Highlights

  • Red Dead Redemption 2 received widespread praise for its richly detailed open world, which includes a mix of original locations and areas from the first game.
  • The game's subtle details, such as the progress of construction and deforestation projects, leave a significant impact on players, creating a dense and lived-in world.
  • The Abandoned Town of Pleasance is a creepy and mysterious location in the game, filled with graves and graffiti that hint at a massacre and a plaguelike situation. The town's backstory remains unresolved, adding to the game's immersive storytelling.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was released in 2018 to near-universal praise from gamers and critics alike. A lot of the praise had to do with the game's enormous open world which contained not only a ton of original locations but a good chunk of the first game's map. The world of Red Dead Redemption 2 was anything but empty and contained a ton of mysteries.

Overall, the game is loaded with details that make the world feel dense, alive, and lived in. That said, it's often the more subtle things that leave the biggest impact on some players. For example, one small detail has the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 change as buildings complete construction and logging camps make progress in their deforesting projects. Another example of this is the Abandoned Town of Pleasance.

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The Mystery of the Abandoned Town of Pleasance

Red Dead Redemption 2 The Remains Of Pleasance Now A Ghost Town

The Abandoned Town of Pleasance is a small part of the game that feels like something out of a horror story. The town can be found in the swamp-ridden state of Lemoyne which also hosts the city of Saint Denis. Lemoyne is a territory in Red Dead Redemption 2 that is full of easy-to-miss details which can include the town of Pleasance. A sign outside the town states that it was founded in August 1883 but was apparently abandoned a month later. This is where things get weird.

Should players look around the town of Pleasance they will find a church with a graveyard containing 10 graves. It is filled with people of varying ages who were all killed in September 1883 from gunshots and stab wounds only a month after the town was established. Whatever massacre went down, though, clearly did not kill everyone, as someone was still left alive to bury the dead and make headstones. It is not entirely clear when the survivors left or if they died later on.

Further inspection of the town also reveals writing graffiti on the walls of a house that reads "ILL WITH SIN" and "UNCLEAN SINNERS". Furthermore, a barn in the town has the words "STAY OUT PLAGUE" written in the same graffiti handwriting and format as that on the house. Unfortunately, the interior of the barn is not accessible to players and the only way to look inside is to trigger a visual glitch that reveals an empty interior.

The Many Details of Red Dead Redemption 2

A player shares images comparing Red Dead Redemption 2 locales to their real-world counterparts.

Because of the sheer size of the game, it is very easy for fans to miss things within Rockstar's latest Western. The map of Red Dead Redemption 2 has drawn comparisons to Skyrim's and its sheer data size was one of the biggest in history upon release. However, this size meant that the game was loaded with details.

Red Dead Redemption 2 had many easy-to-miss side quests that ranged from mundane and forgettable to bizarre and impossible to forget. Often the player would encounter a character and have to do a series of quests for them which would change their lives for better and for worse. Some of the most memorable bits in the game don't have any apparent narrative tied into them. The Abandoned Town of Pleasance is one such instance.

Unfortunately for fans, it's very likely that the mystery of Pleasance will never be resolved. The town itself sadly lacks any further context clues as to just what happened and why the words were written on the buildings. It is, however, a fantastic little detail that makes the world feel real in a way that a regular side quest simply could not. Red Dead Redemption 3 likely won't be out until the 2030s if it's planned at all, but the next game will hopefully include some similar mysteries that will baffle players for years to come.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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