Exploring outside the map boundary

[DBMandrake]

There's a lot of talk online about how to get to Mexico using various glitches but I haven't seen much about exploring outside the western/northern/eastern boundaries of the game until I came across this youtube video showing an easy way to get out of the map that still works in 1.05:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaVezKuc1jI

I've been exploring outside the boundary of the map to the west, north and east for a while now and I'm absolutely STAGGERED at how much map there is outside the normal boundary of the map. I have not seen this much out of boundary map in any other game.

Not all of it is fully textured or completed, and you do need to watch out for "fall through" ground at the very outer limits (where you get stuck in an infinite falling loop) but there are literally miles and miles of ground normally invisible and inaccessible that are fully rendered. Many areas don't have wildlife but some do. 

I've attached map screenshots to show just how far the out of bounds area goes - with the north and north east being the most interesting to explore so far, and I haven't got anywhere near exploring it all. It seems like there is nearly half as much area outside the normal boundary as there is inside it.

The youtube video shows two ways to get out - one a cave near Pronghorn Ranch, and the second a cave near The Loft. The first cave is very easy - just take enough booze to get yourself drunk, go into the cave to the location shown then get drunk enough to pass out and you'll respawn nearby outside the map. Easy - except without your horse it just takes far too long to get anywhere and that area is largely snow so even slower going and not nearly as interesting as the north east part.

The second cave is much more difficult - there is a piece of rock you need to run up and slide on, it can take dozens of attempts to get it right. However when you do eventually get it right it's worth it - after passing out you'll respawn just above the cave still within the normal boundary of the map, however it is a high section that is not normally reachable. Go north slightly east and you will find a way to cross the map boundary. Just past this boundary you'll find some wild horses, calm or lasso then tame a horse and you will then have transport to explore.

I recommend finishing the game before exploring out of the map, and go to a fence first to fully upgrade your pouch so you have a huge inventory space to carry ridiculous amounts of booze (to pass out to get out of the map) food, horse reviver, and other supplies.

There is no way all this extra map area was created only as backdrop to be seen from afar - there is perfectly detailed scenery going on for miles that can never even be seen from the distance. It's pretty clear that a lot more map was made for the game than we got to see, and they then added artificial "slippery" barriers and rock faces to keep us inside a reduced area after deciding that all that extra area wasn't necessary for story purposes. Some of the terrain and the very limits looks procedurally generated, but a lot looks hand crafted.

I don't know what happens if you try to save and reload outside the map, I haven't tried to do that yet! Most likely you'll just end up back inside the map.

Edited December 15, 2018 by DBMandrake

[jihiro]

Most large, open-world games do this now. The point of having sooooo much beyond the boundary is so that no matter where you are on the map (like a particularly high point) youll always see map instead of a gaping hole into 'blue hell'. It's just easier for them to make a HUGE area than to make one that exactly fits the map and then go all over every point in the map and make sure you can't see out.

[buttlint]

I have been exploring the extreme northeast section above the boarder. My cave entrance is already filled with empty liquor bottles.

Spoiler

The only usable plant life in the area may be sensimilla strains. I base my guess on the observation that the animals are extremely chill. They are so chill in fact, that I have started a 3 star pelt exporting business to the south. Getting my product over the border  hasnt been a problem. There is a lower area  at the corner of the map that had a grassy incline that tilts toward the river. (near Annesburg) The incline is to steep to get too the north from the south, but it works nicely to drop my pelts and use gravity to push them over the border line. I can also slide my horses and myself down the slope without injury.  From there, its business as usual. No saving, no dying, no hassles. I just continue with the game as usual. Thanks for the tip, Mandrake.😀

 

[DBMandrake]

Someone has found a new technique for getting outside the map which is superior to getting drunk in a cave.

This method doesn't require getting drunk and it's possible to take your regular horse with you, which is the first method I've seen which will do this. Basically you camp at a specific location near barrow lagoon - this causes you to set up camp in a normally inaccessible area , from there you can ride your horse over the mountains to Tempest Rim, (also normally inaccessible) and from there simply ride north out of the map boundaries on your own horse which means you have all weapons etc available. 😀

 

 

In this specific video the author also shows how to cross the Lannahechee river east and up river of Anniesburg and get across onto the east side of the map across from van horn trading post etc.

WIth the cave exploit I had previously tried really hard to get across this river upstream of Annesburg and it looked like I should be able to make it but the strong current meant I could never quite manage it, however this video demonstrates how to do it, showing that it is actually possible, meaning it is much easier to get to Guarma and probably also Mexico.

I tried many times to go right from the north exit point west around past new austin and into mexico and while I nearly made it it is far, far too time consuming. The method in this video going east and then crossing the river looks far, far easier. Enjoy.

 

Edited December 27, 2018 by DBMandrake

[DBMandrake]

Made it all the way to the land to the east of Van Horn Trading post on my first attempt then was killed by a cougar. Damn!

[FLIP]

I am thinking it is expended as well for future additions to be added to the game to extend the map. I could be wrong but I think they will add to it with DLC content. 

[buttlint]

The second method is the way to go. Very slick!

The first method worked great for my first few trips over the border. Two bottles of gin and I would pass out and be in Canada. As my trips progressed, I found that I needed more and more liquor to catch a buzz. I wound up killing 7-8 bottles of brandy (the expensive stuff) plus a couple of jugs of moonshine. I started running out of money and had to do bounties just to pay my tab. I would be so hungover when I finally did get across the border that I couldn't tame a horse and walked for miles until I sobered up. 

My quest has been to circumnavigate the known map and take pictures of landmarks from the other side. Cougars are one problem but WD-40 coated shores are the worst! Trips to Guarma are a piece of cake.

 

[[email protected]]

On 12/27/2018 at 9:47 AM, DBMandrake said:

Someone has found a new technique for getting outside the map which is superior to getting drunk in a cave.

This method doesn't require getting drunk and it's possible to take your regular horse with you, which is the first method I've seen which will do this. Basically you camp at a specific location near barrow lagoon - this causes you to set up camp in a normally inaccessible area , from there you can ride your horse over the mountains to Tempest Rim, (also normally inaccessible) and from there simply ride north out of the map boundaries on your own horse which means you have all weapons etc available. 😀

 

 

In this specific video the author also shows how to cross the Lannahechee river east and up river of Anniesburg and get across onto the east side of the map across from van horn trading post etc.

WIth the cave exploit I had previously tried really hard to get across this river upstream of Annesburg and it looked like I should be able to make it but the strong current meant I could never quite manage it, however this video demonstrates how to do it, showing that it is actually possible, meaning it is much easier to get to Guarma and probably also Mexico.

I tried many times to go right from the north exit point west around past new austin and into mexico and while I nearly made it it is far, far too time consuming. The method in this video going east and then crossing the river looks far, far easier. Enjoy.

 

lol want to know a faster way out of Guarna start a old quest you did in a previous chapter and die and abandon it ...sometimes it takes 1 or 2 tries but sooner or later it puts you right next to saint denis

[buttlint]

On 12/28/2018 at 9:42 PM, buttlint said:

My quest has been to circumnavigate the known map and take pictures of landmarks from the other side.

This is an old thread but is very near and dear to my heart. (12/28/2018) I am sure nobody cares but I have since completed my quest, I took me over a month of pretty intense game play to do it and was waaaaaaaay more difficult than I had anticipated. Ii was also a tougher task than anything I faced in the game. 

The premise is simple: Jump off the map, navigate around the outside the of playable map back to the point where you started and get back to the main map without dying. Don't use any cheats except for a "get off the main map glitch". (I don't know if R* has patched any of those glitches since I did it but I doubt they did,) There are no roads or bridges and the map is both helpful and useless. One mistake and its game over.....start all over again. The game shows no mercy. You either make the correct decisions at each challenge or you die, get caught in traps or quit out of frustration. There is a ton of backtracking, navigating and understanding the landscape. 

It may have taken me more than 50 attempts but I proved to myself that it was possible. It also extended the game and felt like the dlc that R* isn't going to provide....for free.

[DiamondDave]

I haven't really done this. I did explore off the map spots but I never got as far as the border or wall burier of the game is. I don't know if they plan on expanding this or not but like mentioned, most newer open world games spand far beyond the map just to make the world feel larger. 

[DBMandrake]

18 hours ago, buttlint said:

This is an old thread but is very near and dear to my heart. (12/28/2018) I am sure nobody cares but I have since completed my quest, I took me over a month of pretty intense game play to do it and was waaaaaaaay more difficult than I had anticipated. Ii was also a tougher task than anything I faced in the game. 

The premise is simple: Jump off the map, navigate around the outside the of playable map back to the point where you started and get back to the main map without dying. Don't use any cheats except for a "get off the main map glitch". (I don't know if R* has patched any of those glitches since I did it but I doubt they did,) There are no roads or bridges and the map is both helpful and useless. One mistake and its game over.....start all over again. The game shows no mercy. You either make the correct decisions at each challenge or you die, get caught in traps or quit out of frustration. There is a ton of backtracking, navigating and understanding the landscape. 

It may have taken me more than 50 attempts but I proved to myself that it was possible. It also extended the game and felt like the dlc that R* isn't going to provide....for free.

Although I haven't done a complete 360 degree circumnavigation of the map borders in one session, I have made it into Mexico from the northerly escape point going via both the westerly route and the easterly route where you cross the river upstream of Annesburg. Of the two the easterly route while long is by far my favourite as the westerly route into Mexico gets very confusing as you end up in a sea of low resolution un-textured hills at one point where you can totally lose your bearings.

Sadly Rockstar have patched this escape method in one of the recent patches by removing the camping spawn point above the hill where you go into camping mode. So instead of camping outside of the normally accessible area to the north and then simply riding your horse further north then north east to get out of the map, you end up in a campsite far to the south within the normal playable area. So this method of escape is no longer possible.

Edepot has found another way out of the map unfortunately you can't take your horse with you using this method. Without a horse exploration outside the border area is painfully slow, and the new escape point is a long way from any out of map wild horses which you could acquire.

Pity! I really enjoyed the ease of escaping and exploring outside the map boundaries, and it made the world feel even bigger despite literally being able to see the "seams" at the extremities of the explorable area, but to be honest I'm surprised Rockstar didn't fix it sooner when all they had to do was remove an out of bounds camping spawn site...

It was never a bug in the code as such, just a spawn point placed in a location which is normally inaccessible on foot.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DBMandrake

[buttlint]

7 hours ago, DBMandrake said:

Sadly Rockstar have patched this escape method in one of the recent patches by removing the camping spawn point above the hill where you go into camping mode. So instead of camping outside of the normally accessible area to the north and then simply riding your horse further north then north east to get out of the map, you end up in a campsite far to the south within the normal playable area. So this method of escape is no longer possible.

Hello fellow explorer!😀

That is a pity that they locked up that port of entry, I had avoided any updates but I am not sure if that worked or not. I havent played in a month and should probably try a run and see if they still open. I used 4 different spots on different runs. 2 northern, 1 west and 1 southern.  I liked the north entrance the best because you can bring your own horse and it felt like the least "cheaty" way of doing it. From that point, you can travel either east or west and pick your poison of what parts of the route you want to get thru first. It really sucks when you are 90% done and die as opposed to being 10% done and starting over. Either direction works but the challenges are different. 

I used the southern entry point quite a bit. That involved an insane amount of walking, but it got me through the hardest part of the quest, fastest. Figuring out that particular part of the route was the key to solving the puzzle. I spent days making the same mistake over and over again. When I had that key part down, I knew that all I had to do was make a clean run. I did use the horse cheat a couple of tries on the southern route just to save time until I understood what the problem was. There is another method to obtain a horse without a cheat but it involves some major setup and I was too burned out to use it. Beside that, I wanted my victory lap to be on a great horse that I tamed on an earlier run. He was a strong swimmer and saved my ass many a time during our adventures. He was a native "other sider" and I thought he deserved the honor. 

I havent touched the game since then, but I may give it another go later to see if it is still possible. I enjoyed the other side as much I did the main game. Avoiding the mesh was just one aspect that soon became second nature. Knowing just how much the mesh can take was part of the challenge. I treated it like quicksand. There are plenty of other challenges and surprises involved, but I will keep them to myself. It got just as immersive as the main game and perhaps even more intense. It's just you and your horse and one false step or wrong decision means game over......start again....you just do it or you don't. No platinum trophies....no squat. The only bragging right you get is......you were the second guy to do it.😁

Edited March 18, 2019 by buttlint
added photos

[DBMandrake]

Another RDR2 update installed tonight. I then tried the following map escape technique that I haven't tried before and can confirm that it does still work in the very latest patch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Hnc6e1Rh8

Unfortunately this is a "get drunk at the edge of the map" exploit much the same as the two cave exploits, which means you can't take your own horse with you. You can of course spawn a race horse using a cheat code and use that to explore outside the map, so better than nothing!

Edited March 18, 2019 by DBMandrake

[buttlint]

34 minutes ago, DBMandrake said:

Another RDR2 update installed tonight. I then tried the following map escape technique that I haven't tried before and can confirm that it does still work in the very latest patch:

Excellent!

The game is nagging me if I want to update. I have refused but its nice to know the update doesnt totally kill the fun. There were about 10 different routes you could use and I doubt they patched all of them. I tested one of the south points today (the river) and it still works. If you are trying to make a "clean run" (without using cheats) I believe there is a herd of native horses in that area. I went as far as taming the horses that I came across and leaving them on that side of the map. That way I always had a horse available and ready to go when I needed one. All I had to do was whistle and I was back in the saddle again. I cant pin point where the herd is but I am pretty sure I got the picture below from that area. You could always walk south because there is a herd at the west cave entrance.

 

[irondmitry]

Hello from Arthur in Mexico!

Edited March 27, 2019 by irondmitry

[DBMandrake]

Not sure if people have used this escape point or not but it is very easy to do and is still working in the latest version:

 

All you need is to cross the river northeast of manteca falls and use a few bottles of rum to get further up the hill than you normally should be...

From there you have a fantastic view and quite a picturesque area to explore. If you want to get to guarma, Mexico, or the south side of the lanaheche river, this is the easiest way to do it!

You can't take your horse so you'll want to use a horse spawning cheat code to really explore.

[MyNameIsNobody]

i haven't seen many people boating on the ocean. there is a huge ocean area outside of the map. if you go any direction for about an hour and a half, your boat will sink and you will separate from your boat. if you do it right, you will fall away from your boat instead of hitting it and dying. at this point, you are floating under the map. visually, it looks like you are getting pushed back, but if you put a marker or waypoint, you can see that you can still float further. after floating for a little over four hours, your character will begin to float away from you until he is no longer visible. using the mini map, you can still see your character moving. in fact, at this point your character will continue to move without any help. after about three days of that, about the only cool thing i noticed is the lightning begins to strike upside down and the storms look pretty cool. the other interesting thing i found is when you get close to where your boat will sink, there appears to be a strange reflection of the sun and moon. at times it looks like a second sun. i think that guarma may have it's own sun and moon. i have seen some cool videos on this, but i don't think i can recommend them here because i made them. let me know if any of you have done this and your thoughts.

[buttlint]

That is indeed a strange place. I spent quite a few hours wandering along its shore to see where I would wind up. I eventually gave up and shared a couple sticks of dynamite with my horse because we were totally lost without any hope of finding our way back to anywhere. I never did find an edge to it.

 

[MyNameIsNobody]

from your picture, it looks like you are in one of the areas in guarma where mexico is loading in too, probably a little west of bahia de la paz. guarma has some cool areas, but i am talking completely out of map, open ocean. like this:

that is the boat sinking

this is falling clear of the boat

this is beginning to drift

this is where arthur starts to move out of screen. finally, here is some upside down lightning:

[MyNameIsNobody]

my arthur has seen many things, here is a flooded mexico:

after 100% and every animal to the trapper, pearson, points of interest, etc.

the only interesting things left are in guarma and outside the map.

[buttlint]

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."

I spent most of my time trying to avoid the mesh. It looks like you embraced it. When I did fall thru, I would either land in Guarma or die and wind up back on the main map. Only once did I catch a spot where I got caught in and endless fall and I just shut down the game to get back to the main map. As I recall, that area was up in the extreme northeast corner of the map while I was searching for the source of the Lannahechee River. 

Maybe with some more exploration and a bit of luck we will find the home planet of the Mt. Shann spacecraft or an undermap entrance to the Hobbit cabin. How freakin cool would that be?

Trek on, brother explorer! At least we found the DLC expansion pack that Rockstar will never give us.

[MyNameIsNobody]

well the river eventually leads to the open ocean, but you have to go to guarma first. loading guarma in while you are still in the regular map will cause guarma's water to run into the river, allowing you to ride boats without sinking. the rivers have instant sink points everywhere. for some reason, you won't sink on guarma water. this also floods mexico and new austin, which looks pretty cool. anyway, if i had any videos about it, my name would probably help someone find them. about the dlc, haha ya i'm still waiting for that gtav dlc man.

to the left of arthur is the path to the ocean

flooded mexico

honorable arthur and spirit animal

i have a few other pics in the screenshot thread too.

thanks for reading.

 

[buttlint]

It appears that they have patched the Barrow Lagoon boarder crossing point and it no longer works. Too bad, it was a fun way to get to the dark side. 

But as Dutch taught us, if one stupid plan doesn't work then just move onto the next stupid plan. The video below shows another method to enter the northlands.