John Marston returns from Mexico at the end of Act 2 with one name left: Dutch van der Linde. The third act covers West Elizabeth, the hunt through Tall Trees, John's return to his family, and the ending the government has planned for him.
Full spoilers for Act 3 and the ending of Red Dead Redemption follow.
Setting: West Elizabeth
West Elizabeth is the game's third region and the most modern. Blackwater is a city with electric light, motor cars and a cinema, and it is where Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham run their operation. Tall Trees, to the north west, is old growth forest and the last unsettled ground on the map. Beecher's Hope, John's ranch, sits to the east.
Finding Dutch
In the first mission of the act, John and Fordham go to the wreck of the Serendipity on a tip from the Bureau's informant, Nastas, and find him beaten and tied up in a trap set by Dutch's men. Ross leaves the wounded Nastas with Professor Harold MacDougal, an anthropologist based in Blackwater, and tells John to help the professor. Dutch has gathered a new gang in Tall Trees, largely made up of displaced Native men, with a hideout at Cochinay. Nastas guides John towards Cochinay, then is shot dead by one of Dutch's men at a meeting he had arranged at Bearclaw Camp.
Cochinay and the death of Dutch
John rides to Cochinay with Ross, Fordham and an army detachment, whose captain commands the assault. He fights through the camp and corners Dutch at the edge of a cliff. Dutch tells him that killing him changes nothing, because the government will simply find another monster to hunt. He then steps back off the cliff and falls to his death. Ross and Fordham arrive moments later. The list is finished, and John is released.
Beecher's Hope
John goes home to Beecher's Hope, where Abigail, Jack and Uncle are waiting. This stretch of the game has no gunfights to speak of: John repairs the ranch, herds cattle, breaks a horse, shoots crows off the corn and teaches Jack to hunt.
The death of John Marston
The army and the Bureau surround the ranch. Uncle helps John drive off the first wave, then is shot on the porch and dies. John puts Abigail and Jack on a horse and sends them away, then stays behind and walks out of the barn to face the soldiers alone. He is shot down in the yard. Ross is among the men standing over the body. John is buried on the hill above the ranch.
Epilogue: Jack Marston, 1914
The game jumps forward three years. Jack Marston is grown, Abigail has died, and he buries her beside his father on the hill. He then goes looking for Edgar Ross. In "Remember My Family", a man at the Blackwater train station tells him that Ross has retired to a cabin on Lake Don Julio. Ross's wife, Emily, says he has gone hunting with his brother south of the San Luis River, and his brother Phillip, at their camp in Mexico, points Jack down the riverbank. Jack finds him there, calls him out, and kills him in a duel. The game ends on that duel.
Key characters
Act 3 closes out John Marston's story and hands the game to Jack Marston. Dutch van der Linde is the final target. Edgar Ross is the man who set the terms and does not honour them. Abigail Marston and Uncle are at Beecher's Hope, and Nastas, the Bureau's informant, and Professor Harold MacDougal help John search Tall Trees for Dutch.
Key events of Act 3
- John works with Professor Harold MacDougal and Nastas in Blackwater to locate Dutch van der Linde.
- Nastas is shot dead in an ambush at Bearclaw Camp.
- John joins the army assault on Cochinay; Dutch steps off a cliff rather than be taken.
- John is released and returns to Beecher's Hope, where he works the ranch with Abigail, Jack and Uncle.
- The army and the Bureau attack the ranch. Uncle is killed, Abigail and Jack escape, and John is shot down outside the barn in 1911.
- Three years later, Abigail dies and Jack buries her beside John.
- Jack tracks down Edgar Ross and kills him in a duel in 1914, ending the game.