Redemption Multiplayer

thumb|right|300px|The main Multiplayer mode in Read Dead Redemption. Multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption consists of multiple game modes, and allows players to play co-operatively or competitively through an online connection.

Red Dead Redemption multiplayer does not have a traditional "game lobby": instead, it starts out in Free Roam mode, with the entire map open for exploration, along with Hunting areas and Gang Hideouts of which players can take advantage. From there, players can establish player parties with other players, called Posses, or choose to participate in various game modes via an in-game menu or various entry points around the game world.

Game Modes
There are several game modes in Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer, some of which must be unlocked by achieving certain ranks:

Free Roam
Free Roam is the entry point into multiplayer where you are free to go nearly anywhere in the world with up to 15 other players. This is also where you can pick your unique character, mount, and title in the '''Outfitter. '''Players are also able to band together and form posses of up to 8 players. In these posses you can take on other posses and have a gang fight. In Free Roam you can take part in gang hideout's, one of the quickest ways of ranking up in online multiplayer of Red Dead Redemption.

Competitive Modes
In competitive game modes, the gameplay begins with either a mexican standoff in Free For All, with all the players beginning in a circle, or a team face-off, with all players in their respective team's line facing the other team. There will be a short countdown, then a firefight will commence, in which all the players will all start shooting at once. Most players will die right off, allowing the remaining players to find a choice location (such as a sniping spot) to fend off their attackers. Once the standoff ends, and everyone from one team dies, the actual game you are playing (Gang Shootout, Hold Your Own, Grab Bag, etc.) starts.

Gang Modes
During "gang" matches players will be assigned a player model, but during free for all and free roam matches players will be allowed to use their chosen model. The player's selected mount is only usable in some game modes, and in team based matches all players will be assigned one type of horse as to keep it fair. Guns are also assigned to any game type except "Free Roam", in any competitive game mode players are assigned a random set of guns for the round, to get an idea of what guns you will receive, look to the dummy in the pre-game lobby. If you unlock a gun by leveling up it will be available to you in free roam.

Cooperative Mode
Cooperative play was introduced with the Outlaws To The End DLC, and you must download it to be able to play this mode, the DLC is free however.

In Cooperative mode a group of up to four players will work as a team through one of the six missions available. If a players health drops to the point of dying they will simply be injured and unable to shoot or move, they will have a certain amount of time, as represented above their heads, before they bleed out, during this time a team mate may revive them. If a player dies they will be out of the game and forced to spectate a teammate until the next checkpoint, which are usually frequent. Players choose a loadout in the pre-game lobby as their weapon set, there are four sets of weapons (Miner, Soldier, Marskman, Gunslinger). Players walk up to a gun set, represented by a dummy, and select the one they want, they will be equipped with those weapons throughout the mission, however they can pick up weapons from fallen enemies as well. Players retain their selected player model.

If the player beats all six missions, they will unlock Advanced Cooperative Mode, this mode has expert targeting, players take more damage easier and bleed out faster. However Advanced Cooperative Mode has the "No Holds Barred" loadout, which allows the player to use all the weapons they have unlocked by leveling up throughout mulitplayer.

Gang Hideouts

 * Main Page: Gang Hideouts

Gang Hideouts are regarded as the fastest method of gaining experience while in free roam. The faster the player completes a hideout, the more XP is gained. Other factors also go into the player's XP gain. Gang hideouts can be completed alone or with a posse. The most common gang hideouts that are played in multiplayer are Solomon's Folly and Twin Rocks. These two are regarded as the fastest and easiest hideouts to complete, resulting in a fast XP gain. After the patch released on June 12th, however, XP awarded for gang hideouts has been drastically decreased.

(You can clear your Xbox 360's cache, which deletes all patches, and use system link to gang hideout farm. And for PS3 just go into "Game Data Utility" delete the patch, start up the game, decline the update, and play multiplayer using LAN. You wont need to sign-in on PSN)

While the two above hideouts are reported as the fastest hideouts, it is more common for newer players to be doing repeated runs of Pike's Basin. This is due to how close it is to the starting areas of Armadillo, MacFarlane's Ranch, or even Thieves' Landing, as well as being a relatively easy hideout giving a minimum of 2000 XP per run (between 1.4-1.6k minimum if done with 2 or more people).

Titles

 * Main Page: Titles

During the multiplayer game experience, whether in Free Roam or structured game modes, players will be able to earn titles corresponding to criteria met during play. This can be anything from a certain amount of experience accrued to completing certain actions and a number of times or in a specific way. Titles, once selected, will appear above the player's name on their in-game icon until the player decides to change it at anytime.

You keep all your titles when you pass into legend.

Mounts

 * Main Page: Mount Unlock Requirements

In the multiplayer of Red Dead Redemption the player can customize the mount their character summons/rides in Free Roam and some competitive matches. The player changes their mount by visiting the Outfitter in the Multiplayer section of the pause menu. Different mounts become available only after achieving various online ranks. When the player ranks up and unlocks a new mount for use, their old mount will be replaced by the new one even if the player hasn't visited the Outfitter yet.

In successive legend modes, mounts are generally unlocked earlier as there are more mounts to unlock.

Mounts that can be unlocked are:
 * El Señor (Donkey)
 * Lusitano Nag (Horse)
 * Turkmen (Horse)
 * Cleveland Bay (Horse)
 * Hungarian Half-Bred (Horse)
 * American Standardbred (Horse)
 * Bonzo (Bull)
 * Buffalo
 * Albino Buffalo (Buffalo)
 * Super Bull (Bull)
 * Zebra Donkey (Tijuana Zebra), AKA Zonkey

Several non-unlockable horses, such as the Kentucky Saddler or the Infested Ardennais can be found in multiplayer, in the wild or ridden by other people. These horses can be taken and ridden, but will not respond to a whistle.

This table shows the levels that you unlock each mount

Copied from Prima's Official Guide.

Challenges

 * Main Page: Challenges (Multiplayer) and Challenges (Single Player)thumb|right|300px|Video explaining everything about the Legend mode.

In multiplayer, a large selection of challenges are available for players to complete. More challenges unlock as a player progresses through the ranking system. Completing a challenge earns the player experience. The status of a current challenge, found in your Journal, is indicated by a bar that progressively fills up as your challenge is accomplished. For example, if you had to shoot 5 rabbits for a Sharpshooter challenge, each rabbit shot adds to this indicator bar until all 5 have been shot.

When a player reaches Rank 50 and agrees to return to Rank 1 to gain Legend status, all challenges will be reset. Any unlocked Titles associated with challenges previously completed will remain.

Ranks

 * Main Page: Ranks and Table of Levels and Unlocks

When playing multiplayer, a player can gain experience by killing other players, completing challenges and clearing hideouts. When the player gains enough experience to be promoted to the next rank, they can unlock new characters, weapons, mounts and titles.

A player can be promoted through fifty ranks. When they reach Rank 50, they have the option to return to Rank 1 to gain Legend status, similar to the 'Prestige' mode in Call of Duty. Legend mode builds towards unlocking legendary characters and mounts. They can do this up to five times in addition to the original ranks, which means a player could progress through a total of 250 ranks to reach the highest level in multiplayer. Once entering the first Legend status, you will be rewarded with a new title, "The Legend" and a new Legendary character, Kyle McGinty.

Once at Rank 50, a player can choose to gain Legend status at any time afterwards. The following confirmation messages are displayed when gaining Legend status:

PASS INTO LEGEND

"Your rank will reset from 50 back to 1 in exchange for the benefits of becoming a Legend. All weapons and mounts you have unlocked through leveling up will be lost and all challenges are reset. Your access to playlists, titles, golden guns and characters will remain the same. Would you like to become a Legend?"

"There is no undoing this change once you commit to it. You will lose your weapons, mounts, and challenge progress, but in exchange will get access to special Legendary characters and the right to earn Legendary mounts. Passing into Legend only occurs in Free Roam. Are you really sure you want to do this?"

As of 12 June 2010, Gang Hideout XP has been severely decreased, up to 1/4 of what it once was. Owing to the enormous amount of XP required to reach Legend 5, it is recommended to remain at Rank 50 once attained as becoming a Legend only gives the variety of different mounts/characters/titles/rank icon, with the Legendary mounts being poorer than the American Standardbred in terms of speed/agility.

However, one mount makes passing into legend worth the player's effort, the Zebra Donkey. The Zebra Donkey, or Zonkey, is capable of reaching the top speed of both the American Standardbred and the War Horse (the War Horse is only available to players with limited edition copies of the game), but the most worthwhile feature of the Zonkey is its ability to travel off road maintaining top speed.

Weapons (Multiplayer)

 * Main Page: Weapons and Weapon Unlock Conditions

All weapons available in single player are available in multiplayer game sessions. While the hunting knife is available in multiplayer, other equipment such as the lasso, bandolier, binoculars, is not.

When joining a session, players have a set of weapons determined by multiplayer rank and some ammunition for each gun in their possession. Additional weapons can be obtained by picking them up from dead players/NPCs and weapon crates (shown on the in-game minimap as a pistol icon). Increasing a player's rank will immediately place any weapons unlocked into the players possession.

When a player dies in a multiplayer game session, they respawn with all the weapons in their possession when they died. The amount of ammunition in each weapon set to a default amount, similar to if they had just joined the game.

Ammo crates are also scattered throughout the environment (they look like flags on the mini-map).

All unlocks
For a list of all the unlocks click here.

Characters

 * Main Page: Multiplayer Characters

In multiplayer you can choose your character model in the Outfitter. For now, there are 12 categories of characters, each based on characters taken from the single player game:

''Note: There is an issue with the multiplayer characters "Jesse Lange" and "Jefe Rocha". Despite their different names and being put in different categories, they are the same character skin and speak spanish as well regardless of which list you choose the skin from. It is not known whether this is a glitch or if it is intentional.''

Many of the characters are available from the start (Level 1) which gives the player a good amount of choice when choosing one to start off with. When starting a new multiplayer campaign the player will also be randomly assigned one of these characters. The characters that are available from level 1 are as follows:


 * Earle Martin (Miner)
 * Alfredo Castaneda (Rebeldes)
 * Al Wolfscreed (Dutch's Gang)
 * Pat O'Flanagan (Walton's Gang)
 * John Kelby (Cattle Rustler)
 * Slick Nick Funtz (American Army)
 * Jose Falotico (Federales)
 * Seth LaValley (Lawman)
 * Madam Hernandez (Misc Woman)
 * All Misc Mexicans
 * All Misc Criminals

Marshals (Secret Characters)
On random occasions when starting a new multiplayer campaign, players will be randomly assigned a character from a group collectively known as "the Marshals." These are 8 characters that were originally intended to be part of another category in the outfitter menu but were removed some time before release of the game. It is likely that these characters appear because Rockstar Games removed the category in the outfitter menu but did not remove them from the game files, meaning that they still show up as randomly generated starting characters. Once a player gets one of these characters and then changes them for another character, they can not be reselected because there is no category for them in the outfitter menu. The only way of getting one or another one of these characters is by pure chance and is usually only doable by restarting the multiplayer campaign over and over again.

It is also very apparent they were intended to be in the game and were only removed at the last minute because two of the Marshal characters, Frank Setter and Leon Carowel, are viewable on the flyer found in the Red Dead Redemption case advertising the Outlaws to the End DLC.

It has been speculated that these characters will be added to the outfitter as part of a future DLC although this is appears to be purely wishful thinking on the part of fans.

The only other way of obtaining these secret characters is through the use of a hex editor, which can be used to open the red dead redemption multiplayer save file and select any of the eight Marshalls as the current playable character; however it is impossible to make them actually selectable in the outfitter and this is considered modding.

The following are the names of the eight hidden Marshalls in the order they appear in hex editor,

The Marshall characters will be available in the outfitter menu when the social club challenge "I shot the sheriff" is released and completed.(Source of "I Shot the Sheriff"?)
 * Frank Setter
 * David Darwinson
 * Leon Carowel
 * Derek Fultan
 * Darren Ward
 * Colby Oats
 * Charley Burg
 * Dillon Metzen

Outlaws To The End
Outlaws To The End is a downloadable set of 6 co-op missions that was released in June 22, 2010, completely free of charge.

Missions
-"Walton’s Gold" Walton’s Gang have taken control of a mining camp rich with gold. Fight through the camp and load your mine cart with as much gold as you can carry and get out as fast as you can – Walton’s boys have rigged the place to blow!

-"The River" Ride a raft down river, taking out rebel encampments along the way until you reach the rebel stronghold of Nosalida and a final epic battle for the town’s massive weapons caches. Watch out for Gatling gun-equipped enemy rafts.

-"Ammunition"  The Mexican Army has the town of Tesoro Azul under siege. Storm the gates under heavy cannon, Gatling gun and sniper fire to destroy the Mexican artillery placements.

-"The Kidnapped Girl" Another gang has taken over the Fort Mercer stronghold and they have taken a farmer's daughter hostage. You must breach the fort and save the daughter. Then escape to Ridgewood Farm in a stagecoach with several bandits behind you.

-"The Escape" You and your teammates must attack and steal a gold coach along with a wagon and a Gatling gun. Once acquired, you will be sent to turn them in to the American Army and then must clear out remaining resistance in the town of Tumbleweed. After clearing the town, prepare for an explosive standoff that will take you all the way to Mexico.

-"The Herd" Cattle rustlers have taken control of Box Canyon. Fight your way in and wipe out the rustlers, then use teamwork to protect the herd as you lead them home to Armadillo while drawing heavy fire from snipers and reinforcements on horseback.

On top of these 6 missions, the Outlaws to the End Co-Op Mission Pack will also yield additional multiplayer XP rewards, and brand new Achievements/Trophies to unlock. Stay tuned for much more information – as well as release information and pricing on two further downloadable content updates, which Rockstar plans to release over the summer. Both of them will also be available simultaneously for both consoles.

Upcoming Downloadable Content Packs
According to an announcement by Rockstar Games on 8th July 2010, there are several upcoming DLC packs that are due for release for Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network before the end of the summer. The details of these packs are as follows:


 * Legends and Killers Pack (Releasing beginning of August 2010)
 * New active map locations, characters and more:
 * • 9 New Multiplayer map locations — more than doubling the amount of territories in the Multiplayer Competitive modes
 * • 8 New Multiplayer characters— play as characters from Red Dead Revolver
 * • Introducing a new projectile weapon: the Tomahawk, with corresponding Challenges for single player and multiplayer
 * • New Trophies/Achievements
 * • Pricing: $9.99 (PlayStation Network), 800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE)


 * Liars and Cheats Pack
 * New Competitive Modes, Multiplayer Mini-games in Free Roam, and more:
 * • ‘Attack and Defend’ Multiplayer Competitive Mode and Challenges
 * • New Multiplayer Horse Races complete with mounted combat
 * • Play as the heroes and villains of Red Dead Redemption as well as 8 additional multiplayer characters
 * • Multiplayer versions of Liar's Dice and Poker from the single-player game
 * • Introducing a new weapon: the Explosive Rifle, with associated Challenges available in single-player and multiplayer
 * • New Achievements/Trophies
 * • Release date TBC
 * • Pricing: $9.99 (PlayStation Network), 800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE)


 * Free Roam Pack
 * Delve deeper into the world of Red Dead Redemption with new Modes, Challenges and Gang Hideouts to discover:
 * • Additional Free Roam Challenges
 * • New action areas and defensive placements
 * • Posse Scoring / Posse Leaderboards
 * • New ‘anti-griefing’ measures in Free Roam
 * • Release date and pricing TBC


 * Undead Nightmare Pack
 * Ghost towns and cemeteries come alive in a West gone horribly wrong:
 * • Brand new single player adventure, Challenges and quests
 * • 8 New Multiplayer Zombie characters
 * • Additional animals unleashed in the world
 * • New Dynamic events
 * • More details to follow...
 * • Release date TBC
 * • Pricing: $9.99 (PlayStation Network), 800 Microsoft Points (Xbox LIVE)

Multiplayer Achievements
There are several achievements that can only be completed by participating in multiplayer game modes: