Summary
The story of Princess Isabeau inRed Dead Redemption 2is still one of the game’s most enduring mysteries even years later. Arthur Morgan and the Van der Lindes go through a lot in-game, and their travels take them all across the West. However, they are not the characters who have traveled the furthest inRed Dead Redemption 2. Hailing from Luxembourg, Princess Isabeau Katharina Zinmeister came from a land that Arthur and Dutch likely know nothing about, although her country of origin is easily the least mysterious thing about the princess' story inRed Dead Redemption 2.
Manydark secrets inRed Dead Redemption 2can be uncovered by an inquisitive player. Sometimes it’s a creepy detail in an out-of-the-way place that can give players something to think about. Sometimes it’s a detail about a specific NPC that will keep players from being able to look at them the same way again. In at least one instance, a creepy secret can lead to an entire quest on its own. The biggest role that these odd secrets play is adding some mystique to the game and keeping players guessing. After all, the Van der Lindes aren’t the only dangerous characters around.
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In the downtime players find betweenRed Dead Redemption 2’s challenging missions, they may come across a missing person’s poster in Van Horn Trading Post. The person in question is Princess Isabeau Katharina Zinmeister, who had gone missing as a child 15 years before the events of the game. Since the search for her had been going on for so long, it’s a matter of great importance. Arthur can even keep her missing poster on hand, which seems to hint at a mystery for the player to solve. However, no matter where the player looks, the princess cannot be found anywhere in the game.
Considering that Arthur hunts bounty targets as easily as he caneliminate his own bounty inRDR2, tracking down a princess sounds like just another day on the job for him. However, the one poster is the only hint about the princess in the game. There are no other clues indicating where she could have gone, and the game never directs the player to follow up on it. The player is simply left with the knowledge that a princess went missing long before the game even started, and nobody knows what happened afterward. It’s simply an unsolvable mystery in the world ofRDR2.
There is one interesting, albeit unofficial wrinkle in the mystery of the princess. According tocut content fromRed Dead Redemption 2, there was a fully rendered character model made for the princess, as she would have appeared at the time of the game. This implies that she originally would have appeared in some form, making the poster an actual hint towards future events. However, what her status would have been, or what role she may have played is lost to time. The mere fact that a character model exists does imply that at the very least, she was probably intended to still be alive after so long.
The mystery of Princess Isabeau Katharina Zinmeister is unlikely to be solved unless she shows up for real inRed Dead Redemption 3. AmongRed Dead Redemption 2’s many mysteries, the ones that are never fully solved are some of the most compelling for that exact reason. The player doesn’t know, and Arthur and John will never find out, even if they knew about the mystery in the first place. The lack of information provided aboutRed Dead Redemption 2’s missing princess mystery makes it hard not to theorize about.
Red Dead Redemption 2is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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