Best Things to Do in New Austin After the Main Story in Red Dead Redemption 2

After the Red Dead Redemption 2 epilogue, New Austin is primarily an exploration region rather than a second campaign. You can safely inspect its points of interest after Chapter 6, ride through four distinct subregions, visit Armadillo and Tumbleweed, study desert wildlife, and use the landscape for a deliberate sightseeing route. The location database reviewed for this guide lists only one mission in the territory—“An Honest Day’s Labors” in Epilogue Part 2—so the best postgame experience comes from exploration, environmental storytelling, hunting and completion work rather than a large new mission arc.

What opens in New Austin after the story?

New Austin occupies the southwest of the Red Dead Redemption 2 map. Its four subregions are Cholla Springs, Gaptooth Ridge, Hennigan’s Stead and Rio Bravo. Armadillo and Tumbleweed are the principal settlements. The southern map is safely accessible for the listed points of interest after you complete Chapter 6; in practical terms, the epilogue is the right time to make a dedicated New Austin tour.

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Expect a change of pace. The area has striking red-rock desert, dry roads, open grazing land and long sightlines, but it does not add a lengthy postgame storyline. A location database lists “An Honest Day’s Labors” as the territory’s only mission, and places it in Epilogue Part 2. That makes New Austin ideal for players who want atmosphere, discoveries and completion progress after the credits, not for players looking for another multi-mission chapter.

New Austin at a glance

Use the table as a planning aid, not as a claim that every subregion has an equal number of activities. The strongest fixed attractions are concentrated in a small set of named points of interest, while the rest of the value comes from the ride itself, animal encounters and the contrast between settlements and empty desert.

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Best things to do in New Austin

1. Visit Armadillo for environmental storytelling

Armadillo is the essential first stop for a New Austin tour. Red Bull’s post-campaign guide describes the town as devastated by a cholera outbreak. Its damaged, unnervingly quiet appearance gives the settlement a different emotional register from the busier towns elsewhere in the game.

Walk the streets instead of treating Armadillo as a fast-travel marker. Look at the buildings, public spaces and signs of abandonment, then compare what you see with the town’s role as a functioning settlement earlier in the series’ timeline. The visit works best when you let the environmental details carry the story; there is no need to turn it into a combat objective or expect a chain of new missions.

• Approach during daylight if you want to read the town’s layout and architecture clearly.
• Ride in from a neighboring subregion rather than arriving only to leave immediately; the changing terrain makes the settlement feel part of the desert.
• Pair the visit with the Flying Machine, which lies nearby in Cholla Springs.

2. Inspect the Donkey Lady at Two Crows

The Donkey Lady is one of New Austin’s most memorable oddities. RDR2.org places the figure inside Two Crows village, leaning against an old well. On the map, look south of the gap between the “U” and “S” in “New Austin,” approximately level with Mercer Station.

This is a point-of-interest visit, so approach slowly and inspect the scene rather than searching for a conventional mission prompt. The unusual image is the attraction: Two Crows is a small, easily missed location, and the Donkey Lady rewards players who leave the main roads and read the map as a collection of clues.

1. Open the New Austin map and identify the gap between the “U” and “S” in the region label.
2. Travel south from that area toward the same latitude as Mercer Station.
3. Search Two Crows village for the old well.
4. Inspect the figure leaning against it before moving on.

3. Find the Flying Machine west of Armadillo

The Flying Machine point of interest is just west of Armadillo, near the southern road in Cholla Springs. It is an efficient early stop because it can be combined with the town visit without crossing the whole region.

Use the southern road as your visual guide, then leave the road briefly when you are close to the marked area. The machine is a curiosity to inspect, not a new transportation system or a mission hub. Treat it as a short detour on a broader Cholla Springs ride.

4. Look for the Jesuit Missionary in Gaptooth Ridge

The Jesuit Missionary can be found near the highest point in the northeastern corner of the Sea of Coronado, in Gaptooth Ridge. The location is easy to overlook if you stay on the main roads, so this stop suits players who enjoy navigating by terrain and shoreline rather than following a settlement-to-settlement itinerary.

Approach the northeastern corner of the Sea of Coronado and climb toward the area’s high ground. Once there, search the surrounding viewpoint for the figure described by the guide. Because this is a remote stop, combine it with a Gaptooth Ridge wildlife ride or a west-to-east crossing instead of making a separate return trip.

5. See the Sperm Whale Bones in Rio Bravo

In Rio Bravo, the Sperm Whale Bones lie north of the “I” in the “Rio Bravo” map label, beside the road leading north. The guide identifies this as the game’s final point of interest, making it a natural endpoint for a completion-minded New Austin route.

The bones are a good example of the region’s sense of scale: an enormous marine remnant in an arid landscape. Follow the northbound road, then check the ground beside it rather than searching deep in the desert. If you are tracking points of interest, mark this stop after the Donkey Lady, Flying Machine and Jesuit Missionary so you can see which discoveries remain.

6. Explore New Austin’s wildlife

New Austin has a broad regional wildlife list that includes ordinary species as well as legendary animals and fish. GTABase presents that list as the fauna associated with the region; it is not a personalized statement of what your save file still needs. Your own progress, previous hunts and completion goals determine which animals are unfinished.

Wildlife exploration is therefore valuable in three different ways:

• Naturalist play: ride slowly through different terrain and observe which species appear in each environment.
• Hunting progression: search for animals or fish needed for your personal challenges, crafting or completion objectives.
• Legendary-animal goals: use the region as one part of a game-wide legendary-animal hunt rather than assuming every legendary target is exclusive to New Austin.

Change your route when an area feels empty. Move from open Hennigan’s Stead to rocky Cholla Springs, then toward the water and higher ground around Gaptooth Ridge. This produces a more varied ride than repeatedly circling one road, while keeping the activity focused on observation rather than an invented checklist.

7. Take a scenic ride through all four subregions

A scenic ride is not filler in New Austin; the landscape is the region’s main connective tissue. Cholla Springs supplies red-rock desert and the Armadillo area, Gaptooth Ridge adds elevated western terrain, Hennigan’s Stead opens into creeks and grazing land, and Rio Bravo provides a broad desert finish.

Plan stops around the sights instead of racing between map icons. Pause at a settlement, leave the road for a point of interest, ride a creek or grazing area, and continue only when the scenery changes. This approach also gives wildlife more opportunities to appear and prevents the region from feeling like a sequence of isolated collectibles.

Three practical New Austin itineraries

The short Cholla Springs loop

This route is for players with an hour or less who want a concentrated introduction.

1. Start in or near Armadillo and walk through the town.
2. Take the southern road west into Cholla Springs.
3. Detour to the Flying Machine west of Armadillo.
4. Ride back through the surrounding desert and stop for wildlife observations.
5. Continue toward Two Crows if you want one additional point of interest; otherwise return to Armadillo.

It combines the strongest settlement atmosphere with the nearest named curiosity and avoids a long cross-region commitment.

The points-of-interest circuit

Use this plan when your priority is inspection rather than hunting.

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1. Visit Armadillo and the Flying Machine in Cholla Springs.
2. Travel south of the “U” and “S” gap in the New Austin label to Two Crows and inspect the Donkey Lady by the well.
3. Cross toward Gaptooth Ridge and search near the highest point in the northeastern corner of the Sea of Coronado for the Jesuit Missionary.
4. Continue east or southeast into Rio Bravo.
5. Follow the northbound road and inspect the Sperm Whale Bones beside it.

The exact order can be reversed to fit your current position. What matters is that you treat the four sights as a connected route and leave enough time to search each area rather than galloping past it.

The wildlife and scenery circuit

Choose this approach when completion progress matters more than checking every named point of interest.

1. Begin in Hennigan’s Stead and ride through its creeks and grazing land.
2. Move into Cholla Springs, changing elevation and terrain to encourage different encounters.
3. Cross Gaptooth Ridge near the Sea of Coronado and pause at high ground.
4. Finish in Rio Bravo, checking the road north toward the whale bones.
5. Record which animals, fish and legendary targets you have actually completed in your own save, rather than copying a regional species list wholesale.

What to do in the rest of the game after the epilogue

New Austin is only one part of postgame completion. Keep these activities separate from the region-specific tour so you do not expect them all to occur in the desert.

Reconnect with surviving gang members

Red Bull’s post-campaign guide recommends finding surviving members of the Van der Linde gang. These visits provide personal closure and are a stronger choice for players who want character-focused postgame content rather than map completion.

Revisit the graves of fallen members

Graves offer a quieter form of closure. A dedicated grave tour changes the mood from exploration to remembrance and gives the postgame a deliberate narrative rhythm. It is a game-wide activity, not a New Austin-only attraction.

See people Arthur helped

Revisiting people connected to Arthur’s choices is another way to give the epilogue emotional context. These encounters belong on a story-closure list alongside gang members and graves, rather than on a New Austin points-of-interest checklist.

Finish Stranger missions

Check the full map for remaining Stranger content. The existence of one New Austin mission does not mean every unfinished Stranger activity has moved south; many are distributed across the wider world.

Collect dinosaur bones and cigarette cards

Dinosaur bones and cigarette cards are game-wide collection projects. They are a good fit when you want structured progress after the story, but they require travel well beyond the four New Austin subregions.

Hunt perfect pelts

Perfect-pelt hunting turns free exploration into a resource goal. Compare the animals you still need with your own compendium or challenge progress, then use New Austin as one habitat among several rather than assuming its wildlife list is a complete shopping list for every player.

Search for treasure and legendary gunslingers

Red Bull also lists treasure maps, legendary gunslingers and other find-and-fetch content as postgame options. These are broad completion categories; choose them when you want objectives that send you across the map instead of keeping you in one desert region.

Choosing an activity by play style

This is an organizing framework, not a measured ranking. A player seeking story value may prefer a short Armadillo visit, while a completionist may spend much longer crossing every subregion for animals and collectibles.

A completion checklist for New Austin

• Confirm that you have completed Chapter 6 and are playing in the epilogue before attempting the listed southern points of interest.
• Visit Armadillo and take time to inspect the cholera-devastated town.
• Inspect the Flying Machine west of Armadillo near the southern Cholla Springs road.
• Find Two Crows south of the gap between the “U” and “S” in “New Austin,” around Mercer Station’s latitude, and inspect the Donkey Lady by the old well.
• Search for the Jesuit Missionary near the highest point in the northeastern corner of the Sea of Coronado in Gaptooth Ridge.
• Follow the northbound road in Rio Bravo and inspect the Sperm Whale Bones north of the “I” in the regional map label.
• Ride through Cholla Springs, Gaptooth Ridge, Hennigan’s Stead and Rio Bravo instead of treating the settlements as the whole region.
• Compare the regional wildlife list with your own completed animals, fish and legendary targets.
• Check the wider map for graves, surviving gang members, people Arthur helped, Stranger missions, dinosaur bones, cigarette cards, treasure maps, legendary gunslingers and perfect-pelt goals.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Expecting a large New Austin campaign

The territory is not presented as a new chapter-length story. The reviewed location database lists one mission, “An Honest Day’s Labors,” in Epilogue Part 2. Plan for exploration and isolated discoveries instead of waiting for a long mission chain to appear.

Treating a regional animal list as your personal checklist

A published list describes wildlife associated with New Austin, including legendary animals and fish. It cannot tell you which entries remain unfinished in your save. Use your own compendium, challenges and completion records to decide what to hunt next.

Searching before the map is safely accessible

RDR2.org states that the listed New Austin points of interest can be inspected after Chapter 6, when the southern map becomes safely accessible. If a pre-epilogue trip is producing blocked access or unreliable results, continue the story into the epilogue and return then.

Riding past small locations

Two Crows and the Jesuit Missionary are easy to miss because they are not major settlements. Slow down near the described landmarks, use the map lettering and coastline as orientation, and inspect the scene instead of assuming a road marker will announce it.

Confusing game-wide tasks with New Austin content

Graves, gang members, Stranger missions, dinosaur bones, cigarette cards, treasure maps and legendary gunslingers are distributed across the game. Keep a separate full-map checklist so a completed New Austin ride does not appear to have failed simply because a distant collectible remains.

How to spend your first postgame session

If you want one balanced session, begin in Armadillo, inspect the Flying Machine, ride through Cholla Springs and Hennigan’s Stead, then continue toward Two Crows. On a later trip, make the longer west-to-east circuit through Gaptooth Ridge and Rio Bravo, ending at the Sperm Whale Bones. Reserve separate sessions for wildlife, perfect pelts and game-wide collectibles.

That order gives you the region’s strongest environmental story first, its strangest discoveries next and its most open-ended completion work last. It also preserves the distinction that makes New Austin worthwhile after the main story: the area is a compact collection of sights set inside a large, atmospheric landscape, not a replacement campaign.

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