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RDR2 Online: Bounty Hunter Role Guide (2024)

For May 2023, there is a double money bonus for Legendary Bounty missions and a discount for the Prestigious Bounty Hunter license.

The world of Red Dead Online is lawless and chaotic. Outlaws are wild and abundant, and the lawmen of the American South are struggling to keep them in line. They can’t do it alone. The lawmen need the help of a bounty hunter (or dozens) to track down and arrest some of the most dangerous men and women in RDR2 Online.

If you’re interested in becoming one, it’s a lot easier to do than you may think. But if you want to be the best bounty hunter you can be in RDR2, you’re going to need our help. In this guide for RDR2 Online, we are going to give you a complete walkthrough for everything the Bounty Hunter Role has to offer.

Red Dead Online: Bounty Hunter Role Guide

Let’s jump right into this walkthrough!

Bounty Hunter Role Overview

The Bounty Hunter role is one of the very first roles ever introduced into RDR2 Online! For the Frontier Pursuits update of September 2019, Rockstar added three different roles for players to purchase and enjoy: the Trader Role, the Collector Role, and of course the Bounty Hunter Role.

But what is a role, you may ask? It’s something you can buy in the game that unlocks themed content for you to enjoy. Buying a role unlocks new cosmetics, mission types, and ways to make money in RDR2 Online.

Role Overview
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

This particular role sees players becoming vicious and deadly bounty hunters, with the ability to hunt down and arrest some of the most dangerous criminals in the American South. You’ll do everything from attacking armed wagons full of criminals to tracking the footprints of wanted men to find where they are hiding, and everything in-between.

These missions can all be started by visiting bounty boards, which are found at places like law-enforcement offices, train stations, and post offices. You can find them by looking for the icon on the map that looks like a bounty poster. The Bounty Hunter Role is one of the best roles for beginners in RDR2 due to the fact it’s a very good way to earn some gold bars, which is useful for unlocking the other roles in the game. It’s also just a really fun role to play, especially with friends!

In addition to completing dangerous missions and making money, you’ll also be able to unlock special cosmetics and equipment items for you to use! You can get some intimidating-looking outfits, gun holsters, accessories, and much more. There are also more practical items, such as the bolas which can be used to tie up enemies from a distance.

How to Become a Bounty Hunter in RDR2

Now that I’ve gotten your interest, allow me to explain how you can unlock the Bounty Hunter Role for yourself…

How to Unlock & Gold

The first and most obvious question you may be wondering is how you can get started with the Bounty Hunter Role. Well in order to do it, you’ll first have to travel to the dusty farming town of Rhodes. It is located in the State of Lemoyne. There should be a golden marker on your map hovering above the sheriff’s office located in Rhodes. But before you head over there, you should make sure you have enough gold first.

Gold is a secondary currency that you can obtain from finishing daily challenges and doing certain missions. Completing the story missions for Jessica LeClerk is a good way to earn some gold bars early game.

You can also buy some using real money by going to the pause menu and selecting the “Store” option towards the bottom. The reason why we need gold is because it will cost you 15 gold bars in order to unlock the Bounty Hunter Role in RDR2 Online.

Where to Unlock - rdr2 bounty hunter
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

Once you have the gold, head on over to the town mentioned earlier and go to the sheriff’s office. After you arrive, you will automatically trigger a cutscene of a bounty hunter bringing in her haul to be delivered. During this cutscene, you will have the opportunity to purchase a bounty hunter’s license using your gold bars. If you can’t afford it or decide not to pay… you can always purchase the license later by visiting any of the bounty hunter boards found around the map.

Assuming you make your purchase, you will now be an officially licensed bounty hunter. No training sessions or setup missions required! Now we can get right into the good stuff, bringing in bounties and making lots and lots of money.

Prestigious Bounty Hunter License

For May 2023, there is a discount on the Prestigious Bounty Hunter license.

But before we get into that, I should first mention that there is a second part of the Bounty Hunter Role. By default, you can only get the role up to level 20. But if you can purchase an expansion for the role–The Prestigious Bounty Hunter License–that will allow you to reach rank 30, unlocking new rewards and exclusive items for you as you level up. You will also be able to take on new types of bounty hunter missions.

Prestigious Bounty Hunter License
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG

Getting this role expansion will cost 30 gold bars. You can acquire it at any time by going to any bounty hunter board on the map. I personally only think it’s worth buying if you’ve already bought all the other roles first and you get it discounted. Rockstar will sometimes put this license expansion on sale at a discount during one of their monthly updates. Make sure to keep an eye on the Rockstar Newswire for news of any sales.

Bounty Hunter Missions in RDR2 Online

We’ll now over the various missions available to you as a Bounty Hunter in RDR2 Online.

Regular Bounties – Part 1

Now that you won a Bounty Hunter’s License, it’s time to explain how to start and complete missions. The bread and butter of bounty hunter work are what most people call Regular Bounties. These missions can only be completed in free roam. This is important to keep in mind as other players can steal your bounties and deliver them to grab the reward for themselves.

Regular Bounties Part 1
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

These Regular Bounties can be started by going to the bounty hunter board and selecting a target from one of the posters listed there. These missions will have you go after only one or two targets, and are generally pretty easy to complete.

Different targets will have different difficulties attached to them, with higher difficulties paying more money. Find a target you want to take on and start the mission. The game will always spawn the target within the same region where you started the mission in. For example, if you started a mission in the State of Lemoyne, your target will also spawn in that state. Great, since you won’t have to travel all the way to say, New Austin to do the mission.

Most missions will have only one or two targets. If you own the Prestigious Bounty Hunting License, you can unlock missions that involve half a dozen targets for you to capture! I wouldn’t recommend completing these unless you either have friends to help you, or you’ve unlocked the bounty hunter wagon.

Regular Bounties – Part 2

There are several different mission types, and more will become available as you level up your Bounty Hunter Role. Simply follow the GPS marker to your target. You may have to place a manual GPS marker if your targets spawn in a moving vehicle instead of one location. Be sure to pull out your map and look around if you need to. Once you get to the location of your target, take out any nearby enemies and complete any objectives the game tells you to complete.

Regular Bounties Part 2
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

In most cases you can deal with enemies silently to avoid alerting your target, but this is not required. If you do alert your target, they may try to run away. Ensure that you’re ready to get on your horse and chase them down if need be. You can take targets in dead or alive, with alive targets paying out more money. You can bring in a target alive by either beating them unconscious, tackling them with a gun equipped and then pressing the melee button, or by throwing a lasso over them and hogtying them.

Once you have them, put them on the back of your horse. Begin riding to the drop-off location (the game will automatically give you a GPS marker). After you arrive to the location, a brief cutscene will play and you’ll be rewarded!

I should note that the longer it takes you to complete a mission, the more money it will pay. So if you want the max payout, wait until there is less than one minute left on the timer before turning over your bounty.

Legendary Bounties

Legendary Bounties - rdr2 bounty hunter
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

For May 2023, there is a double money bonus for Legendary Bounty missions.

Up next, I’d like to discuss Legendary Bounties in RDR2. This is a different type of Bounty Hunter mission that has a much more cinematic, story-driven feel. The nice thing about them is that they are not free roam missions, meaning that you won’t have to worry about another player taking your bounty. There are many different Legendary Bounties available, some of which are only available with the Prestigious Bounty Hunter License.

When starting a Legendary Bounty from the bounty board, you will be treated to a cutscene introducing you to the character and giving them some backstory. You’ll spawn in and will need to complete the objectives/prompts displayed on the screen, and eventually capture and turn in the bounty to a drop-off location like with the Regular Bounties. These missions are more hand-crafted than the Regular Bounties. With more unique objectives, you might find these ones more enjoyable.

Keep in mind that some Legendary Bounties do not allow you to turn in a target dead! After you complete the mission, the difficulty of a the mission you just completed will go up by one. The higher the difficulty, the more money it will pay you out. But before you can do another Legendary Bounty mission, there will be a 30-minute cooldown. You can go do other in-game activities, then return when the cooldown is over to start another mission.

Infamous Bounties

Infamous Bounties
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG

Last but not least, we have the Infamous Bounties to go over in RDR2. I like to think of these missions as being a hybrid between Regular Bounties and Legendary Bounties. Infamous Bounties are quest lines that see you taking down several different criminals that are all connected together over the course of three missions. The outlaws have a bit more story/background to them then the randomly generated ones you find in Regular Bounties (but not as much as the ones in Legendary Bounties).

One interesting thing to note is that for each individual bounty board on the map, each one has its own unique Infamous Bounty for you to complete. This means that if you want to complete all of them, you’ll need to visit each one of the bounty boards scattered around the map. After you start the Infamous Bounties, you will have to complete the objectives shown on screen in order to collect the targets.

There is better variety here then some of the Regular Bounties. These ones are worth doing if you are getting tired of the same old missions. The payouts are pretty decent as well, but nothing to ride home about. Once you complete one of the missions, there will be an hour long cool down, meaning you can’t do all of the missions in one single go.

Bounty Hunter Role Unlocks

After completing many different missions, you should have enough XP in the Bounty Hunter Role to unlock some sick rewards in RDR2. To view the rewards you have/can unlock, go to the pause menu. Then select “Progress,” then “Roles” and after that go to the Bounty Hunter Role. From here, you can view all of the unique rewards that can be unlocked from leveling up the Bounty Hunter Role.

Unlocks - rdr2 bounty hunter
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG / Koby Gibson Ross

Each section of this menu is divided into a tier, with a new tier being unlocked every 5 levels. As you gain more and more XP, you will unlock a currency item called “Role Tokens.” Role Tokens are used to unlock the items and rewards. Keep in mind that once you unlock something with Role Tokens, you will still need to purchase the item using cash.

There are many great things that you can unlock with this role! From new horse breeds, to intimidating cosmetics, to gun variants, and much more! But the most useful unlocks in my opinion are the bolas, the reinforced lasso, the bounty wagon, and the kit satchel upgrade.

As previously mentioned, bolas can be used to capture targets alive from a safe distance. Throwing one causes them to trip over and fall down. The reinforced lasso is great as bounty targets will try to break free when captured. However, this special lasso prevents them from doing that.

There is also a bounty wagon, which is needed for capturing big groups of targets during the same mission. Lastly, the satchel kit upgrade allows you to hold onto more items in it at once, which is incredibly useful.

Tips & Tricks

Tips & Tricks - rdr2 bounty hunter
Image: Rockstar Games via HGG

Before ending this RDR2 Online guide, why don’t we go over some tips and tricks to make playing the Bounty Hunter Role as easy as it can possibly be? There are three of them in particular I’d like to share with you today, and they are as follows:

  • Tip #1: Knockout bounty targets instead of lassoing them if you don’t have the reinforced lasso. As previously mentioned, targets can sometimes untie themselves when captured if tied up with a regular lasso. If they are knocked out cold, however, this won’t happen. This is a great tip for new players who do not have the reinforced lasso unlocked just yet.
  • Tip #2: Complete a different Infamous Bounty mission while waiting for the cooldown on one to be over. While there is an hour-long cool down for doing an Infamous Bounty, it only applies to the specific one that you just completed. Meaning, you can travel to any other bounty board on the map and start up the Infamous Bounty for that board while waiting for the cooldown on the other to end. This means you can do several different ones back to back to back!
  • Tip #3: Complete random events to level up your Bounty Hunter Role faster. Many players agree that the Bounty Hunter Role takes quite a while to rank up. Especially when compared to the other roles in the game. So it’s a good idea to complete the Bounty Hunter events that you will randomly be invited to while playing the game. These are a good way to quickly level up and make some money while doing it.

Join the High Ground

We hope that you enjoyed this guide for the Bounty Hunter Role in RDR2 Online. What are your thoughts on this role?

And did you have any questions for us? Let us know below! Make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more Red Dead Online guides just like this one here.

Happy gaming!

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