Honour was a commodity in the Old West. Those without it were feared and those with it were respected. In a time when an outlaw was only as good as their word, it makes sense that Red Dead Redemption 2’s honour system has made a return in Red Dead Online.

Your honour dictates the type of missions you’re offered, with scumbags offered killings and burglaries, and white knights offered more noble jobs. Lower honour will also make people become more irritated with you and cause shops to raise their prices, perhaps as a sort of tax for all of their customers you’ve probably robbed or murdered. Fortunately, it isn’t too late to quickly raise your honour in RDR2 Online.

Updated October 28, 2022 by Issy van der Velde: Looks like you dastardly lot need ways to become honourable in RDR2 Online. Too much killing getting it down? Well, don’t worry. Fortunately for you, we chose the path of righteousness and know some of the fastest ways to increase your honour in Red Dead Redemption 2’s online mode.

8 Look After Your Horse

You’re going to spend a lot of time on your horse in Red Dead Online, in many different situations, so it’s important to look after it. An outlaw is incomplete without their trusty steed, after all. Brushing, feeding, and calming your horse will all raise your honour a little bit. It may not be the fastest way to raise your honour, but it’ll build up over time.

Just remember to buy a brush and follow these other tips. What’s nice about these little boosts is that you’ll accumulate them just through the course of normal gameplay, meaning your honour will get higher without you even noticing.

7 Revive Sedated Animals

This is only available to people who unlock the Naturalist Role and is a quick and easy way to earn both money and honour. Sedating animals with your varmit rifle will allow you to take samples from them you can sell. Invest some of that money back into animal reviver and you’ll get a nice honour boost every time you wake one of those critters up after taking some of their blood. Be careful reviving predators though, as they might not take kindly to you helping yourself to their precious blood.

6 Deliver Bounties Alive

One of the most tried and tested ways of achieving high honour in Red Dead Online is by delivering bounties alive. Ignore those big letters that spell out dead, you hear?

It may be easier to stop them squirming to just put bullets in them, but if you want to raise your honour quickly and get a bit of cash and gold while you’re at it, then going the extra mile to bring bounties in alive will actually raise your honour a bit.

5 Not Being Wasteful

If you’ve played Red Dead Online for any amount of time, chances are you’ve been ambushed by a pack of wolves. Now, you could run away, but if your horse gets spooked and bucks you, you have to stand your ground and fight. Once the dust has cleared, skin all the animals and you’ll get an honour reward for making the most of your kills. This happens with other animals too. Make sure you aren’t just killing for fun, actually take the time to skin the animals and sell their pelts to ensure you stay resourceful and honourable.

4 Throw Back Fish

Fishing is a great activity that can help you become honourable in Red Dead Online. Not only does it increase your health stat and earn you a tidy profit, but throwing back smaller fish will boost your honour. Giving them a chance to live and grow before you yank them out of the water again via a hook to the mouth is seen as an honourable thing to do. Apparently they forget about the whole painful and terrifying tug-of-war you put them through and just let bygones be bygones.

3 Spare Hideout Leaders

Clearing hideouts is a fun part of Red Dead Online. You can either go it alone, if you fancy yourself brave enough, or enlist the help of a posse. Either way, once you clear out all the goons, you’re left with a choice: spare or kill the leader?

Now, it may seem stupid to let the leader live seeing as how they’ll probably just start a new gang you have to shoot through, but apparently honourable and silly are the same thing. Show them mercy and give them a chance to atone for their sinful past. This will help you on your path to high honour in RDR2 Online.

2 Train Clerk Missions

Train Clerk missions and Stranger missions are marked by little orange symbols on your map. Depending on your current honour level, you’ll get offered different jobs. Some will have you stealing something, while others will have you returning something (stealing something back). Fortunately, all these missions tell you before you accept them how they’ll affect your honour, so you can steer clear of any effects you don’t want. You’ll also get a bit of cash for your troubles, so these are a pretty useful tool. Be warned, though, some Strangers are harder to find than others.

1 Pay The Gold Price

If you really can’t be bothered to actually play the game, or you just want to dive into some story missions that are locked behind an honour wall then you can just pay to have your honour level raised quickly. Be warned though, it isn’t cheap. It costs three gold bars to raise your honour, and you can do this at one of several vendors located around the map. The easiest one to get to is located near Strawberry.

Ways To Lower Your Honour

  • Slaughtering farm animals
  • Killing innocent people
  • Pay
  • Kill other player’s horses
  • Make immoral choices in story missions