Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 does an amazing job of explaining how the Van Der Linde Gang broke up, as well as how the first game’s protagonist, John Marston comes to leave the gang behind. However, there are a few important events, which neither game shows the player, that take place over the gap in time between the two entries.
The original Red Dead Redemption takes place in 1911, and covers the adventures of former outlaw John Marston as he hunts down his old fellow gang members at the bidding of the federal government in exchange for his freedom, as well as the freedom of his wife and son. As an ex-criminal turned bounty hunter, John is a troubled man. But, it’s his relationships with his former comrades that take the cake as his pursuit of them is motivated by more than just his family’s freedom. When John originally abandoned his life of crime, it was because his gang, lead by the charismatic and intellectual Dutch Van Der Linde, had left him for dead during a failed robbery. This event is what the first major portion of Red Dead Redemption 2 leads up to and extrapolates upon in the second portion, as players see how John settles his homestead in the following years. This happens in 1907, and there are a few things that occur in those four years that Red Dead Redemption either merely implies or never shows the player.
The most exciting events that occur between the two games mostly have to do with what the other members of the Van Der Linde Gang were up to after John left and the gang broke up. For instance, just because Dutch Van Der Linde’s original posse of freedom fighters split ways doesn’t mean he was done robbing stagecoaches or gunning down lawmen.
How Red Dead Redemption 2 Sets Up The Original
As shown in the final third of Red Dead Redemption, Dutch spends those four years building up another, more vicious gang of ne’er-do-wells. The original Van Der Linde gang may have shot plenty of folks and stolen a lot money, but typically they did it with a greater purpose in mind. They fancied themselves a gang of Robin Hood and his Merry Men who only robbed to survive or to gain independence from what they viewed as an oppressive state. Dutch’s follow-up project had no such delusions, however. They aren’t hopeful survivors willing to thieve what they need, they’re full-on bandits with no regard for who they rob or kill.
The same can basically be said for the other two gang members John has to hunt in Red Dead Redemption. Bill Williamson also started his own gang. For a grown man with poor reading skills, even when compared to his uneducated peers, Williamson does a fairly good job at bringing together a band of murderers, thieves and cattle-rustlers under his command. Somehow this bad band of banditos manages to occupy an honest-to-god military fort in the middle of the desert, which John had to spend a good chunk of the first game trying to successfully assault.
Unfortunately, John’s second major target in the first game, Javier Escuella, proves himself to be a poor outlaw without his buddies. Unlike Dutch and Bill, Javier isn’t even part of a gang, let alone having one under his command. When John finally gets to Escuella, there’s no exciting gun duel or Mexican standoff. Instead, Escuella takes the chicken’s route and hightails it away. John is forced to run his former comrade down like a dog rather than have any dramatic or fulfilling altercation.
On a more peaceful note, the last major thing that is left uncovered by either game is the four years of legitimate peace John lived with his family before Red Dead Redemption begins. This makes sense, given that there’s not much to tell, but it’s heavily implied that John was a fairly poor rancher. Up until the events of the game, John has little-to-no farmhand experience beyond driving cattle (mostly for rustling purposes). He has no experience raising crops or even selling them. In a way, he’s lucky that the government kidnaps his family in Red Dead Redemption, otherwise he never would’ve learned how to survive, let alone prosper without gunning people down in the process.
