Dutch Van Der Linde & Hosea Matthews began working together in 1878, 21 years before the events of the game. They "adopted" Arthur Morgan a year later, making these three (along with Dutch & Hosea's wives, Annabelle & Bessie) the founding members of the Van Der Linde Gang. As of the start of the game, John Marston has been with the gang for 15 years (although he only recently returned after fleeing for a year). Bill Williamson has been a member for 5 years, following his dishonorable discharge from the army. Javier Escuella joined a year after Bill, having fled Mexico as he was wanted for treason there (due to his participation in an attempted revolution). Micah Bell, Charles Smith & Lenny Summers joined the gang 6 months before the events of the game.
The finished game includes 300,000 animations, 500,000 lines of dialogue and many more lines of code.
Had the highest-grossing opening weekend of any media in entertainment history, with sales of $725m from Friday to Sunday. However this is still far behind Grand Theft Auto V (2013)'s opening 3-day sales of $1 billion, which remains the highest-grossing launch overall - but that game was released on a Tuesday.
Arthur Morgan's bounty of $5,000 in 1899 would be roughly $161,132.46 in 2020, $184,786.75 in 2024.
The development of the game began in 2010, and was eventually in development for 8 years.