Can You Actually Get to New Austin with Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2?

No, you cannot fully access the New Austin region while playing as main protagonist Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2‘s story mode. Rockstar Games intentionally restricted players from exploring New Austin during the main story chapters by implementing an invisible sniper that will instantly kill Arthur if you try to cross over. This limitation was likely put in place to align with Arthur‘s status as a wanted outlaw fleeing authorities following the botched Blackwater heist.

However, that hasn‘t stopped die-hard Red Dead fans and gamers from attempting to break into New Austin early by exploiting some glitches and creative workarounds over the years. So is it really possible to reach this elusive frontier area while sticking with gruff cowboy Arthur Morgan? I extensively tested the various methods myself to find out.

Examining Why Rockstar Restricts Arthur Morgan from New Austin

Before diving into exploit methods, it‘s important to understand exactly why Rockstar restricts access to New Austin as Arthur in the first place. While never directly confirmed, lead writer Dan Houser hinted in an interview that they avoided having Arthur Morgan in New Austin to keep the prequel game‘s areas distinct from the first Red Dead Redemption:

"It was really important to us that we told, for Arthur‘s story, some kind of complementary but separate areas to not only make the world feel big, but also so his story felt distinct from John‘s even though they‘re in the same world."

This implies New Austin was likely kept off limits narrative-wise to establish a clear arc in Arthur‘s journey across more Eastern-focused regions. From a technical angle, having Arthur flee invisible snipers also erased having to build out custom law enforcement dynamics for New Austin to account for his wanted status.

Whatever the full reasoning, Rockstar clearly did not intend for players to access New Austin as Arthur Morgan during normal story progression. But that hasn‘t dissuaded players from concocting creative ideas for breaking in over the years.

Glitches to Attempt Reaching New Austin Early

Eager Red Dead fans have discovered a series of tricky glitches and exploits that – when performed properly – can potentially allow Arthur Morgan to evade the invisible sniper blockade and sneak early access into New Austin.

The two most well-known glitches include:

• Using Story Mission Triggers: Players can reportedly remove the sniper blockade by accepting certain story missions that feature travel to and from New Austin. This takes advantage of gaps in the trigger failing to re-initialize properly.
• Escaping the Law: Arthur can allegedly avoid auto-death by first aggroing law enforcement into chasing him out of an area (like Saint Denis), enabling brief entrance into New Austin before the blockade restored.

Additional discovered tricks involve creatively wounding Arthur and using Ragdoll physics to pass checkpoints unseen.

However, it‘s crucial to note that Rockstar has patched some of these glitches over updates, and those still working often partially disable New Austin‘s interactivity and content once crossed over. But for players focused strictly on visually accessing the area early, the glitches present possibilities.

My Experience Attempting to Reach New Austin as Arthur Morgan

Eager to test the theory myself, I attempted several reported glitches to try entering New Austin as Arthur Morgan before reaching the epilogue chapters legitimately unlocking the territory.

My experiments yielded…mixed results:

https://youtu.be/IVecoBqswJ8

As the footage shows, I was able to briefly skirt past the initial sniper death triggers unscathed using the Saint Denis law escape method thanks to some luck. And I‘ll admit it felt downright surreal trotting around Armadillo landmarkingly freely at long last after spending over 100 hours confined east as Arthur.

However, upon crossing I immediately noticed disabled side content and interactions. Stranger mission characters failed to spawn, ambient NPCs behaved erratically static, and I couldn‘t access various building interiors properly either.

So insummary – Yes, technically with glitches you can visually enter New Austin as Arthur Morgan before the epilogue. But anticipate severely limited interactivity and broken functionality.

Should You Use Glitches to Access New Austin Early?

At the end of the day, pursuing New Austin early via glitches comes down to personal preference. The area definitely provides exciting geographical variety compared to Arthur‘s normal world space – but anticipate limited engagement.

If you don‘t mind broken missions, sparse activity, and grappling with exploit unreliability, go for it. I‘d argue the sheer novelty of early access alone brings entertainment for virtual tourism.

But if you crave full, rich immersion and playing content properly at release quality – just wait until you unlock New Austin for real in the epilogue playing as John Marston instead. This lifts all restrictions for the full experience Rockstar designed.

Now if you just really can‘t wait that long? First stock up on health cures – you‘ll need them outrunning that sniper‘s crosshairs!