Dutch Van der Linde plays a crucial part in both of the Red Dead Redemption games, but given that there’s small gap in between when the entries are set, some players may wonder what the ringleader was up to before John Marston caught up to him. Needless to say, Dutch was up to a ton of scheming, betrayals, and shenanigans, as per usual.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, which serves as a prequel to the original Red Dead Redemption game, Dutch is the head of the Van der Linde gang, though his growing eccentricity eventually leads to the gang’s demise. The final time players see him during the game is when John and Sadie confront Micah. Dutch surprises everyone by putting the fatal bullet into Micah himself before walking off into the middle of nowhere, so it seems.
Though Dutch appeared to have nothing but the coat on his back at the end of Red Dead Redemption 2, he did quite well for himself in the first game, which is set soon after the events of RDR2. As John Marston is being pressured by the Pinkertons to hunt down his old gang, he soon learns about what Dutch has been up to in the meantime.
What Dutch Did After The Van der Lindes Disbanded
At the beginning of the original Red Dead Redemption, it’s mentioned that no one has scarcely heard from Dutch in years, though there were several claims that he was spotted along the way. There were rumors that he died in the early 1900s after a robbery went wrong. However, a newspaper article from 1907 that can be discovered claims Dutch was hiding out in the Tall Trees Area. Similarly, Javier believed that Dutch was living in Colombia, and given Dutch’s desire to go somewhere tropical, this sounded believable.
However, Dutch is eventually heard from when he makes it known that he’s formed a new gang with the local Natives. It remains unclear what the gang leader was doing in hiding, but one can presume he was working on his connections in order to found his new gang. Dutch was able to manipulate the native community by tapping into their grievances with the government, and together, they created an impressive camp in the forest outside of Blackwater.
Dutch and his new allies became infamous for bothering the people living in that area, allowing John to eventually track down his whereabouts and put an end to the man that once acted as his father figure. Though Dutch was staying busy during his time in hiding between the Red Dead Redemption games, in the end, he still met a brutal and untimely death.