With Awards, Red Dead Online has a unique take on the Challenges seen in the main story mode of Red Dead Redemption 2. Awards give players additional XP which is used to rank up their character. To get the XP you must perform a set of tasks ranging from the extremely simple to the complicated and time-consuming.
Completing Awards, which are divided into Sharpshooter, Combat, Hunting, Survivalist, Crimes, Travel, Trade, General, Horse, Posse, Free Roam and Competitive categories, is a very good way to rank up in Red Dead Online, as progression for some of them can be reset by spending Gold Nuggets. The reset awards will hand out the same amount of XP no matter how many times they have been completed.
Completing at least a few Awards is also needed to become a Legend of the West, as you need 5 Gold Buckles to earn the Buckle Up Trophy / Xbox Achievement. Gold Buckles can be worn at any time by accessing the wardrobe in your camp.
They don't bring any improvement for your character but do give you the ability to brag about having achieved some of the most difficult tasks found in Red Dead Online.
In this guide, we will take a look at the Survivalist Awards and at a few tips on how to complete them.
Article Contents
Awards Overview
The Survivalist Awards are among the most straightforward challenges in Red Dead Online as they involve completing tasks that players need to do regardless in order to be successful in the game. Sadly, they can be time-consuming, as a good amount of money and items are required to complete many of them. Ranking up is also needed to unlock items required to complete one of these awards.
Herb Collector
The first Survivalist Award is as straightforward as it can get. To complete it, players only need to pick up herbs. This is a multi-tiered award, requiring players to pick 10 herbs for the first tier, 50 for the second, 100 for the third, 500 for the fourth and 1,000 for the fifth and final tier.
Herbs can be found pretty much all over the map, so activating Eagle Eye every now and then while traveling will allow you to pinpoint them easily. As you need to get 1,000 herbs to clear this challenge, it's a good idea to attempt to complete it while attempting to complete some of the Travel Awards, as they require players to travel a certain amount of miles in different ways, including traveling by foot. Additionally, you can sell the herbs you gathered to doctors if you're in need of some extra cash.
The second award of the category is one of the fastest awards to complete in all of Red Dead Online, as you need to taste 20 herbs. They don't even have to be of different types to count toward completion, so this can be done in a very short amount of time.
Master Crafter
The final two Survivalist Awards are rather tricky to complete and need players to invest a lot of time into the game.
The second to last award of the category requires players to simply craft items. This is a multi-tiered challenge requiring players to craft 10 items for the first tier, 50 for the second, 100 for the third, 500 for the fourth and ,1000 for the fifth and final tier. If you have been playing Red Dead Online for a long time, there's a good chance you have already made decent progress for this award, but completing it for good requires such a huge amount of time and resources that we suggest you try to get this while playing the game regularly, instead of focusing on it. Due to its nature, this is likely one of the awards you will unlock last.
The final award is a slight less tedious than the previous one, but it can still be time-consuming to complete. All you need to do is to learn 20 different crafting recipes. If you have reached a high enough rank, it's likely that you are very close to completing this challenge, as pamphlet teaching crafting recipes are among the rewards for ranking up.
To be more specific, you get the Horse Ointment pamphlet at rank 16, the Special Snake Oil pamphlet at rank 20, the Special Horse Medicine pamphlet at rank 26, the Split Point arrow pamphlet at rank 28, the Horse Meal pamphlet at rank 29, the Special Miracle pamphlet at rank 32, the Special Horse Stimulant pamphlet at rank 34, the Potent Herbivore Bait pamphlet at rank 36, the Fire Bottle and Special Spinner pamphlets at rank 37, the Potent Predator Bait pamphlet at rank 42, the Poison Throwing Knife pamphlet at rank 45, the Special Horse Reviver pamphlet at rank 46, the Health Cure pamphlet at rank 50, the Volatile Fire Bottle pamphlet at rank 52, the Special Bitters pamphlet at rank 54, the Poison Arrow pamphlet at rank 57, and the Fire Arrow pamphlet at rank 60.
There are a few other pamphlets handed out as rewards for ranking past level 60, but getting to this rank is enough to complete the challenge. You can check out our ranking up guide for some tips on how to rank in Red Dead Online as quickly as possible.
