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How To Start Red Dead Online's Zombie Mission And All Strange Tales Of The West

Rockstar Games has released a new content update in Red Dead Online that offers four new Telegram missions for players to complete. The Telegram missions are called the "Strange Tales of the West," and there are four missions you can complete in this set. The missions are centered around zombies, science, and robots, so there's certainly some variety compared to the other missions on offer in Red Dead Online. For longtime Red Dead fans, this marks the game's return to a stranger side not often seen since Undead Nightmare, the standalone zombies-themed storyline set in the world of the original game.

The four new Telegram missions give 3X gold, RDO$, and XP through August 4, making them worth your time. However, you first need to know how to start each of the four Strange Tales of the West missions before you can think about the rewards for completing them. We'll show you how to start each of the new Telegram missions and explain a little bit about what the missions entail.

Starting the Strange Tales of the West missions

Fortunately, it doesn't take much to get started with the Telegram missions, even if you're on a brand-new Red Dead Online account. All you have to do is follow the steps below to begin completing the missions:

Picking from one of the four Strange Tales of the West missions

• Once you've loaded into the world, visit either a Post Office or your Camp Lockbox and open your mail
• Here, you'll see a new letter from Theodore Levin called "Strange Tales of the West Vol. 1"
• Take this letter and then open your satchel or visit the player menu to view the Telegram
• When you go to view the Telegram, you can open the letter and pick from one of four missions, which are as follows:
  • Strange Tales of the Plague
  • Strange Tales of Modern Science
  • Strange Tales of the Bayou
  • Strange Tales of the Wilderness
• Select any one of these missions to start it, which will launch you into a short cutscene, followed by the mission starting
• As a note, these missions will pair you up with a partner, so don't be alarmed when you see another player next to you when the mission begins
• You can complete all four of the Strange Tales of the West missions, but after completing one, you have to wait for a 20-minute cooldown before starting another

Opening up our Camp Lockbox to retrieve the Telegram

That's all there is to starting and completing the four Strange Tales of the West missions. Aside from the cooldown periods between each mission, you can complete all four in a relatively short amount of time, allowing you to easily cash in on the extra gold, RDO$, and XP that each mission pays out.

What's in each Strange Tales of the West mission?

Now that we've covered how to start the Strange Tales of the West missions, let's talk a little bit more about what you can expect from each one.

Strange Tales of the Plague

The first mission on offer, but not the one you have to start with, is called Strange Tales of the Plague. This mission sees you team up with a partner to find and deliver corpses that have been spread around the town of Armadillo. Your team has two lives, and you have to deliver four total corpses to a designated location. Of course, finding the corpses is the easy part, as their locations are marked in yellow for you on the map. The difficult part is navigating through the town full of zombies that will try and stop you from reaching the corpses. In addition to the zombies, cultists will pop out at any time and begin shooting at you, making the entire mission a fight for survival.

Starting the Strange Tales of the Plague mission

Strange Tales of Modern Science

Next up, we have Strange Tales of Modern Science, which takes the focus away from zombies and places it on science and... robots. The mission begins with your team speaking with a scientist who has created a form of artificial life, but those lifeforms have now taken over the area of Braithwaite Manor. You need to eliminate the metal monstrosities the scientist created and get to the bottom of why they went so haywire in the first place.

Strange Tales of the Bayou

The Strange Tales of the Bayou is a mission that combines elements of the first two missions together. The objective is to defeat a swamp monster and deliver it to Theodore Levin so he can examine it. However, to do that, you need to get past a flurry of other creatures lurking in the Lagras swamps. The mission certainly can be a thrilling one, and it provides some jump scares, but as long as you're vigilant and quick with a gun, you can eventually reach the swamp monster. From there, you'll have to find some way to dispatch it.

Strange Tales of the Wilderness

A scientist has gone missing in a location called the Tall Trees, and it's your task to find them and bring them home. The missing scientist was researching a band of killers in the Tall Trees, so you already know you're going to have to fight some enemies to find the person you're looking for. However, during the middle of your investigation, you'll be left with nothing aside from your survival skills and instincts. You'll have to hunt for food and supplies, scavenge up a weapon or two, and continue to investigate the Tall Trees for the scientist and the killers that kidnapped them.

Each mission in Strange Tales of the West is different from the last, and they all provide some fantastic gameplay in Red Dead Online. You don't have to complete them in any order, and you can complete one more than once if you want to try out a new strategy or just gain a little more gold, RDO$, and XP.