Red Dead Redemption 2

I call it "John Solo: aka the Maximum Marston Experience".

I had been wondering about how much money Arthur would have by the end of the main story if he never spent anything throughout the game. I also recently watched an interview with John's voice actor, and he was talking about how he and Arthur's actor had split doing the performance capture for the stranger missions, since you could do the vast majority of them as either Arthur OR John. This made me curious just how much of the side content could be left for the epilogue (the answer is "almost all of it").

So with these two ideas in mind, and my previous knowledge of the how the story goes, I came up with the John Solo method which has two overarching goals: 1) Complete Arthur Morgan's story while spending as little money as possible. 2) Leave the maximum number of things possible for John to discover in the epilogue.

As Arthur Morgan:
Play only the main story missions.
Do not interact with any strangers.
Do not interact with any of the random events that pop up (the gray dots on the mini map). If you get ambushed, you can of course defend yourself.
No hunting (including studying animals), fishing, horse breaking, or picking of any herbs unless required by a quest.
No crafting or cooking unless required by a quest.
Do only the first bounty hunting mission in Valentine but no others (this is the only bounty hunter mission unplayable as John).
Do not explore. This means no inspecting landmarks, no investigating any cabins or campsites (that aren't directly part of a mission), no opening any random lock boxes in the world.
Do not do any of the Challenges (one exception, I'm pretty sure there are more than 3 scripted knife kills as part of the main storyline, so it's unavoidable to complete Weapons Expert 1)

There are many optional missions along the way, like the Mary missions, or the camp companion activities, which obviously cannot be done as John, so these are purely optional. However, the hunting and fishing activities must be avoided. Doing the optional sidequest for Rains Fall in Chapter 6 is the only way to get the Owl Trinket, so that mission should be completed if you want all the trinkets.

If you want to get all the weapons in the game, make sure you grab the Rare Rolling Block from the sniper during the Chapter 3 mission where Arthur and Charles save Trelawny (I'm pretty sure this is the only weapon that can't be obtained as John)

Also, in the Chapter 4 mission where Arthur and Susan rescue Tilly from Anthony Foreman, choose to let Foreman go (this triggers a bonus bounty mission for John in the epilogue).

And here's the big one: Try not to spend any money.

This means:
Playing the whole game with either the first horse you get at Adler's Ranch or the Shire given to you by Hosea, using the basic saddle and equipment, and using the default outfits for Arthur.
Not purchasing any guns or gun upgrades. You can only use the basic versions of weapons you receive as part of story missions.
No riding the train or stagecoach.
No buying tonics for you or your horse.
No buying camp upgrades, or donating to camp (other than Strauss' debt money).

Here are the few exceptions and why I chose to make them:
You can buy ammo if needed. Getting through some of those later story missions where you have a bunch of big shootouts and not much time to loot corpses after is a real challenge. Just getting stuff from camp isn't always enough. You can also pay the gunsmith to clean your guns if you're struggling to find enough gun oil on enemies.

You can buy food if needed (but nothing that requires cooking). Without doing any hunting, you're surviving on Pearson's stews and whatever canned food you can scavenge, which isn't always going to be enough. Buying food for the horse is also acceptable.

You can buy Dutch and Arthur's tent upgrades as unlocking the fast travel is essential to playing this game without it being frustrating as hell (IMO lol), other than that, you can only buy restocks of the basic level supplies using funds donated by the others, no upgrading anything else or putting any of your own money in for restocks.

And if you get a bounty, you can choose to pay it off if you like, but it's not required if you want an extra challenge.

Of course anything you loot off of enemies (only those killed during missions or when ambushed, no St Denis murder sprees to get supplies lol) is fair game, and anything you don't want to use can be sold to the various shopkeepers and fences.

Once Arthur completes the mission "My Last Boy" where Eagle Flies dies, decide what items you want to take into the final missions and convert everything else you have in your possession into cash. Then go to Aberdeen Pig Farm. Let those events unfold naturally, go back to the house and kill the incestuous couple but DO NOT retrieve your cash from behind the painting, just walk away and go finish Arthur's story. If you spent the minimum amount of money possible throughout your game you should have left around $5,000 behind.

As John:
Play through all the epilogue 1 missions until Abigail leaves you. Once you get into your original RDR1 Marston outfit and ride away from Pronghorn, go directly to Aberdeen Pig Farm and retrieve Arthur's money. At this point you will have two story missions available, one with the banker in Blackwater, and one with Sadie in the Valentine saloon. Go see Sadie and do her mission, but DO NOT go the Blackwater bank.

Now, the world is your oyster. You're John Marston in a world that's barely been touched and has a TON of content to discover, and you're unfettered by wife and child lol. Enjoy it.

Complete all Stranger missions
Complete all Legendary animal hunts and get all the trinkets
Catch the legendary fish
Complete all the challenges
Complete all the Hunting requests
Fully explore New Austin
Complete all bounty missions
Complete all the clothing sets from the tailors and trapper
Find all the unique weapons
Find all the landmarks and sketch them
Fill in as much of the compendium as possible
etc. basically,

Complete everything required to get 100% (except visiting gravestones), plus whatever else you want to achieve before doing the next story mission. Then go visit the guy at the bank, purchase Beecher's Hope and finish John's story. Once you've completed the final mission, American Venom (and gone back to Mount Hagen to grab Micah's gun), have yourself a nice sit down in your home and read through your journal from start to finish.

Then, complete a lap of honor around the map, visiting all past campsites and grave sites of fallen gang members, finishing with Arthur's grave....which will trigger the 100% cutscene at Arthur's grave while you're actually standing there.

Congratulations!

It makes the pacing of Arthur's story 100 times better. It's hard for open world games to have strong, concise stories because the player might go off at any point, exploring the woods for two weeks before coming back to the next story mission. By playing Arthur's story one mission after another, it keeps the pace relentless and the stakes high.

It makes the game much more challenging. Like I said in my original review of RDR2, the game is built around telling a story rather than challenging the player with its gameplay, so any added challenge for subsequent playthroughs is good. Limited ammo, food and tonics, no trinkets and basic guns gives the game an extra edge.

John has stuff to DO! Yes the story missions for the two epilogues are quite long (actually almost a full third of the story missions in the game), but there is very little additional stuff for you to do as John other than mopping up the dregs of a couple of Arthur's unfinished quests. In fact there is disappointingly only one stranger mission chain that can only be done as John. This method leaves so much for John to do, you will be playing as John for much longer than you played as Arthur.

It tells a cooler story for John. Instead of just being a sap who gets bullied into buying a ranch for his absent wife, this John Marston says "fuck it" and rolls with the punches, and goes out for a months-long wild boy's adventure of his own. Makes John seem like less of a pussy (lol) and then it actually does mean more when he leaves those ways behind in order to actually knuckle down and try to get her back. And when you're done, you're done.