The RDR 3 characters always have been very well worked and endearing, and John Marston was maybe one of the best characters Rockstar Games never created. Some say Arthur Morgan was less interesting and deep than John, and it’s understandable because it is really hard to make a better character
An ancient character ?
As they did with the two previous games that were very close in their storyline and their characters, we can imagine an annex character staring as the main role in RDR 3. Rob Wiethoff, the actor behind John and Alex McKenna, the actress behind Sadie Adler already told in press conferences that they would be very happy to take their roles back for the 3rd opus.
Sadie Adler as the main character of RDR 3 would be a real turn in Rockstar Games history as they didn’t make a female main character yet, and it maybe could appease the polemics around the fact that women could be beat and killed in GTA 5. This polemic quickly disappeared as it is a nonsense being able to kill man and not women in the game, but in these days we can perfectly imagine that a new scandal around this problematic happen. We can guess that Rockstar didn’t do it yet because their fanbase is mostly men and some of them couldn’t identify themself in the main character if she was a female.
We can also imagine Dutch as the main role as he is one of the oldest characters of interest appearing in Red Dead Redemption, and remember that the first RDR happen in the very late far west (1911), a sequel is very improbable as it wouldn’t be a far west game anymore. An opus in the young years of Dutch would be possible but maybe deceptive, because he’s most the bad guy of the story.
Everything is just pure speculation and one of the most probable outcome is that we make a jump in the past with brand new characters, returning us in the 19th century ! Why not during the secession war like The good, the bad and the ugly ?