Mapping Red Dead Redemption 2! Landmark Analysis Thread

[Spycker]

Hello everyone, I have been here for months but I have never written.

but today I have an idea!

and if on the back of the map there was the famous island myster? this would explain that there is no visible relief on the edge of the back of the map.

What do you think ?

 

and congratulations for all your work! it is very impressive !!

[bakerach]

10 hours ago, AzBat360 said:

Did a little more work to help explain my previous post.

 

 

Also, totally agree with @bakerach. I suggested the same about the black shaded relief being part of the newer leaked map. Though I'm not sold on his location yet.

 

The mountain at the southern end of Big Valley was the matchup point, where the main ridge line to the north of Strawberry is a clear match. 

 

From there, I just got the scale by sizing the treasure map so that the next section of mountains were in the right place.  I'm not sure about the exact scale/orientation, but I feel fully confident that the mountain near Strawberry is in the right spot.

 

Edit (now with gifs):

Edited October 8, 2018 by bakerach

[GTADKNUT]

21 hours ago, DuPz0r said:

Did you managed to get back to your friend in the end?

 

I tried looking back for an image someone posted a while ago where they compared the physical map with the leaked map and matched it up with Big Valley. I couldn't find it. I wanted to see if just the dark lines matched up or not. Was it @Little Big Man that posted that?

I did, and it doesn't look good tbh - His words were that it seems R* has upped the ante with regards to security around leaks, word is they were very angry with the leaks sorrounding GTA V.

He did tell me tho, that the map is bigger than people think, and again said, we will be very suprised.

 

He says there is alot of control - But I recon that if leaks do not surface within the next 10 days or so, we won't see any. I will ask my friend at Gamereactor, who is not under as much security. 

 

- Please don't ask me to ask him anymore, he was beginning to get annoyed with me  (My friend at Gamestop that is) 

 

 

[Chinese Takeout]

15 hours ago, AzBat360 said:

I also believe the 45° angle is done on purpose. We've always wondered & conjectured about areas North of New Austin & West of the leaked Map. In addition to areas East of Nuevo Paraiso & south of the leaked map. By orienting the map at a 45° angle they can cover the most area in a rectangular map. It's not unheard of & in fact it's done quite often in mapping. In all my years of land surveying & GIS work I've come across lots of older highway maps called alignment maps. This is done for project areas the don't go straight North/South or East/West. Here are a few examples below...

Spoiler

 

 

 

Neither of those have North going with the orientation of the paper. I think the RDR2 paper map is doing the same thing.

 

As far as the back of the paper map: I thought the grid lines were going in a different direction than the grid lines on the front. But after closer inspection it looks like if you flattened it, the grid lines would go basically the same direction.

 

As for the black darker areas sitting on top of the brown areas that we know is the RDR1 map. I think it's a shaded relief area for the newer leaked map areas. It's how they are able to put 2 different maps on the same side of the map. Maybe you can use red filter glasses like 3D glasses to filter out the brown shaded relief portion of RDR1 map to just see the black shaded relief map that's in the leaked map. They could have done it this way in order to preserve the back for zooming in closer at St Denis, Valentine or any of the other towns.

 

Originally I thought the black areas were for gold and/or silver veins for mining(per Trusted Review leak), but it seemed the black areas didn't even match the brown area below. The black areas more closely resemble shaded relief & I thinks it for the newer leaked map area.

 

 

This is essentially what I and some others were talking about back in September...that the tilt was intentional - giving more space - but, it also leaves a lot of "unused space" to the Northwest and Southeast. Unused...unless it's USED, that is.

 

Here's kinda where that conversation started...

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by Chinese Takeout

[BretMaverick777]

Could someone with a 4K version of this shot tell me if the blue box....

 

...matches this?

 

 

[SneakyDeaky]

37 minutes ago, BretMaverick777 said:

Could someone with a 4K version of this shot tell me if the blue box....

 

...matches this?

 

 

I think that might be Brandywine Drop/Roanoke Valley in the bottom left?

[Chinese Takeout]

49 minutes ago, BretMaverick777 said:

Could someone with a 4K version of this shot tell me if the blue box....

 

...matches this?

 

 

It's a direct match.

[SneakyDeaky]

9 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

It's a direct match.

Ok good find guys, so we need to find this tree. Your thoughts are Scarlett Meadows or West Elizabeth?

[seegkilla]

8 minutes ago, SneakyDeaky said:

Ok good find guys, so we need to find this tree. Your thoughts are Scarlett Meadows or West Elizabeth?

could this be broken tree near beecher hope

 

[HCL95]

First post on here, some of you guys (you know who you are) are doing an amazing job. Was just watching the latest Red Dead Radio ep posted today and around 50 minutes in someone asks about the map boundaries to two Gamespot guys who played it, and while they said they didn't know for sure, one mentioned that the Rockstar rep pointed to a mountain really far away and barely visible in the draw distance, and said they could go beyond it. From the leaked map I can't think of many mountains that you would be able to go beyond, but perhaps I'm just being stupid. 

[Pudgehodge]

10 minutes ago, SneakyDeaky said:

Ok good find guys, so we need to find this tree. Your thoughts are Scarlett Meadows or West Elizabeth?

I'm assuming you're talking about the tree we can actually see, I personally think it's West Elizabeth. Specifically western Great Plains, south of Beecher's Hope. Where the plains start to show trees and greenery, and quickly turn into Tall Trees if you keep going north (characters are facing Tall Trees).

 

I tried to find the exact spot in RDR, but couldn't find a perfect match. One of the reasons I still think it's that area is the background land. To me it looks very much like the out of bounds (across the river/ border) area that is across from Thieves landing. I can't really think of any other area that looks like that. From my understanding, there are a lot of trees across the river/ lake on that big piece of land that sticks out (between the south-east tip of West Elizabeth and the south-west point of Scarlett Meadows). I think there is a forest there, but as you look west from that piece of land, the trees start to become scattered and eventually there are little to no trees, as the desert begins around that area (we can of course see the the desert in the background of the lone tree image, and we can see the trees begin to disappear on the right side of the image). I think the desert we see in the background of the lone tree image is the desert beyond RDR's Mexico map limits (the area south/east of Torquemada). 

 

I think we're looking at the same background region in this image, but from a different angle:

I'm not sure if we've actually pinned a location for this image, but I think it's most likely to be one of these perspectives (approximately):

I'm curious about where other people think this location is.

[Tonesta]

Oh, God - not this tree again. I'm firmly of the opinion that there's several lone trees dotted around the map that just happen to look a bit like each other (and are therefore throwing things off!)

 

But what I was actually meaning to post was just a couple of thoughts and data points in (somewhat circumstantial) support of the "Salinoc" theory of the map:

 

1) We heard last week from a (I believe) French reviewer who had played, wandered as far as St. Denis, and then tried to look at the map only to find there wasn't anything on it (even fog of war) to the South East of him. We wondered why, because on a rectangular map consisting of the leaked portions + the old RDR, St. Denis should be straight East. If the map is instead indeed on a long diagonal, running from ~Escalera in the bottom left up to ~Van Horn in the top right - then this reviewer's observation would indeed be true - there wouldn't be anything to the south east of St. Denis.....just a gargantuan amount on a diagonal to the South West.

 

2) Although it wasn't written by them, only published, this wouldn't be a first for Rockstar - LA Noire's map was diagonal, in much the same way we're imagining here (only titled in the opposite direction). Having a map like that which is much longer in one dimension than it is in a perpendicular one is a neat trick to make a big world seem even more epicly huge as it would take a long looooong time to travel from one distant corner to the other.

[horns]

26 minutes ago, HCL95 said:

First post on here, some of you guys (you know who you are) are doing an amazing job. Was just watching the latest Red Dead Radio ep posted today and around 50 minutes in someone asks about the map boundaries to two Gamespot guys who played it, and while they said they didn't know for sure, one mentioned that the Rockstar rep pointed to a mountain really far away and barely visible in the draw distance, and said they could go beyond it. From the leaked map I can't think of many mountains that you would be able to go beyond, but perhaps I'm just being stupid. 

That was mentioned in some other previews. They showed this scene in gameplay trailer #2.  It's believed to be in the Grizzles above Downers Ranch (see Bret's marked up image below).  Behind Author appears to be some green area behind the mountains.  Somewhere near Addlers Ranch.  That is what I have been assuming they were referring to but I may be wrong.  

 

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by horns

[HCL95]

29 minutes ago, horns said:

That was mentioned in some other previews. They showed this scene in gameplay trailer #2.  It's believed to be in the Grizzles above Downers Ranch (see Bret's marked up image below).  Behind Author appears to be some green area behind the mountains.  That is what I have been assuming they were referring to but I may be wrong.  

Cheers, thought it was probably that area, just got excited briefly that the map might go on a little while further than we thought (however I suppose there is still the chance they wouldn't mention it if it wasn't a sizable piece of land). 

[JustAMetalHead]

This is just something I found a little interesting in the jared petty RDR podcast.

 

Quote

The Rockstar PR person, she loaded into a different save and she was kinda just showing us some of the later game stuff. She was describing the world (we were in an open area) and she was like "You know that mountain over there" And normally you were expecting, oh we can go there. But she was like "You can go past that".

 

[Len Lfc]

4 minutes ago, JustAMetalHead said:

This is just something I found a little interesting in the jared petty RDR podcast.

 

 

Timestamp? I know of this video, but I'm at that point where I'm satisfied and happy to not watch or read too much more now. But this detail spikes my curiosity...

[JustAMetalHead]

Just now, Len Lfc said:

Timestamp? I know of this video, but I'm at that point where I'm satisfied and happy to not watch or read too much more now. But this detail spikes my curiosity...

53:01

 

Clicking on the youtube video should put you exactly to 53:01 unless I messed up. Just be aware that they didn't really talk about the map all that much.

[CMcC]

Hey y’all. Just wanted to say that recently I had a second child. She’s a week old now and has been keeping us up to all hours of the night. I’m averaging 3-4 hours of sleep. . These forums, namely the obsession of the mapping thread, has been a great source of entertainment in the wee hours of the night. Thanks for that. 

[Doomageddon666]

2 minutes ago, CMcC said:

Hey y’all. Just wanted to say that recently I had a second child. She’s a week old now and has been keeping us up to all hours of the night. I’m averaging 3-4 hours of sleep. . These forums, namely the obsession of the mapping thread, has been a great source of entertainment in the wee hours of the night. Thanks for that. 

great to hear

[Len Lfc]

7 minutes ago, JustAMetalHead said:

53:01

 

Clicking on the youtube video should put you exactly to 53:01 unless I messed up. Just be aware that they didn't really talk about the map all that much.

Yeah, you're right, my bad. I just read the quote and made a poor presumption lol. Thanks.

[Macabree]

18 minutes ago, JustAMetalHead said:

This is just something I found a little interesting in the jared petty RDR podcast.

 

 

This, along with things other people who have played the game have said, is the reason why I 100% believe the map is going to be bigger than we expect. 

Edited October 8, 2018 by Macabree

[SneakyDeaky]

On 10/5/2018 at 8:21 PM, Chinese Takeout said:

Speaking of which...did anyone ever figure out where this is?

 

 

Unfortunately I don't think it's Mexico, I think this is the same spot?

[DuPz0r]

54 minutes ago, CMcC said:

Hey y’all. Just wanted to say that recently I had a second child. She’s a week old now and has been keeping us up to all hours of the night. I’m averaging 3-4 hours of sleep. . These forums, namely the obsession of the mapping thread, has been a great source of entertainment in the wee hours of the night. Thanks for that. 

Congrats dude. I've been there twice too, no more kids for me though, that's enough !

Feel free to still chip in if you see anything we might have missed!

 

 

33 minutes ago, SneakyDeaky said:

Unfortunately I don't think it's Mexico, I think this is the same spot?



 

 

I said a long time ago, i think this location might be on the other side of Horseshoe overlook, south of the southern heartlands great hill.

Edited October 8, 2018 by DuPz0r

[arno_cat]

1 hour ago, SneakyDeaky said:

Unfortunately I don't think it's Mexico, I think this is the same spot?

Same tree?

[DuPz0r]

Nah, i wouldnt start comparing trees. I know R* dont like to copy paste assets all over the map in their games, but trees might be an exception. 

[Fido_le_muet]

2 hours ago, CMcC said:

Hey y’all. Just wanted to say that recently I had a second child. She’s a week old now and has been keeping us up to all hours of the night. I’m averaging 3-4 hours of sleep. . These forums, namely the obsession of the mapping thread, has been a great source of entertainment in the wee hours of the night. Thanks for that. 

Same here ! My baby girl is a week old as well. Enjoying the mapping thread too.

Bit worried about my gametime in the near future though...

[Chinese Takeout]

2 hours ago, DuPz0r said:

Congrats dude. I've been there twice too, no more kids for me though, that's enough !

Feel free to still chip in if you see anything we might have missed!

 

 

 

I said a long time ago, i think this location might be on the other side of Horseshoe overlook, south of the southern heartlands great hill.

That's a good suggestion, I didn't even think about that area. The only thing is, like I said in my initial study of this shot (with the video), you can see he's crossing the tracks perpendicularly, and there is no road going straight back behind him...the only road (within the shot) appears to be parallel to the track and clearly continues on in both directions (hence the signpost), and then there's the road he's on, which goes straight toward the camera...

The signpost behind him has at least 3 directions (Green City is in the Green direction, Yellow City is in the Yellow direction, and Red City is in the Red direction). Where do you think this RR Xing is on the map?

 

Also, depending on where you place the RR Xing (and the direction the camera is pointing), what do you think those flat ridges are? The plateau above Valentine/Cornwall?

 

EDIT: If the pink is the plateau above Valentine...maybe the blue is what we used to call Courthouse???

Edited October 8, 2018 by Chinese Takeout

[Orfan Loom]

17 minutes ago, DuPz0r said:

Nah, i wouldnt start comparing trees. I know R* dont like to copy paste assets all over the map in their games, but trees might be an exception. 

But they said every tree was placed by hand...

Edited October 8, 2018 by Orfan Loom

[DuPz0r]

When mapping the paths for that area i noticed the paths kind of blend into the track so they appear to stop, but i think they run parallel around that part. Maybe suggesting a prime spot to rob/hijack a train...

 

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by DuPz0r

[Chinese Takeout]

1 minute ago, Orfan Loom said:

But they told us every tree was placed by hand...

"placed" ≠ "created"

Edited October 8, 2018 by Chinese Takeout