Honour was a commodity in the Old West, those without it were feared and those with it were respected. In a time when an outlaw was only as good as their word, it makes sense that Red Dead Redemption 2’s honour system has made a return in Red Dead Online.
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Your honour dictates the type of missions you're offered, with scumbags offered killings and burglaries, and white knights offered more noble jobs. Lower honour will also make people become more irritated with you and cause shops to raise their prices, perhaps as a sort of tax for all of their customers you’ve probably robbed or murdered.
Updated June 11, 2023, by John Wildermuth: Although Red Dead Online may have been released many years ago, there is still a large amount of players logging on every day, ready to experience the perils and thrills of the wild west. Similar to the honour system found throughout the single-player storyline of Red Dead Redemption 2, the online world carries this feature over, allowing you to only participate in certain missions depending on your honour level. We have decided to update this article to provide you with the latest methods of becoming an honourable player.
9 Look After Your Horse
You’re going to spend a lot of time on your horse in Red Dead Online, in many different situations, so it’s important to look after it. An outlaw is incomplete without their trusty steed, after all.
Brushing, feeding, and calming your horse will all raise your honour a little bit. It may not be the fastest way to raise your honour, but it'll build up over time.
Just remember to buy a brush and constantly attend to your horse's needs. What’s nice about these little boosts is that you’ll accumulate them just through the course of normal gameplay, meaning your honour will get higher without you even noticing.
8 Revive Sedated Animals
This method is only available to people who unlock the Naturalist Role and is a quick and easy way to earn both money and honour. Sedating animals with your varmit rifle will allow you to take samples from them, which you can then sell for a profit at different vendors.
Invest some of that money back into animal reviver, and you’ll get a nice honour to boost every time you wake one of those critters up after taking some of their blood. Be careful reviving predators though, as they might not take kindly to you helping yourself to their precious blood.
7 Deliver Bounties Alive
One of the most tried and tested ways of achieving high honour in Red Dead Online is by delivering bounties alive. This may be more challenging if you are just starting your career as a bounty hunter, but a reinforced lasso or a prison wagon will soon make this job incredibly easy.
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It may be tempting to stop them squirming by just riding your target with bullets, but if you want to raise your honour quickly and get a bit of cash and gold while you're at it, then going the extra mile to bring bounties in alive will actually raise your honour.
6 Never Waste Animals
If you’ve played Red Dead Online for any amount of time, chances are you’ve been ambushed by a pack of wolves. Now, you could run away, but if your horse gets spooked and bucks you, you have to stand your ground and fight.
Once the dust has cleared, skin all the animals, and you’ll get an honour reward for making the most of your kills. This happens with the animals you hunt too, just make sure you aren’t just killing for fun, actually, take the time to skin the animals and sell their pelts to ensure you stay resourceful and honourable.
5 Throw Back Fish
Fishing is a great activity that can help you become honourable in Red Dead Online. Not only does it increase your health stat and earn you a tidy profit, but throwing back smaller fish will boost your honour.
Giving them a chance to live and grow before you yank them out of the water again via a hook to the mouth is seen as an honourable thing to do. Apparently, they forget about the whole painful and terrifying tug-of-war you put them through and just let bygones be bygones.
4 Spare Hideout Leaders
Clearing hideouts is a fun part of Red Dead Online. You can either go it alone, if you fancy yourself brave enough, or enlist the help of a posse.
Either way, once you clear out all the goons, you’re left with a choice: spare or kill the leader?
Now, it may seem stupid to let the leader live seeing as how they’ll probably just start a new gang you have to shoot through, but apparently honourable and silly are the same thing. Show them mercy and give them a chance to atone for their sinful past.
This will help you on your path to high honour in RDR2 Online.
3 Train Clerk And Stranger Missions
Train Clerk missions and Stranger missions are marked by little orange symbols on your map. Depending on your current honour level, you’ll get offered different jobs.
Some will have you stealing something, while others will have you returning something (stealing something back).
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Fortunately, all these missions tell you before you accept them how they’ll affect your honour, so you can steer clear of any effects you don’t want. You’ll also get a bit of cash for your troubles, so these are a pretty useful tool.
Be warned, though, some Strangers are harder to find than others.
2 Play Nice With Others
While all the previous tasks can be completed completely alone, it can be advantageous to treat the other players in your game with respect to raise your honour. Since being violent towards townspeople negatively affects your honour, you can also become dishonourable by attacking other players constantly.
While this will not happen after your first kill, you should be wary of going on a massive killing spree. Furthermore, you can complete online story missions with other players, that can specifically raise or lower your honour level.
1 Pay The Gold Price
If you really can’t be bothered to actually play the game, or you just want to dive into some story missions that are locked behind an honour wall then you can just pay to have your honour level raised quickly.
Be warned though, it isn’t cheap. It costs three gold bars to raise your honour, and you can do this at one of several vendors located around the map. The easiest one to travel to is located near Strawberry.
Next: Red Dead Online Complete Guide And Walkthrough
