Is 100% RDR2 hard?

In one word: absolutely. As someone who has poured over 500 hours (and counting) into reaching 100% completion of Rockstar‘s Red Dead Redemption 2, I can definitively say it is an extremely difficult, grind-heavy undertaking reserved only for the most hardcore and dedicated in the gaming community.

By the Numbers: Just What Does 100% Entail?

I won‘t sugarcoat it – reaching 100% completion requires a massive investment of time and effort across a downright intimidating checklist of tasks spanning the entire game world:

As you can tally up, that equates to over 350 individual completions, discoveries, upgrades or wins needed to hit the coveted 100% marker.

In terms of raw game time, completing all story missions takes around 50 hours. But spent over a year chipping away at side content, collectibles hunting and challenge retrying before I finally maxed out my completion stats.

All told, the aggregate average time to 100% Red Dead Redemption 2 is 179 hours – and that‘s from dedicated players actively pursuing it. I‘d guess only less than 5% of gamers who start RDR2 ever cross the finish line due to the ridiculous complexity involved.

The Brutal Difficulty of Challenges & Upgrades

One of the biggest obstacles to hitting 100% lies in the extremely punishing individual challenges across categories like Bandit, Sharpshooter, Horseman, Survivalist and more. These test skills to the very edge of frustration, like:

• Win 3 consecutive games of Blackjack with 3 hits or more (Gambler #10)
• Kill 3 birds from a moving train in one go with small arrows (Sharpshooter #10)
• Ride from Van Horn to Blackwater without touching water in 17 minutes (Horseman #10)

I must have retried some of those damn challenges over 100 times before finally gold-starring them. And choking on the home stretch after 16 straight minutes of riding remains one of my most controller-throwing moments ever!

Maxing out Arthur‘s cores and attributes by Chapter 4 requires similar dedication through tons of hunting, herbalism, stealing, shooting practice. You need to completely fill his Health, Stamina and Dead Eye meters to achieve a perfect 10/10 score across the board.

I achieved this benchmark after nearly 80 hours of intentional prep work and consuming hundreds of consumables. It takes that long to collect the tonics, special gear and ability cards needed.

Navigating Frustrating Design Decisions

Some intentional design decisions in RDR2 make achieving 100% radically harder:

• No manual saving – Failing challenges or dying means losing tons of progress between autosaves. I estimate I spent 10+ hours retreading old ground alone.
• Missable & hidden content – Quests, items and events that can be permanently failed or skipped if you progress too far. There are over 75+ entries on the Missables list you must be cautious of.
• Buggy systems – Occasional glitches stop challenges from registering properly or contribute to unfair failures. One such bug stalled my progress for over a month!

These kinds of issues test the patience of even seasoned gamers used to tackling epic adventures. For many players, the anger and lost progress from avoidable mistakes like these often stop them from ever reaching 100%.

Is the Reward Worth Such a Crazy Effort?

For that tiny subset of players who manage to push through and fully check every box in Arthur Morgan‘s massive next-life to-do list, the feeling of satisfaction and bragging rights are second-to-none.

I gleefully own my completionist obsession – do you know how awesome it is to nonchalantly toast "oh yeah, Double Gold Starred all 90 challenges and collected every unique hat weeks ago…" in casual Red Dead conversations!

But all pride aside, reaching 100% forced me to access parts of the staggeringly beautiful RDR2 open world I might never have ventured to otherwise. And mastering the progression systems and mechanical depth lead to some incredibly emergent stories and unforgettable moments (that 17 minute Horseman ride of death!).

I forge deeper connections to the games that test my dedication. The pride in my gamer skills is the ultimate reward, one that casual fans simply don‘t experience at the same personal level.

For those few willing to walk the walk, reaching 100% completion in Red Dead Redemption 2 delivers an unmatched feeling that makes all those brutal hours grinding challenges, navigating missables lists and raging at failed attempts worthwhile.

Just be ready to kiss your social life goodbye for 6 months minimum if you ever want to join that elite club! And here‘s hoping they reduce some of the more BS requirements in the next update…

Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions around the formidable road to 100%ing this classic! Can you handle six straight hours of blackjack, bucko?