Verbrechen
Every cupboard, stool and desk can be checked. Alcohol, tobacco, cash, food, etc can be collected.
If you are seen looting something you shouldn't be, you will be attacked or have the Sheriff called on you.
Arthur will automatically loot everything he sees in robberies by holding down a button.
You can pull down your bandanna by accessing the face-mask option in the item wheel.
During the train heist mission they played, you can decide to kill the witnesses, let them run, or put them back on the train and send it away. When Arthur kills the one of them they all run for their lives.
Bounty hunters can come after you, and they do want you dead, not captured.
Customization:
Rockstar's PR team laughed when asked if there's lots of customization options, implying an undeniable "yes".
You can roll your sleeves up, roll them down, tuck your trousers into your boots, the possibilities for how you present yourself are vast.
Hair/facial hair grows over time.
If you want a certain hair/beard style, you must wait until it is long enough (unlike previous titles, you cannot walk into a barber with a bald head and leave with an afro!).
In order for Arthur to style himself, he must have the appropriate items, such as hair gel bought from stores.
Beard styles are not limited to short/medium/long, customization allows you to decide how each part of the beard looks (e.g. trimmed sides, mustache flicked upwards, long moustache with stubble, etc).
Gang information
Gang members will offer to join you on free-roam activities, giving you access to the same kind of assistance seen in the story missions, like asking them to go ahead and take out an enemy.
If you choose to kidnap a rival gang member instead of outright killing them, you can persuade them to join your gang (not confirmed whether limited to enemies in Story missions or during free roam too).
If you're nasty to a fellow gang member, others will take notice and comment on it.
John Marston is seen as "weak and not well-liked".
Gang members might die but you can hire new ones throughout the story.
'Focus' Button
When aiming at someone without a weapon in your hands, you will instead focus on them.
Focusing at someone allows you to greet them, threaten, attack, grab, and a lot more.
The options you get depend on the state you are in (if you grab someone, you can then punch them, or let them go for example).
If you focus at someone with a gun, you can aim at them, fire your gun directly into the sky, etc. Firing into the sky alerts animals (meaning they will stick their head up and allow for an easy kill), and as a method of intimidating people).
You can focus on humans, animals, items in stores, and even yourself if standing in front of a mirror. Arthur will then comment on his appearance "you're getting fat Arthur..."
Focusing on your horse allows you to brush and feed them.
Horses:
19 breeds of horse.
59 different styles of coat, and a huge range of customizable tack, including saddles, horns, stirrups, spurs, you can create a horse that is truly your own .
Horses can be bonded with to learn new skills, like dramatic skid-stops or a dressage side-step.
You cannot kill your horse if you shoot it, but if it dies then it’s permanent and you’ll have to get a new horse and start a new bond.
Your horse can be healed if fatally wounded, but it will require a special kit.
You can tell your horse to flee and save its life.
Your horse can drift and swim.
You can jump off your horse onto moving trains.
Horses have unique personalities.
Horses can move sideways.
If you take your horse close to a source of water, it'll drink from it.
Petting your horse increases your bond the most.
Stashing a dead deer on your horse makes it very noticeably slower.
Horses will be slower on non-road surfaces.
Riding with a body on your horse in a town is not a good idea. The writer did so in Valentine and NPC's panicked, ran and yelled "oh my God!".
You will be able to buy and sell horses in auction stables.
Dialogue on horseback was recorded twice, characters will speak normally when riding close and yell when they're further away.
Your horse can lose control, hit a tree or some other object, and drop you off the saddle a few meters in some direction.
Like in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you can name your horse.
Horses can fart!
HUD:
the HUD is minimal by default, only showing the mini-map in the bottom left corner, with meters fading in as it becomes necessary.
An expanded HUD option shows you a larger minimap.
There's also the option to turn everything off, as well as an option to only have a compass on the screen.
Current time and temperature are displayed by pausing the game or pressing down on the d-pad.
Hunting:
Unlike RDR1, skinning an animal shows the full, grisly animation. You see the knife cut and the skin come off the body.
When done skinning, Arthur had the animals carcass at his feet and a small pelt and some glands in his inventory.
You are best advised to use a bow in order to remain silent and minimize the damage done to the meat/pelt.
Shooting, setting on fire, or exploding an animal will severely decrease the amount they're worth to butchers, stores etc.
Movement:
Movement feels similar to previous titles, e.g. GTA V (walking, sprinting, shooting).
- Man kann schwimmen, aber nicht tauchen
- Rollen und Ducken möglich.
NPC Interaction:
- Einige
Other interaction is manually done by the player (e.g. greeting or complimenting someone).
Arthur can talk to individuals, or multiple people at the same time (if you greet two people having a conversation for instance, they will both acknowledge you).
When talking to people, you are not forced to stand still unlike other games (for example, you can pour yourself a coffee and continue a conversation).
Everyone you meet will react differently. Some people will engage you in conversation, others will tell you to go away. Some NPCs will back down when threatened, others will stand up for themselves.
You can join ongoing conversations between 2 or more people (e.g. if someone notices you from a previous interaction and mentions you to his friend sat beside him).
When standing around listening to two NPC's chat about a massacre and a curse, they asked Arthur his thoughts on the matter, which Rockstar say wouldn't have happened if Arthur hadn't lingered around in front of them.
Survival mechanics:
Arthur must eat in order to survive.
Food can be found via hunting, fishing, stealing from people and visiting stores.
Arthur must rest or will become tired.
Being tired will cause Arthur to suffer from stamina penalties, blurry vision, and he will look visibly tired.
Arthur will gain weight by over-eating, and lose weight via physical exertion/not eating.
Stamina is limited, and is affected by weight, fatigue and temperature.
Arthur has a variety of stats, including strength, dexterity, instinct, and grit. Although it’s not clear how these will be leveled up, he will also have ‘Cores’ – your health, stamina, and Dead Eye meters – which are improved in various ways.
Arthur is affected by the climate (wearing heavy clothing in hot environments will cause stamina penalties, as will wearing too little in cold environments).
When you go into hot or cold climates, you will automatically equip/unequip a coat (not confirmed but believed to be optional as stamina penalty is a thing).
Vehicles:
Horses
Trains are drivable (whether you can derail it like in San Andreas has yet to be seen!).
Some of the options when in the main train car include accelerate, brake, ring bell, and whistle.
If you accelerate and gain lots of speed, you can escape your bounty hunters, but your horse will also stay behind.
Small boats (e.g. canoes) confirmed, big boats unconfirmed.
Horse and carriage
City trams
Violence:
Your honor rank determines how violence during kill-cams is displayed.
If you have high honor, Arthur will kill his enemies with methods that "preserve their dignity".
If you have low honor, kill-cams will be much more gritty, glorifying the death of your enemies.
You can blow off heads and limbs with the appropriate weapons.
You can deform peoples' heads, e.g. by shooting someone in the face with a pistol repeatedly.
Cuts and bruises form during combat. Punch someone in the face and their skin will be visibly damaged.
Enemies won't always die straight away, but may stumble on the ground before bleeding out.
You get covered in your enemies blood, e.g. by punching someone and blood forming on your glove.
Animals can also get covered in blood. Wolves for instance will have blood cover their mouth when attacking Arthur.
Weapons:
Weapons will degrade over time which will affect the performance of the gun.
Arthur must maintain his weapons in order to maximise their efficiency.
A badly performing gun will jam and not be as accurate, although will never break entirely.
You can switch out barrels, grips, hammers, and more to enhance/alter performance. You’ll need to take your weapons to a gunsmith
Guns have their own stats. Damage, Range, Fire rate, Reload, Accuracy, and Condition. These are on a scale of 0 to 4.
Guns will rust over time.
The player is able to look at their gun and move it around to admire how it looks.
You can get gear upgrades that will affect your weapons. The 3 seen in previews are as follows:
Bandolier: Ammo capacity for longarm weapons is increased by 50%
Gunbolt: Base ammo for sidearms is increased by 50%
Holster: Slow degradation of all weapons by 20%
Bullets load one by one.
Your bow counts as a rifle but is a stealthy alternative.
You can dual-wield, but it is speculated you will need to unlock the skill, or another holster before being able to do so.
Inventory space is limited. You are limited to carrying 2 one-handed guns, and 2 two-handed weapons (not including knives, fire bottles, etc).
Unlike previous Rockstar games, you can limit the amount of weapons you carry by leaving them in your saddle bags. For instance, carrying a single pistol.
Weather:
There are very subtle weather sound effects like the sound of wind in clear weather after a snowstorm, birds singing, insects, etc.
Arthur reacts to the weather, changing his posture in the rain and tucking his chain in to avoid getting wet.
Weather, and snow will accumulate naturally in places that have been trodden over.
Snow is completely physically simulated into the game world. Wind blows it off of trees and horses, or onto trees, horses, people...Rockstar insists each tree is placed individually in the map.
Some missions will take you far up into the mountains where you are literally above the cloud line.
Thanks to the fact the game is set before a time light pollution became an issue, the sky is riddled with stars and clusters of stars. It looks like a genuine array of galaxies when you look up at night.
Wildlife:
You can research animals and add them into a journal.
Animals are more likely to attack you if they're hungry. Rockstar reps were quoted saying "the bear will already probably kill you, but if it's angry and hungry, it's definitely going to kill you".
Animals will run away if they get scared. Fighting a big animal isn't always an instant death sentence if you manage to scare it before it gets close.
You can wear animal carcasses, such as a snakeskin hat, a rat tied around the brim of the hat, fur coats to keep you warm, etc.
Deer, bison and pronghorn traverse the plains in large herds, scavengers quickly sniff out carrion, sockeye salmon leap upstream, wolves attack in packs surrounding their prey, geese fly in fixed formations, possums play dead, rodents scamper into tree hollows, grizzly bears bluff charge when threatened, and birds of prey soar on thermals.
They all form part of a complex ecosystem and must continually fight for their place on the food chain.
Legendary animals make a return. Only one legendary animal exists for select species.