Single-player Challenges in Redemption

Single Player Challenges are found in the Journal section of the Single Player in-game start menu. They are initiated by the player doing certain tasks, listed below.

Most of the Single Player challenges have equivalents in Multiplayer as well (see: Multiplayer Challenges), but there are many additional Multiplayer challenges that don't appear in Single Player.

Single Player has four sets of challenges, each with 10 ranks. Rewards for the Single Player challenges are gained upon completing ranks 5 and 10, as well as receiving a certain amount of fame for each rank completed. Obtaining Legendary rank in each of the Single Player Challenges contributes to 100% completion, and unlocks the Legend of the West Outfit.

Single Player Challenges
The single player challenges include:

Sharpshooter


The Sharpshooter Challenges task you with doing something that involves accuracy or speed in shooting.
 * Sharpshooter 1 - Kill 5 flying wild Birds: Search for birds in the sky and shoot 5 of them. Rifles and dead eye are the most ideal combination.
 * Sharpshooter 2 - Kill 5 Rabbits: These can be found from 8:30 am onwards throughout the morning at the Warthington Ranch, south of the MacFarlane Ranch. Crouch and use dead eye to take down small groups of them. Standing and running, or riding a horse causes the rabbits to hear you and scamper before you can see/kill them.
 * Sharpshooter 3 - Kill 5 Coyotes before incurring any damage: Perform this at night, as coyotes are primarily nocturnal in the game. Any areas with coyotes on the game map are obvious areas, and the area circulating Hanging Rock is particularly good for hunting. Unless the coyotes are in a pack of three or four, they will not attack you, so try to either kill a pack in dead eye quickly, or find lone of pairs of coyotes for an easier way. Their high whine is distinctive, so if you hear it, quickly try to find the source of the noise.
 * Sharpshooter 4 - Kill 5 flying birds from a moving train: When there is a train around, climb on it and mount the roof; if it's moving, head to the front section of the train and jump to it using the animation. Then, climb onto the roof via a ladder, and begin shooting the birds as the train travels. Crouching slightly stops you from sliding off, and avoid jumping from carriage to carriage, as it is very likely you will fall from the train. You can do this during the day, and rifles and dead eye are the preferential method. You may also be able to complete this at night, as there may be a few owls flying around.
 * Sharpshooter 5 - Kill any 2 different types of wild animals in one Dead Eye slot: Begin by following an animal such as a deer on your horse and then you will come across another animal. When this happens, aim and enter dead eye and paint them both. This is one of the simplest challenges you can do, its not as hard as it may sound. If you follow one animal, it will lead you to another, and bingo: bagged yourself the challenge. Furthermore you can just kill your own horse and another animal you found. It would be wise to obtain a horse deed so you can kill your horse, another animal, then use the deed to get your horse back instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere without a horse.
 * Sharpshooter 6 - Shoot the hats off 2 peoples heads: Choose two people with large hats (sombreros), around a saloon. If you would like to avoid a bounty, go out into the wilderness and travel around until you find an innocent person asking you to 'help them'. They are usually around a carriage, and when you near them, typically a group of around four outlaws will reveal themselves and attack you. Quickly get to cover and shoot the two peoples' hats. Dead Eye is a very useful tactic, but requires careful aim and precision, especially with level 2. Aim for the side of the hat (the sombrero is useful at this spot) for an effective result.
 * Sharpshooter 7 - Kill three bears with one shot each: Use an extremely powerful weapon such as the Buffalo Rifle, and paint the bear 's heads in dead eye. Almost instantly after shooting, the dead bear's family will come and find you, usually up to three other bears. Repeat said process, either running around quickly while reloading, or if you are confident enough (and don't care about your steed dying), ride around the pack on your horse while reloading. Lots of medicine, ammo, moonshine/similar dead eye restoring object and horse pills are essential to prevent being disemboweled by grizzly bears.
 * Sharpshooter 8 - Shoot the hats off 2 peoples heads and disarm 2 people: Similar to sharpshooter challenge 6; after you have shot off the hats, enter dead eye and paint the shooting arms of the two people with guns in their hands and shoot. Follow the later hat guide, and don't shoot his arm, as it has to be without any bloodshed. So instead, do a mission with people using repeaters, and carefully in Dead Eye, aim for the gun. If you are a good revolver shooter, then you can disarm the men two times, or sometimes they pick up the dropped weapon again, making it easy to shoot once more.


 * Sharpshooter 9 - Kill any 6 wild animals without reloading or changing weapons: High ammo capacity weapons such as the semi-automatic pistol or a characteristically similar rifle should be used for this task. Head into the wilderness (Mexico is ideal, as wolves, coyotes, snakes, birds, skunks, and cougars are often seen in similar areas. The hardest one to find is the cougar, so it would be preferential to go to an area with cougars, as said animals will be nearby, or different ones will). Be careful not to let Marston holster the weapon at all or else he'll reload it. Another method is to just defeat a gang hideout. After this a flock of vultures will be circling overhead. Enter dead eye and take out six of them. Alternatively, wait until the mission Pestilence, in which Marston has to kill many crows. You could also go to Fort Mercer to complete Sharpshooter 8 and 9, shoot off the big hats of the Mexican gang members and disarm two as well, then after that kill 6 of the circling buzzards overhead.


 * Sharpshooter 10 - Disarm 6 different enemies without reloading: Just like the last challenge, use a high ammo capacity weapon, and either go to a saloon, or Thieves Landing, where random gunfights are common, and enter dead eye. Paint the targets' shooting arm, and shoot. It is recommendable to choose a Henry Repeater or an Evans Repeater, as these guns have the most ammo and are some of the best repeaters. Do the later recommendation and remember, when you picked the Evans Repeater, you are allowed to kill the enemies, because you need 6 bullets for a disarm, maybe an extra 6 bullets in case you miss, and youll still have ten bullets left. One alternative way to do this is to waste all but one clip of ammo, and use dead eye (and items if necessary) to disarm enemies in a saloon; the use of dead eye with no more clips prevents automatic reloading and allows for easier diarming (as shown [|here]). It is often easier to allow the target to pick up his weapon or draw a second weapon, and get two or three disarms off the same person. Alternatively, enter a mission where you would encounter enemies that do not move around. Preferably with some allies so that they would be a source of distraction. Ultilize the Carcano rifle and Dead-eye [Auto-reload in Dead-eye does not count towards reloading][Zoom function plus Dead-eye ability helps] to pick off the guns of your enemies.

Survivalist


The Survivalist Challenges task you with finding a certain amount of a certain plant scattered throughout the world. These are pretty easy. Buy a survivalist map and use it for when you are struggling to find any plants. Also if you can find a herbalist out in the wild they will challenge you collect a number of a type of plants and return to the camp this will point out all local plant locations during the challenge. The plants will count towards the challenge after the competition.


 * Survivalist 1 - Collect 6 Wild Feverfew, found in Hennigan's Stead and Cholla Springs.
 * Survivalist 2 - Collect 6 Desert Sages, found in and around Gaptooth Ridge.
 * Survivalist 3 - Collect 4 Red Sages, found in and around Rio Bravo.
 * Survivalist 4 - Collect 8 Prickly Pears, found in and around Punta Orgullo.
 * Survivalist 5 - Collect 7 Woolly Blue Curls, found in and around Perdido.
 * Survivalist 6 - Collect 8 Butterfly Weeds, found in and around Diez Coronas and Perdido.
 * Survivalist 7 - Collect 10 Hummingbird Sages, found in and around Tall Trees (Must complete Mexico first) (More in the southern area)
 * Survivalist 8 - Collect 12 Prairie Poppies, found in and around Great Plains (Many in the central area north of the railroad and south of Broken Tree).
 * Survivalist 9 - Collect 15 Golden Currants, found in and around Great Plains (Many in the southern area along the river).
 * Survivalist 10 - Collect 10 Violet Snowdrops, found in and around Tall Trees (More in the northern area). Also, collect 2 more of every other herb available.

Master Hunter


The Master Hunter Challenges line can be started North of The Hanging Rock at a Hunters Camp. These challenges task you with hunting and/or skinning a certain amount of a certain species of animal.

Coyotes are primarily nocturnal and can be found around the are circulating Hanging Rock. Shotguns and dead eye are the best way to kill them, but try not to get overwhelmed if a pack of 3 or 4 coyotes attack you. If this happens run around them as you reload (if you only have a double barrelled shotgun), or just mince them with the semi-automatic shotgun. Coyotes only attack you if there are 3 or 4 of them, any less will run away howling their distinctive high pitch whine.
 * Master Hunter 1 - Collect 5 Coyote Pelts:

Deer are fast moving and either can be found in small groups or frolicking on their own. They are mainly found in the American side of the game. Shotgun is good for close range encounters, rifles/pistols for long range. NOTE: Do not mistake Deer for Buck. Buck have antlers, and tend to be larger than Deer. Deer have no antlers.
 * Master Hunter 2 - Collect 5 Deer Pelts:

The easiest way to do this is by finding packs of wolves, which tend to roam in the Mexican wilderness and can easily be attracted by placing bait near where you hear their howling, and running into the fray knife out and hacking wildly. Elegant? No. Effective? Yes. For some reason the wolves tend to either run away or attack you. Just have medicine at hand if they begin to hurt you too seriously. Skin them after killing them with the knife. When hunting armadillos, be sure to use a low-power weapon such as a pistol or revolver. Using too much firepower will obliterate an armadillo leaving no carcass to skin for a carapace. Cougars have the nasty ability to knock you over when they attack which can be very troublesome as the cougar only needs two strikes to kill you. After knocking you down the cougar can quickly position itself for the second attack and because the challenge requires you to use the knife to make the kills the problem presented by the knockdown is greatly increased. An effective way to deal with the cougars is to use the roll when "aiming" with your knife, jumping, or sprinting out of the way to dodge the cougar's initial attack. After you dodge the first attack the cougar tends to be facing in the wrong direction for it to attack again, this is when the cougar is vulnerable and you will have a few seconds to run up behind it and slash at it with your knife. It only takes around two knife swings to kill the cougar so you should only need to do this once but keep some medicine on you just in case the cougar catches you off guard or you mess up the dodge.
 * Master Hunter 3 - Collect 5 Wolf Pelts and kill 5 wolves with your melee knife (The pelts don't have to be from those killed with the knife):
 * Master Hunter 4 - Collect 5 Boar Tusks and 3 Armadillo carapaces:
 * Master Hunter 5 - Collect 2 Cougar Pelts and kill 2 cougars with your melee knife.

When killing the cougar you should only need to use the knife because of how fast the knife attack speed is and the relatively low health of the cougar. Once again, it only takes two knife slashes to kill the cougar so trying to use the "weaken the animal with a gun" technique might cause you to accidently kill the cougar, then you'll have to search for another one.

After completing the Master Hunter 5 challenge the Buffalo Rifle becomes available for purchase from any Gunsmith. Easy steps: 1 Get a horse. 2 Set ammo for cattleman revolver. 3 Shoot the bear 6 times (black bear) with cattleman revolver (5 to brown bear) to between back and front legs. 4 Then 1 slice from horseback kills the bear. 5 Park your horse on top of the bear, dismount and skin animal.
 * Master Hunter 6 - Collect 5 Raccoon Pelts, 5 Skunk Pelts, and 5 Fox Pelts.
 * Master Hunter 7 - Collect 5 Elk Meat and 5 Bighorn Skins. (must complete Mexico first)
 * Master Hunter 8 - Collect 1 Bear Pelt and kill 1 bear with your melee knife.
 * Master Hunter 9 - Search Ojo Del Diablo for "Khan" the legendary jaguar and collect his pelt.
 * Master Hunter 10 - Search Aurora Basin for "Lobo" the legendary wolf, Stillwater Creek for "Gordo" the legendary Boar, and Nekoti Rock for "Brumas" the legendary Bear and collect their pelts.

Treasure Hunter


The Treasure Hunter Challenges task you with finding a hidden treasure hoard by following a series of hand-drawn maps that each depict landmarks and some directions. Please refer to the main Treasure Hunter Challenges page for complete details on each of the treasures that are listed below.
 * Trigger - Acquire first treasure map from a random encounter, the next maps are obtained with the treasure of the previous.
 * Treasure 1 - Located at the north of Hanging Rock at the base of the largest boulder.
 * Treasure 2 - Located at Del Lobo Rock on a small path that winds down the south end face of Del Lobo Rock.
 * Treasure 3 - Located in the basement of the Old Mansion in Tumbleweed. Look for the steer skull.
 * Treasure 4 - Located in Rio Del Toro just north of Chuparosa near the river.
 * Treasure 5 - Located between Escalara and the railroad that crosses the river on a small rock spire that looks like 2 boulders forming toes on top of a big flat mesa-like rock (It's marked on the map as Crooked Toes).
 * Treasure 6 - Located south of Chuparosa in Ojo Del Diablo, on the left side of the Arch (when looking north to the arch)
 * Treasure 7 - Located along a cliff below Roca de Madera.
 * Treasure 8 - Located East of Beecher's Hope on the south of the 3 road intersections near a big tree.
 * Treasure 9 - Located in the cave at the top of Nekoti Rock.

Tomahawk Mastery
Completing the Tomahawk Mastery Challenges gives the player a Trophy/Achievement, and causes tomahawks to appear when in chests in properties the player owns.
 * Rank 1: Purchase from general store at Manzanita Post.
 * Rank 2: Kill one enemy with a thrown tomahawk, one with a tomahawk melee, and one while on horseback.
 * Rank 3: Kill a bird with a tomahawk without using Dead-Eye.
 * Rank 3: Kill a Undead Bat with a tomahawk (Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Disc only)
 * Rank 4: Kill five enemies in a row with the tomahawk without missing.
 * Rank 5: Clear a gang hideout using only the tomahawk.
 * Rank 5: Save a town using only the tomahawk (Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Disc only)

Red Dead Redemption
Rank 1: Buy an Explosive Rifle from the gunsmith in Blackwater. It costs 5,000 or 10,000 dollars depending on whether or not the player decided to spare the life of Abner Forsyth in Stranger side-mission: "The Prohibitionist". The price can be further reduced if the player has downloaded the Hunting and Trading Outfits DLC pack and has completed the challenges to unlock the Savvy Merchant Outfit.

Rank 2: Kill 5 enemies taking cover. This is fairly easy to achieve. Simply go to any hideout and shoot 5 enemies while they are in cover.

Rank 3: Kill 3 enemies with a single shot. This is where it may get tricky, but heres an easy way to deal with this: Go to the Gaptooth Breach, dress in the Treasure Hunter Outfit, and simply tie up three and place them in a pile.

Rank 4: Kill 2 wild animals with a single shot. As wild animals are common this shouldn't prove too difficult.

Rank 5: Obtain the U.S. Army Uniform and kill an enemy with the gun while wearing it. Suprisingly simple, as the person killed can be anyone hostile to you.

Undead Nightmare
These challenges are only associated with the Disc version of the game and not the DLC content.

Rank 1: Save Rathskeller Fork.

Rank 2: Kill one of each undead type. Best to go to El Presidio, as all four types spawn there, if your lucky you might even get them all in one shot.

Rank 3: Kill 3 Undead with a single shot. Jorge's Gap is ideal for this challenge.

Rank 4: Kill 2 wild undead animals with a single shot.

Undead Nightmare Challenges
Details are available on the Undead Nightmare Challenges page.

Trophies/Achievements
The following trophy/achievement is related to Single Player challenges:

With the addition of the Legends and Killers and Liars and Cheats DLC packs the following achievements can be acquired upon completion of the Single Player Challenges for the Tomahawk and the Explosive Rifle: