man", Micah and Sean "Scarface". Abigail turns the alias into "Jimmy Milton" when she mocks it, and she and Uncle sometimes shorten him to "J.M.", the initials of Sadie's telegram. After John lets his real first name slip, Tom Dickens calls him "'John' Jim". Uncle nicknames him "The Rock Farmer", and the banker Ansel Atherton calls him "the man with two names". In 1911, Irish calls him "Johnny" and "Johnny Boy", and Edgar Ross "old boy".

What the creators said

In a May 2010 USA Today Q&A, Dan Houser explained that the game offers John no brothels because he is "a family man". Technical director Ted Carson told GameSpot in 2010 that the team wanted a nuanced character rather than a plain hero or villain, one with "a foot in both the old world and the world that was to come". For Red Dead Redemption 2, Rob Wiethoff told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2018 that he based the younger John on the older friends of his sister, whose approval he sought as a teenager, in the same way John seeks the approval of the older gang members.

Gunfighting

John is one of the gang's most effective gunmen. In "The Sheep and the Goats", after Arthur frees him from one of Leviticus Cornwall's men, he fights his way through Valentine with Arthur and Dutch, pushing a wagon as cover. In 1907, he climbs Mount Hagen alone after Charles is shot by a sniper and Sadie is stabbed, and kills Micah's men on his way up, including Joe. In 1911, he storms Fort Mercer from Nigel West Dickens's wagon with a Gatling gun, and in Mexico he defends an army train with a mounted machine gun. In the final mission, he holds Beecher's Hope against soldiers and agents with Uncle and Jack.

His fame in Red Dead Redemption follows the player's actions. Passers-by comment on his exploits, and amateur gunslingers challenge him to duels in town streets. Duels use a dedicated mechanic: the player draws, then places shots on the opponent before time resumes. He also fights hand to hand, both in brawls and in scripted fights, and he beats a very large man named Bertram in a one-on-one fistfight. Nigel West Dickens presents John's strength and aim to a crowd as proof that his elixir works.

Dead Eye and Eagle Eye

Like the other protagonists of the series, John can use Dead Eye, which slows time so the player can mark several targets before firing. In Red Dead Redemption, the ability has three levels unlocked over the story, from simple slowed aiming to manual marking of each shot. In Red Dead Redemption 2, his Dead Eye can also reveal critical areas on a target, and its sound effect is the one from the 2010 game, different from Arthur's. Red Dead Redemption 2 also gives him Eagle Eye, which highlights tracks, scents and points of interest so the player can follow a trail over long distances.

Ranching, hunting and riding

John is an experienced rider and hunter. At MacFarlane's Ranch in 1911, he herds cattle, patrols at night and breaks wild horses, notably in "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions", and he uses the lasso to catch animals and hogtie fugitives. Bounty posters in Red Dead Redemption pay more for a target brought back alive. At Pronghorn Ranch in 1907, he milks cows, helps deliver a foal, builds fences and teaches David Geddes's younger son, Duncan, to break and ride a horse. He also teaches Jack to ride, and later fishes and hunts with him. In 1911 he hunts with Jack in "John Marston and Son" and saves him from a bear in "Spare the Love, Spoil the Child". In the RDR2 epilogue, he clicks his tongue to make his horse speed up instead of speaking.

Reading, writing, languages and swimming

Dutch taught John to read. In 1911 he tells Nigel West Dickens he reads "a little". His RDR2 journal is messier than Arthur's: the handwriting and sketches are simpler and words are often crossed out, although some drawings, such as a Pekin duck and a Merino sheep, are detailed. In Mexico he speaks only basic Spanish. John cannot swim. In Red Dead Redemption, he dies as soon as water rises above his chin. In Red Dead Redemption 2, his stamina drains at once in deep water and he drowns. The game turns this into a story detail: at Clemens Point, Arthur remarks that camping near the water makes John nervous, and he teases him about it while playing poker and in "The Sheep and the Goats".

John is less skilled at living under a false identity than Dutch, Hosea or Arthur. At Pronghorn Ranch he gives his real first name before his alias, Jim Milton, and his lack of experience as a ranch hand shows. In Valentine, he and Sadie talk about the old days and his escapades, which were never much of a secret. He gives his real name at the Strawberry post office, which leads the brother of a man he killed to find him.

Weapons

In Red Dead Redemption, John starts with a Cattleman Revolver, a model nicknamed the Peacemaker. Over the story he can use revolvers, pistols such as the Mauser and the High Power Pistol, repeaters, rifles, shotguns, the Explosive Rifle, dynamite, throwing knives and a lasso. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the weapons associated with him include a bow, the Cattleman, Schofield and Double-Action revolvers, the Carbine, Lancaster and Litchfield repeaters, the Bolt Action Rifle, the Repeating Shotgun and a hunting knife; in the epilogue the player chooses his arsenal. Three of these are his own: a Cattleman Revolver with a blackened steel finish and a bone grip, a custom Lancaster Repeater and a personal knife. In Undead Nightmare, Nigel West Dickens builds him a Blunderbuss, Landon Ricketts makes Boom Bait, and Leigh Johnson gives him a Sawed-off Shotgun.

Horses

In 1899, John's bay mare is killed by the wolves in the mountains above Colter; Arthur and Javier find the dead horse before finding him. In chapter 2 he rides Old Boy, and carries Kieran Duffy on it to Six Point Cabin in "Paying a Social Call". In the epilogue, his default horse is Rachel. Through the stranger mission "The Veteran", he can receive Buell, the horse of Hamish Sinclair. In Red Dead Redemption, Bonnie MacFarlane provides him with a horse in "New Friends, Old Problems", and "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions" rewards him with a Kentucky Saddler. From then on, the player chooses his mounts. The family dog, Rufus, is with the Marstons in 1907 and 1911.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

The player controls John in every epilogue mission: 11 in part 1 (Pronghorn Ranch) and 12 in part 2 (Beecher's Hope). Some pairs can be played in either order, which slightly changes the dialogue: when "Jim Milton Rides, Again?" or "Fatherhood, For Idiots" is completed first, John later has a flashback of Arthur's advice.

Red Dead Redemption (1911): the 57 story missions

John appears in every mission of Red Dead Redemption except the stranger mission "Remember My Family", played as Jack after his death.

Undead Nightmare (2010)

Stranger missions and bounties

• Red Dead Redemption: 18 of the game's 19 stranger missions are played as John (all except "Remember My Family"): American Appetites, American Lobbyist, Aztec Gold, California, Deadalus and Son, Eva in Peril, Flowers for a Lady, Funny Man, I Know You, Jenny's Faith, Let No Man Put Asunder, Lights, Camera, Action, Love is the Opiate, Poppycock, The Prohibitionist, Water and Honesty, Who Are You to Judge? and The Wronged Woman.
• Red Dead Redemption: John takes bounties from wanted posters, bringing targets in dead or alive. The bounty on Mo van Barr is tied to the Deadly Assassin Outfit.
• Red Dead Redemption 2, epilogue: stranger missions left unfinished by Arthur can be completed as John, among them "The Noblest of Men, and a Woman" (John asks the biographer Theodore Levin to send the money to "Jim Milton"). Charlotte Balfour can be visited at her cabin, where John tells her of Arthur's death.
• Red Dead Redemption 2, epilogue: besides Sadie's bounty missions, John can take wanted posters, among them Lindsey Wofford (Saint Denis, $100), Esteban Cortez (Tumbleweed, $65, hiding at Gaptooth Breach after his brother Ramón's capture), Bart Cavanaugh (Strawberry, after "Gainful Employment"), Elias Green and Otis Skinner (Blackwater) and Camille de Millemont.

Notable people John kills

The table lists named characters John kills in the course of missions. Kills marked optional depend on the player's choices.

Multiplayer

John was added to the multiplayer mode of Red Dead Redemption with the Liars and Cheats pack, released on September 21, 2010; he can be selected in the "Redemption" section of the Outfitter. Undead Nightmare added an undead version of him in the "Zombies" section. In multiplayer, this undead John walks and runs normally. John does not appear as a character in Red Dead Online.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

• Never thought I'd say this, but... it's good to see you, Arthur Morgan.

  Enter, Pursued by a Memory (RDR2, chapter 1), to Arthur on the ledge where the wolves cornered him

• I was always ugly, Dutch... it's just a scratch.

  Who the Hell is Leviticus Cornwall? (RDR2, chapter 1), about the wolf scars on his face

• Rip Van Winkle.

  The Battle of Shady Belle (RDR2, chapter 3), his answer when Pinkerton agent Andrew Milton asks who he is

• You left me... you left me to die!

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), to Dutch, on returning to camp after his escape from Sisika

• Thank you... brother.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), after Arthur tells him Abigail and Jack are with Sadie at Copperhead Landing

• I head down there, I'm dead in five minutes. I got a family, that's more important.

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6)

• You're my brother...

  Red Dead Redemption (RDR2, chapter 6), his last words to Arthur when Arthur tells him to leave

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

• All this... all this wouldn't exist if it weren't for Arthur, Sadie... and all the folks as fell. If I let him go... this place ain't no more real than... than one of Jack's dragons.

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), to Abigail before leaving to hunt Micah

• Dutch... Dutch... we all did our best for you... ain't our fault, things turned out the way they did. Dutch... killing me won't solve nothing!

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), at the standoff on Mount Hagen

• It's over, Abigail. It's all over.

  American Venom (RDR2, epilogue), back at Beecher's Hope

Red Dead Redemption (1911)

• Bill, I implore you, think about this.

  Exodus in America (RDR1, act I), outside Fort Mercer, before Bill Williamson's men shoot him

• People don't forget. Nothing gets forgiven.

  Women and Cattle (RDR1, act I), to Bonnie MacFarlane, after describing his Scottish father

• I think it's this land that makes the men, as much as the other way around. Men are born, and then they're formed, at least that's how I see it.

  Spare the Rod, Spoil the Bandit (RDR1, act I), to Marshal Leigh Johnson

• I have a son at home and a daughter in heaven.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, act II), when Luisa Fortuna asks whether he has children

• I tried to go straight. I did. I left the gang after the gang left me. Left me to die after I'd been shot.

  The Mexican Wagon Train (RDR1, act II), to Landon Ricketts

• What you and Dutch did was wrong. And the way you left me was wrong. Now, I ain't the judge, but as it turns out, it's you or me, the way I see it, it might as well be you.

  The Gates of El Presidio (RDR1, act II), to Javier Escuella

• It's time to stop running, Bill!

  An Appointed Time (RDR1, act II), during the assault on Escalera

• My side ain't chosen. My side was given. I'd kill you a hundred times before I killed Dutch, if it was an option.

  Great Men are Not Always Wise (RDR1, act III), to Edgar Ross, who has just told him his side is chosen

• They told us there was a prize when you got to 50.

  Bear One Another's Burdens (RDR1, act III), after Ross credits him with at least 40 bank robberies

• Well, some trees flourish, others die. Some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. Some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. Ain't nothing fair. You know that.

  The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, act III), to Abigail at Beecher's Hope

• If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

  Old Friends, New Problems (RDR1, act III)

• He ain't going to be no frontier gunslinger, killing and running in no gang though. That way's over. Railroads and government and motorcars and everything gone and done away with all that.

  Pestilence (RDR1, act III), to Abigail, about Jack

• We all need friends, old timer. We die alone, but we live among men.

  Water and Honesty (RDR1, stranger mission), to Clyde Evans

• Ain't no trouble, Abigail. Ain't no trouble. I love you.

  The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (RDR1, act III), to Abigail as the army surrounds the ranch

• Now go. Git.

  The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed (RDR1, act III), sending Abigail and Jack away before he faces Ross's men alone

Red Dead Redemption

Rob Wiethoff, from Seymour, Indiana, lived in Los Angeles for about ten years, tending bar between rare acting jobs. He told Polygon in 2013 that his agent called him one night in December for an audition for an "untitled video game project", where he was handed his lines and a basket of laundry; he got the part a few days later. Recording ran for a couple of weeks at a time, followed by a month or two off, over two years, and he kept bartending throughout. "The storyline was still being written as we were shooting", he said.

Rob Nelson, co-head of Rockstar North, told IGN in May 2020 that the very first cutscene shot was John finding Nigel West Dickens injured on the prairie. The game's manual credits Wiethoff together with three other performers for John's motion capture. Technical director Ted Carson told GameSpot in 2010 that John "has a foot in both the old world and the world that was to come", and that the team wanted "a nuanced character, as opposed to a straightforward hero or villain". Dan Houser told USA Today in May 2010 that the game has no brothels for John because he is "a family man".

Red Dead Redemption 2

Rockstar called Wiethoff back in 2014. Told he would be needed for about a year and would not be the playable character, he used up his leave at a construction job, then quit, and ended up working on the game for nearly four years, according to a 2021 feature by Indiana University. Producer Rob Nelson told Variety the writers "had to be careful not to John it up too much". Wiethoff told The Hollywood Reporter he drew on the older friends of his sister to play a younger John.

• 14th Interactive Achievement Awards (February 2011, now D.I.C.E.): won Outstanding Character Performance (Rob Wiethoff).
• 2010 Spike Video Game Awards: nominated for Best Performance by a Human Male (Wiethoff) and for Character of the Year (John Marston).

Reviewing the game in The New York Times in May 2010, Seth Schiesel wrote that "the leading edge of interactive media has a new face. It is filthy, crudely scarred and belongs to John Marston". Game Informer placed him second in its December 2010 list of "30 Characters Who Defined a Decade", and GamesRadar fifth in its 2013 ranking of the best characters of the generation. In 2018, Game Informer's Javy Gwaltney called him "the best of the best" among Rockstar's protagonists.

The Man from Blackwater (2010)

John is the lead character of Red Dead Redemption: The Man from Blackwater, a short film directed by John Hillcoat and edited by Barry Alexander Brown. It runs about half an hour and was made entirely with the game's engine, from cutscenes, gameplay footage and scenes shot from new angles. Fox broadcast it in the United States at midnight on May 29, 2010, eleven days after the game's release. In the United Kingdom, 5USA aired it on June 5, 2010. Rockstar and IGN then made it available to download on their websites. Hillcoat had previously directed The Proposition (2005), an Australian western.

The film follows the first act of the game in New Austin. John teams up with Marshal Leigh Johnson, Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars to take Fort Mercer from Bill Williamson. It reuses scenes from "Old Swindler Blues", "Political Realities in Armadillo", "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Bandit", "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies" and "The Assault on Fort Mercer", in a different order from the game. Several scenes are exclusive to the film: John scouting Fort Mercer, flashbacks of the gang robbing the Blackwater bank and approaching a train, and a closing shot of John at a barred window as Bill rides away. In the film, John mostly carries a LeMat Revolver and wears the Duster Coat, rather than his starting Cattleman Revolver and cowboy outfit.

Multiplayer and Red Dead Online

John became a playable multiplayer model in Red Dead Redemption with the Liars and Cheats pack, released on September 21, 2010. The pack added 15 story characters to the Outfitter, sorted into two groups. John sits in the "Redemption" group with Abigail, Jack, Bonnie MacFarlane, Leigh Johnson, Luisa Fortuna, Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars. The Undead Nightmare pack then added an undead version of him to the "Zombies" section. Red Dead Online, the online mode of Red Dead Redemption 2, does not feature John as a character. Its Clelland outfit is modelled on his default cowboy outfit from the first game.

References in other Rockstar games

• Grand Theft Auto Online: John Marston is one of the fathers available in the character creator's heritage options. The player's face is generated from the features of the chosen father and mother.
• Grand Theft Auto V: in the mission "Daddy's Little Girl", an employee at a bicycle rental stand wears a shirt with a picture of John on it.
• L.A. Noire (2011, published by Rockstar Games): in the opening cutscene, a Hollywood actor playing a cowboy wears a parody of John's hat.

Re-releases and the cast

Red Dead Redemption, with Undead Nightmare included, was re-released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17, 2023, then on Windows on October 29, 2024, which made John's original story playable on current platforms. Rob Wiethoff, who plays John, runs a YouTube channel on which he has streamed full playthroughs of Red Dead Redemption, including the finale. Gabriel Sloyer, who plays Javier Escuella, has said that John is his favourite character.

General

• John and Abigail have the same first names as John Adams, the second president of the United States, and his wife Abigail Adams.
• The pairing also appears in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1953), where John Proctor and Abigail Williams have a secret affair.
• He is playable in three releases: Red Dead Redemption (2010), its expansion Undead Nightmare (2010) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018).
• Leaving aside the optional characters of the GTA London expansions (1999), he is the first protagonist created by Rockstar to be playable in more than one game. Max Payne, playable in three games, was created by Remedy Entertainment: Rockstar published the first two games and developed only Max Payne 3 (2012).
• His grave at Beecher's Hope gives the years 1873 and 1911 and the epitaph "Blessed are the peacemakers". The line is a beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew (5:9).
• Red Dead Redemption 2 reuses the epitaph as a mission title: "Blessed are the Peacemakers" is a chapter 3 mission given by Micah Bell at Clemens Point.
• His default revolver in Red Dead Redemption, the Cattleman Revolver, is the game's version of the Colt Single Action Army, a gun nicknamed the "Peacemaker", the same word as on his grave.
• Rob Wiethoff told Polygon in 2013 that people on the first game's set kept saying "Remember in GTA when this happened". He did not even know what GTA was, and had to take the director aside to ask.

Red Dead Redemption

• In the first trailers released before the game, John looks younger and thinner than in the final version.
• John opens the game on a steamboat that docks at Blackwater, escorted by two lawmen. He then takes the train to Armadillo ("Exodus in America").
• Outside Fort Mercer in "Exodus in America", John tells Bill Williamson "I implore you". Bill mocks the phrase, reminds John that he "always were one for fancy words", and declares that he is now in charge, with no more Dutch.
• In "Women and Cattle", he tells Bonnie that his father, a Scot born on the boat to New York, hated the English for what they had done to great-grandparents he had never met.
• In "Bear One Another's Burdens", Edgar Ross calls him "the whore's son", says his files credit him with "at least 40" bank robberies, and accuses him of killing hundreds of innocent people.
• In "Father Abraham", he tells Luisa Fortuna that he has "a son at home and a daughter in heaven". The game never gives the daughter's name.
• At the last meeting of "I Know You", the Strange Man looks down on the ranch from the hill at Beecher's Hope and says more than once that it is a fine spot. John's grave is later dug on that hill.
• John cannot swim in Red Dead Redemption: he dies as soon as the water rises above his chin.
• Rob Wiethoff said during a live stream on his YouTube channel that the pose of John lying on his back with one leg straight and the other bent, which he calls "Number Four", is a nod to his wife, Tayler. He worked it into the motion capture whenever he could.
• The pose is easiest to see in "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", when John falls to the ground.
• In the final cutscene of "I Know You", John fires at the Strange Man, who is unharmed. The mission has to be finished before "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", and it is the only stranger mission that Jack cannot play.
• The stranger mission "Water and Honesty" can be started as John or as Jack. When Jack plays it, he says the same line as his father: "We all need friends, old timer. We die alone, but we live among men."
• In "Great Men are Not Always Wise", after seeing Dutch again, John tells Ross that Dutch reminds him of Ross himself, calling him a "violent piece of shit who went and confused himself with God".
• In "Pestilence", Abigail says she has been cooking the same dish for 15 years in the hope of poisoning him. John answers that it tastes bad enough to kill a man, then calls her "my angel" before going to shoot the crows raiding the silo.

Undead Nightmare

• If John goes back to Beecher's Hope before the final mission, he stops at the front door and hears Ayauhtéotl say "Did you listen to a word I said?", even though he only meets her properly in that last mission.

Red Dead Redemption 2

• John has his own musical theme, heard in several of his missions. Four characters in the game have a leitmotif: John, Sadie Adler, Colm O'Driscoll and Angelo Bronte.
• Playable John drowns in deep water. His stamina core empties immediately, fortified or not, and his health follows within seconds.
• The non-playable John can swim: players who get him as a companion through a glitch and lead him into deep water see him swim normally.
• The mechanic is written into the story. At Clemens Point, Arthur remarks in a camp exchange that the nearby water makes John nervous. Arthur also mentions it during poker games and in "The Sheep and the Goats".
• John's Dead Eye sound effect is the original one from Red Dead Redemption, not the one used for Arthur.
• If Arthur provokes the camp too often, John can punch him and throw him out, a reaction shared with Lenny, Javier, Bill, Sean and Charles.
• John's 1907 journal looks less polished than Arthur's: plainer handwriting, simpler sketches and frequent crossings-out. A few drawings, among them a Pekin duck and a Merino sheep, are as careful as Arthur's.
• The holster on the gunbelt he wears when he is rescued in Colter is shaped for the Mauser Pistol.
• To urge his horse on, playable John clicks his tongue: unlike Arthur, and unlike his own 1911 self, he has no spoken line for it. He does speak to slow the horse down.
• After leaving the gang in 1899, John and his family went to the Yukon for the gold rush and made no profit, as Sadie recalls in "Gainful Employment". The real Klondike Gold Rush took place in the Yukon and ended in 1899.
• At Pronghorn Ranch in 1907, John works under the alias Jim Milton. He blurts out his real first name before correcting himself. The name returns in the mission title "Jim Milton Rides, Again?".
• At the post office in Strawberry, John gives his real name although he is a wanted man, and is recognised by a man whose brother he killed.
• Playable John borrows several of Arthur's assets: his body model, his stance and his walking and running animations at Beecher's Hope, and even Arthur's retching sound when he eats Oleander Sage, although the game files hold a separate one for John.
• When Pinkerton agent Andrew Milton visits the Clemens Point camp in "The Battle of Shady Belle" and asks who he is, John answers "Rip Van Winkle". Rip Van Winkle is the title character of an 1819 short story by Washington Irving: he falls asleep in the mountains and wakes up twenty years later.
• In the epilogue, returning to an old camp site triggers flashbacks: John hears lines spoken by gang members during the chapter set at that camp.
• Antagonized at Beecher's Hope, Abigail sometimes snaps back with his full name, which the subtitles misspell as "John Martson".
• By 1907 the wolf scars have closed into two lines across one cheek and one on the upper lip, where his beard no longer grows. Micah and Sean call him "Scarface" because of them.

Red Dead Online

• The Clelland outfit in Red Dead Online is modelled on John's default cowboy outfit from Red Dead Redemption.