Mapping Red Dead Redemption 2! Landmark Analysis Thread

[Leon20]

5 minutes ago, horns said:

Good point.  It shows up for both weapons if you're duel wielding.  Maybe it's the status of the gun or dead eye level?  Just guessing.

 

From left to right its: life, stamina, dead eye, horse life and horse stamina.

[Flapjaw]

3 hours ago, BretMaverick777 said:

The latest shots from Ambarino show plains and non-snowy forests and mountains north of the snow-covered Grizzlies.  

Yes, there's plenty of green lands north of the snowline, anywhere you want to look.   Don't think in terms of latitude, think in terms of altitude.  Even when there's plenty of snow at higher elevations, you can have perfectly green pastures and forests all around, even to the north of that snowline.  Even Greenland isn't exactly lying about their name.

What are these latest shots of Ambarino?

[Rykane]

2 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

STATES (or Territories, if they're not states yet):

(boundaries of states are my own guess...the exact, specific boundaries have not yet been revealed)

 

REGIONS:

Wishful thinking on my part, Those images make it much clearer.  I think maybe some of those states could possibly be extended a bit in some directions in the real map. Let's just hope it gets leaked sometime soon

[koeklin]

Same barn

 

[Chinese Takeout]

Here's the thing that kinda bums me out...

 

 

I know that in RDR1 there was plenty of reference to "actual" US States, like New York, where Bonnie's brother took off to, and one of the Strangers heads to California. But, I've been hoping and hoping that R* would slowly and gently retcon that out of the RDR Universe, but here they are again mixing the "Real" United States with their fictional one. At one point I was really hoping that they would merge the RDR and GTA universes, and it looked like they were headed that way when the RDR2 Revolver and Stone Hatchet (along with the Dutch van der Linde email address) showed up in GTAO. But, as far as I know, there's NO crossover from the fictional GTA United States and the REAL United States. So, it starts to get messy.

 

TL;DR: As long as New York City exists in RDR and Liberty City exists in GTA, then there can't be a (sensible) crossover between the two worlds. Same goes for California and San Andreas. 

oh, and this one, too...

[Ali623]

12 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

STATES (or Territories, if they're not states yet):

(boundaries of states are my own guess...the exact, specific boundaries have not yet been revealed)

 

REGIONS:

 

Feels like there should be something above New Austin/west of West Elizabeth? 

[Rykane]

1 minute ago, Ali623 said:

 

Feels like there should be something above New Austin/west of West Elizabeth? 

We're hoping that's the case but no-one knows currently

[GTADKNUT]

7 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

Here's the thing that kinda bums me out...

 

 

I know that in RDR1 there was plenty of reference to "actual" US States, like New York, where Bonnie's brother took off to, and one of the Strangers heads to California. But, I've been hoping and hoping that R* would slowly and gently retcon that out of the RDR Universe, but here they are again mixing the "Real" United States with their fictional one. At one point I was really hoping that they would merge the RDR and GTA universes, and it looked like they were headed that way when the RDR2 Revolver and Stone Hatchet (along with the Dutch van der Linde email address) showed up in GTAO. But, as far as I know, there's NO crossover from the fictional GTA United States and the REAL United States. So, it starts to get messy.

 

TL;DR: As long as New York City exists in RDR and Liberty City exists in GTA, then there can't be a (sensible) crossover between the two worlds. Same goes for California and San Andreas. 

oh, and this one, too...

Those also got to me :S 

[Orfan Loom]

9 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

but here they are again mixing the "Real" United States with their fictional one.

Not entirely fictional. no?

New Austin is called New Austin because there's Austin in Texas etc.

 

In GTA they used London once...

And in other GTAs they have been using semi-fictional names for a reason. They didn't want to see articles titled "Shooting in Los Angeles", it looks much better if it's "Shooting in Los Santos"

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Orfan Loom

[DuPz0r]

This is me when i finally see the real map!

*Mind Blown*

[GTADKNUT]

2 minutes ago, DuPz0r said:

This is me when i finally see the real map!

*Mind Blown*

 

That is some truly insane gore! This game cannot get released fast enough

Edited October 12, 2018 by GTADKNUT

[Chinese Takeout]

5 minutes ago, Ali623 said:

 

Feels like there should be something above New Austin/west of West Elizabeth? 

Yeah, some of use got into that a couple months ago...these were some of the images I posted at the time...I agree with you that without something added to what we know of, there's this weird "unused space" quality to the map...

 

 

but what if....

 

 

haha, just speculation. 

[Original Light]

Strawberry (or rather just the fields before the town) are accessible in Red Dead Redemption 1 by using an out of map glitch. Obviously, the land is not named since it isn't supposed to be accessible.

I'd be curious to see how much of the land formation they keep the same in Red Dead Redemption 2. It's surprisingly large and detailed for an area that isn't supposed to be seen. I forgot how to do the glitch since it's been so long, but here's a Youtube video of the area. 

 

 

 

 

[DuPz0r]

Yeah it isn't the first time R* have made game worlds that do not fill the "square space" fully. But it does seem like a big waste if they do not. Either way, i dont mind, i know the scale of what we've seen is enough, and pretty dense so at the end, if we only get what we've mapped here, that fine with me.

Edited October 12, 2018 by DuPz0r

[GTADKNUT]

11 minutes ago, DuPz0r said:

Yeah it isn't the first time R* have made game worlds that do not fill the "square space" fully. But it does seem like a big waste if they do not. Either way, i dont mind, i know the scale of what we've seen is enough, and pretty dense so at the end, if we only get what we've mapped here, that fine with me.

Same, I like dense worlds better than expansive empty worlds.

 

That's why withcer is better than the newer assassins games. 

Edited October 12, 2018 by GTADKNUT

[DuPz0r]

1 minute ago, GTADKNUT said:

Same, I like dense worlds better than expansive emptive worlds.

 

That's why withcer is better than the newer assassins games. 

Yeah Witcher 3 had an insane amount of content, all those side missions!

[Chinese Takeout]

4 minutes ago, Original Light said:

Strawberry (or rather just the fields before the town) are accessible in Red Dead Redemption 1 by using an out of map glitch. Obviously, the land is not named since it isn't supposed to be accessible.

I'd be curious to see how much of the land formation they keep the same in Red Dead Redemption 2. It's surprisingly large and detailed for an area that isn't supposed to be seen. 

Yeah, it's been at least a couple years since I glitched out and rode around. I need to do that again now that I'm playing in 4K UHD.

I did glitch out on the Eastern-most side of Nuevo Paraiso a couple days ago to try to get a good shot of Nekoti from there. Everything to the right of John is unplayable area, yet still incredibly detailed.

[Orfan Loom]

1 minute ago, Chinese Takeout said:

Everything to the right of John is unplayable area, yet still incredibly detailed.

 

In Bully you can glitch out of the Bullworth Academy borders during halloween. You're not supposed to be here in the town during this part of the game, but you can still find NPCs dressed in halloween costumes roaming around.

[Chinese Takeout]

Man, would you just look at Arthur...steady as a rock while shooting waayyyy up on that Railroad Bridge!

Spoiler

[Waves to Rockstar!!]

[Orfan Loom]

4 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

Man, would you just look at Arthur...steady as a rock while shooting waayyyy up on that Railroad Bridge!

  Hide contents

[Waves to Rockstar!!]

Shooting at the engine driver on the train running towards Arthur at full speed...

Edited October 12, 2018 by Orfan Loom

[nubcaker]

41 minutes ago, Chinese Takeout said:

Here's the thing that kinda bums me out...

 

 

I know that in RDR1 there was plenty of reference to "actual" US States, like New York, where Bonnie's brother took off to, and one of the Strangers heads to California. But, I've been hoping and hoping that R* would slowly and gently retcon that out of the RDR Universe, but here they are again mixing the "Real" United States with their fictional one. At one point I was really hoping that they would merge the RDR and GTA universes, and it looked like they were headed that way when the RDR2 Revolver and Stone Hatchet (along with the Dutch van der Linde email address) showed up in GTAO. But, as far as I know, there's NO crossover from the fictional GTA United States and the REAL United States. So, it starts to get messy.

 

TL;DR: As long as New York City exists in RDR and Liberty City exists in GTA, then there can't be a (sensible) crossover between the two worlds. Same goes for California and San Andreas. 

oh, and this one, too...

Well it did the opposite for me. I would hate if RDR and GTA became the same universe. It just doesn't fit. RDR is so much more gritty and serious in tone than GTA, it would never work out. I would prefer for these two separate works of art to remain separate works of art, each with their own distinct worlds and lore.

[Sunny_D]

Sooooo....... official map leak next week?

[Nutduster]

re: states, and the merging of the GTA and RDR universes: Rockstar has never been consistent with this stuff.  GTA V is set in "Los Santos" and "San Andreas" but the songs on the radio stations are loaded with references to California and Los Angeles.  They will often reference real states and places in dialogue in their games, but if you ever actually set foot in a location, it will be fictionalized (for instance, even the brief GTA V prologue happens in North Yankton rather than North Dakota or wherever). 

 

If you're looking for them to sit down and map out new names for all the states (some probably merging together) and major cities, they are never going to do that.  You have to live with some intentional cognitive dissonance.  Their universes are both fictionalized, and real.  And not terribly consistent from one iteration to the next either.

 

As far as GTA and RDR sharing a universe, it's fairly clear from all the Easter eggs and miscellaneous stuff in GTA V and GTA Online that basically they do.  But it will probably always stay just a set of references.  The series have a different tone and very separate time period, so we will never see them really overlap except by occasionally nodding back and forth. 

[Chinese Takeout]

49 minutes ago, nubcaker said:

Well it did the opposite for me. I would hate if RDR and GTA became the same universe. It just doesn't fit. RDR is so much more gritty and serious in tone than GTA, it would never work out. I would prefer for these two separate works of art to remain separate works of art, each with their own distinct worlds and lore.

Yeah, I should state...my main point for my original post wasn't really to get RDR and GTA to crossover into the same universe...what I really meant (and want) is for RDR to either "GO FICTIONAL" or "GO REAL." One or the other. And, I'd prefer that they REMAIN FICTIONAL, as GTA has done. Not for the purpose of crossing over but...some day...maybe in RDR3...I'd LOVE to see them continue to expand the scope of what a Red Dead map looks like, and include everything from a "Rockstar-ified" East Coast (Above and Below the Mason-Dixon line) with New York, Lexington, D.C., Atlanta, etc... and then a more fully developed (but smaller) mid-west...because if RDR3 is set in, say, 1830-60, the Frontier Line will be much further East...and then I'd love it if they developed the West Coast/California.

But that becomes weird and muddy when you've got New York and Washington D.C. and Atlanta and Knoxville, TN, and California...and then New Austin, and Ambarino, and West Elizabeth. Like...wtf? Do you see what I mean? I wish they just kept everything consistent: fictional or non-fictional.

 

But, who knows what the future holds. Let me get my hands on RDR2 before I start worrying about RDR3.

[VERSA]

49 minutes ago, Vitalize said:

Sooooo....... official map leak next week?

We all hoping for that 

[Non Funkable Token]

They'd never include northern cities like NY or Chicago in a western game, not in the slighty, so it doesn't matter on their minds how these places are called in the game, real name or fictional name. 

 

California on the other hand, that's more problematic. Maybe a gold rush type theme in a future RDR game could include a state partially based on California (not the coast, so big cities are out of the question) and they'd have to rename that. I guess they have some ideas

Edited October 12, 2018 by Fluffy Sock

[TexasOdysseus]

10 hours ago, IG_ said:

At this point I have very little doubt that we're all going to be jaws to the floor blown away when:

The game comes out and we see the map
OR
The map is leaked before hand lol (More likely)

It will be Rockstar's biggest 'reveal' to date because they've kept so much hidden on purpose.

The first thing I might do after completing all that intro stuff is just ride out west and see how far I can go... and then maybe right out south and see how far I can go.

That's the thing. I never played GTA, but I have followed how R* does business and this jives with how they handle pre-launch for games.... There is such a viral following (ie: why WE are all here!) that they know they don't have to release too many bread crumbs along the trail. It's brilliant marketing, actually, but they have a product that can support their approach. From a business standpoint, it's quite fun to see unfold. 

 

As I've said before, I've no doubt that the original (and generally accurate, albeit in its infancy) "leaked" map was very much a deliberate leak. And they've played the PR and marketing campaign wonderfully. 

 

Whether the real map leaks or not is almost irrelevant at this juncture--we're playing and buying the game. That's the bottom line for any company, right?

[Orfan Loom]

New York in GTA is Liberty City in the state of Liberty.

So... yeah, kinda inconsistent.

[TexasOdysseus]

6 hours ago, Mild Phil Hickok said:

Marshal Johnson refers to New Austin as a state in Justice in Pike's Basin. Personally, I think New Austin is more like a territory than a state but people refer to it as state because its status seems very confused. 

Which is not implausible. When you look at the history of the USA, especially western states that became states from territories, this ambiguity was common. Heck, there were people who denounced the "official" state lines altogether when territories were divvied up. I like this (deliberate by R*?) confusion because it's exactly how things were/would have been. That's why I think some of us could be overthinking this. Don't cramp your brain, y'all... just enjoy the ride, and it's about to begin. 

[Chinese Takeout]

21 minutes ago, Fluffy Sock said:

They'd never include northern cities like NY or Chicago in a western game, not in the slighty, so it doesn't matter on their minds how these places are called in the game, real name or fictional name. 

IDK, don't count it out...imagine an epic story that started with you fighting in the Civil War, and then shortly thereafter you either head to the Frontier, like John Dunbar, or you get assigned to General Custer's brigade and head out hunting "Indians", or...who knows. I mean, at some point, I'd like to see a Red Dead game that brings Native Americans more to the forefront. 1899 isnt the right setting for that. But, prior to and leading right up to the Civil War would be a perfect era. Just spitballing