Red Dead Redemption 2 Timelapse Is A Heart-Breaking Reminder Of Arthur’s Story

Summary Red Dead Redemption 2's photo mode captures Arthur's physical decline due to tuberculosis, adding depth and immersion to the game.

Arthur's appearance changes throughout the game, reflecting his illness and enhancing the storytelling experience for players.

Rockstar's attention to detail in character modeling makes Arthur's progression with tuberculosis feel real and heartbreaking, adding to the game's praised storytelling.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is often heralded as having some of Rockstar's greatest storytelling, with the heartbreaking tale of Arthur Morgan going down as one of gaming's best. Throughout the story, Arthur goes from being one of the Van der Linde gang's most dedicated enforcers to questioning his past actions and those of the group's leader, Dutch, setting him on a potential path to redemption (considering how high or low honor players have been outside the game's cutscenes).

[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2.]

Redditor Brave_Dwarf_23 has used Red Dead Redemption 2's in-game photo mode to take pictures of Arthur at different points throughout the game, showing the changes to the character as time goes on.

These images showed drastic changes to the character model, with Arthur being able to grow his hair and beard throughout the game, or become covered in mud or blood after certain situations, with players having to take him to certain locations to either cut his hair, shave his beard, or clean himself up, adding yet another layer of immersion to an already incredibly detailed game.

Related This One Simple Tip Is Something Every New RDR2 Player Should Know With so much to see and do across RDR2's map, players should be mindful of one key trick to avoid making their experience a frustrating one.

The Changes To Arthur's Appearance Chronicle His Illness

Arthur Morgan Caught Tuberculosis Early In The Game

As many pointed out, the saddest part about the photos was that they chronicled Arthur slowly succumbing to tuberculosis (aka. TB), an infection caused by bacteria that often targets the lungs or any other area in the body with a lot of blood and oxygen flowing through it that proved to be fatal for many in the 1800s. Arthur contracts TB very early in Red Dead Redemption 2's story, when he is sent to collect debts for Leopald Strauss during the Money Lending and Other Sins III mission, and while players can put this off for a while, it is a compulsory mission that must be completed in order to progress the main story.

Depending on whether players have a high or low honor score, Arthur will either pass away from the infection by the end of Red Dead Redemption 2's story or be killed by Micah.

Throughout the second half of Red Dead Redemption 2, it becomes clear Morgan is sick as he often coughs and begins to turn paler in his complexion. The images shared by Brave_Dwarf_23 make this more apparent than ever, as Ecto3v73 pointed out, "You can see the life draining from Arthur with each picture", calling the feature "Cool but sad."

The physical toll that the infection takes on Arthur could have just been portrayed through the award-winning performance of Roger Clark, but Rockstar used its constantly changing character model to set it up early and show it taking hold gradually as time goes on, making it feel more real and heartbreaking. This attention to detail is one of many reasons why Red Dead Redemption 2 is so highly praised.

Sources: Brave_Dwarf_23/Reddit, Ecto3v73/Reddit