Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America at the dawn of the modern age.

America, 1899. The end of the wild west era has begun as lawmen hunt down the last remaining outlaw gangs. Those who will not surrender or succumb are killed.

After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across the rugged heartland of America in order to survive. As deepening internal divisions threaten to tear the gang apart, Arthur must make a choice between his own ideals and loyalty to the gang who raised him.

Built from the ground up for the latest hardware, Red Dead Online blends the classic multiplayer of the original Red Dead Redemption with the best of everything we have learned since then about creating deep multiplayer experiences. The result is something completely new and fun, and an experience that will continue to expand and evolve over time as we gain valuable feedback from our community in the Beta period.

Now that everyone has had a chance over the past month to experience the story of Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang in Red Dead Redemption 2, it is time to begin the beta period for Red Dead Online.

Built from the ground up for the latest hardware, Red Dead Online blends the classic multiplayer of the original Red Dead Redemption with the best of everything we have learned since then about creating deep multiplayer experiences. The result is something completely new and fun, and an experience that will continue to expand and evolve over time.

With the gameplay of Red Dead Redemption 2 as its foundation, Red Dead Online transforms the vast and deeply detailed landscapes, cities, towns and habitats of Red Dead Redemption 2 into a new, living online world ready to be shared by multiple players. Create and customize your character, tailor your abilities to suit your play style and head out into a new frontier full of things to experience.

Explore the world solo or with friends. Form or join a Posse to ride with up to seven players; gather around the fire at your Camp; head out hunting or fishing; visit bustling towns; battle enemy gangs and attack their hideouts; hunt for treasure; take on missions and interact with familiar characters from across the five states; or fight against other outlaws in both spontaneous skirmishes and pitched set-piece battles; compete with other players or whole Posses in open world challenges and much more.

The launch of the Red Dead Online Beta is the first step in what will be a continually expanding and dynamic world, and the beta period will allow us to deal with the inevitable turbulence of launching any online experience of this size and scale.

During this process, we will be looking to our dedicated community to help us report and fix problems, share ideas, and assist in shaping the future of the full Online experience. As with all of our releases, we will strive to make the launch of Red Dead Online the best it can possibly be, and we ask that the community share that spirit with us over the next weeks and months.

The Red Dead Online Beta is now officially open to everyone with a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2.  Choose to make your mark as either a gunslinger or an outlaw. Join or form posses, battle enemy gangs, hunt, fish and search for treasure, challenge other settlers and much more in this brand new multiplayer story.

Over the first few days of early access, we've already received a lot of great feedback from the community. Please make sure to keep it coming at reddeadonline.com/feedback – as we’re constantly working to improve and evolve the experience.

In response to some early feedback we’ve seen from players, here are a few quick tips to help you succeed and thrive on the frontier.

• Character Creation: Use the character creator’s in-depth tools to detail your character’s appearance and facial features. To further adjust a number of facial features, tap X/A to enter the Customize section and use the sliders to fine-tune your character. You can also click R3/Right-Stick to quickly see your character’s face without facial hair, and tap L1/LB and R1/RB to quickly check your character’s profile. While you can always make changes to your character’s hair, facial hair, makeup and dentistry at the local Barber or clothing from your Wardrobe or shops, your permanent features like your nose, eyes, mouth and freckles will not change after you finish creating your character. If you’d like at any point to start anew with a different character, you can delete your current character and create a new one by going to the PLAYER section of the pause menu and holding down Square/X; please keep in mind that this will delete your existing character and progression.
• Player Menu: Tap d-pad left to bring up the Player Menu. From here you can find many practical tools and features: see other players in the session and your friends, form or join a Posse, manage your Camp and horses, quickly join matches or series, adjust your voice chat options – select Everyone to chat with everyone in your proximity, or isolate your chat to your Posse, Friends or Crew only – and much more.
• Fast Travel: Visit Fast Travel signposts to quickly travel to where your Posse or friends are located and various other locations around the map, or return to your camp for a flat fee.
• A Land of Opportunities: Visit Horley in Blackwater to start A Land of Opportunities, a cooperative series of story-based missions that can push your honor high or low based on your decisions. You’ll get to know some new characters in Red Dead Online, fight alongside fellow outlaws and earn a pretty penny along the way. If you made all positive honor decisions throughout and want to see how the storyline changes and push your honor in the other direction, you can replay making all negative honor decisions (and vice versa), all while receiving further payout and experience.
• Treasure Maps: When you hit Rank 10 you’ll receive a Treasure Map, uncover the treasure for Gold and Cash. You’ll receive Treasure Maps for every 5 ranks after that. There’s also a chance you’ll uncover a Treasure Map when looting enemy bodies after clearing a Hideout or surviving an Ambush.
• Catalogue: Hold down left on the d-pad to bring up the Catalogue and pick up provisions, tonics, weapons, ammo and more while on the go. Alternatively, when not in-game, purchases can be made via the web Catalogue on Social Club. Once purchased, you can recover most of your goods from your Camp’s lockbox or the Post Office, new weapons can be found on your horse and clothing will be added to your Wardrobe. Any horses or saddles will go to the Stable.
• Ability Cards: Utilize different Ability Card categories (combat, recovery and defense) to help you survive the frontier. You can upgrade Ability Cards through 3 tiers of benefits and you can adjust them at any time to suit any scenario: use combat cards for attacking missions where you’ll rely on your weapons, or switch to defensive cards when escorting a wagon.

The Red Dead Online Beta is now available to anyone who owns Red Dead Redemption 2 on PS4 or Xbox One. When booting up Red Dead Redemption 2 and arriving to the title menu, you will see an option in the top right of the screen to select Online.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently available for PS4 and Xbox One.