Mapping Red Dead Redemption 2! Landmark Analysis Thread

[Chinese Takeout]

Also, there's this gif I posted back then that shows the population density as it changed from 1850 to 1910. At the time of the OP, we didn't yet know the era of the new game.

 

 

 

 

We knew that RDR1 took place in 1911, and we now know that RDR2 takes place in 1899. So, figure that the population density is somewhere around the midpoint between the two maps represented in the gif. The point being that we now know that whatever the N-S-E-W boundaries of the RDR2 map are

(we still don't know FOR CERTAIN...leaked map is as unconfirmed today as the day it "leaked")

, it's going to be LESS populated by humans, rather than MORE compared to RDR1. I bring that up merely as a point to note as we continue mapping from the officially released material.

 

 

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.

After the botched robbery in Blackwater, the gang flees. Where do they flee? EAST...into "America's unforgiving heartland."

 

Where the "heartland" begins and ends has different answers depending on which year you're talking about. It almost always began on the western side of the Appalachian mountains, and ended at The Frontier (which continuously shifted WEST, until it finally disappeared in the early 20th century.

 

TL;DR: This helps us extrapolate how much of the REAL United States Map may be contained within the FICTIONAL United States Map found in RDR2.

[Mirokunite]

The thing is its not set in a 'true' area of the United States. Yes, it is set in America in the nebulous concept of the Heartland. But the region we play in is a condensed greatest hits version of that region of America. The game will probably mention real world locations like RDR but the world we play in has no barring to it.

 

Its a region that requires a suspension of disbelief and is geographically impossible. Hell the characters might treat travel/areas from one side of the map to the other has a very far distance apart when it only takes '20 minutes' to travel in our real time. Its a map based on real world areas with all the space in-between removed. To us the player (outside observer) a trip from NB to the Grizzles isn't that far. To the characters in the world these areas might as well be hundreds of miles/a couple states away. A trip for us across the Heartland region is only a few minutes. To the characters a trip across the Heartland is several hours, and possibly across a region seemingly bigger than we understand.

[Chinese Takeout]

Yeah, that's pretty much what we've been saying for the last 3 years. RDR1 was a condensed map of a fictional U.S. stretching from the Mexican border with Texas/Arizona/NM, to the Rockies, to the beginnings of the Great Plains. There's no evidence so far that RDR2 will not contain the same compression.

As for the disparity between how we perceive travel/distance and how the in-game characters perceive it...well, that's pretty much covered by the fact that 5 minutes of our time is an hour in-game. Not only is SPACE compressed in GTA and RDR games, but so is TIME. And that makes sense, relatively speaking. Heh.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Chinese Takeout

[Cozzi]

 

 

I'll draw up a map here in a bit.

I'm gonna do it if you don't. lol. its been 2 days. whats up with that map. I wanna see a graphical representation of what we've figured out.

Sorry, got life to tend to, busy lately. You draw up a map and I'll draw up mine when I can and we can compare 'em.

 

IS THIS A CHALLENGE?!?!!?! lol

Edited May 18, 2018 by Cozzi

[xSilencedTNT]

Are we getting Mexico and all of America too?

[Striker_Blitz]

Are we getting Mexico and all of America too?

yeah, maybe Canada as well,eh

[greenrock]

so how much of the map is new stuff vs. old stuff from RDR in terms of percentages?

[ivarblaauw]

so how much of the map is new stuff vs. old stuff from RDR in terms of percentages?

There are actually four possible answers, as we don't know all information at this time.

 

Answer 1: 2 times the size of RDR 1, including 1/4th of the old map (West Elisabeth). This is only so when the map is not scaled up. 10-15% is old map.

 

Answer 2: 3 times the size of RDR1, including the entire old map. We simply don't know yet if the entire old map will return. Again, only if not scaled up. 35/40% is old map.

 

Answer 3: if scaled up, the new map will be 4x larger as the entire rdr1 map, including West Elisabeth. This is slightly larger than the entire GTA 5 map.

 

Answer 4: if scaled up, and the old map is included in its entirety, expect a 6x larger map as the previous one. Imo, this would be the perfect RDR map, especially for online.

 

So there you have it. If you don't believe in the upscaling theory, you'll either have answer 1, or if we are lucky, answer 2.

 

If you do believe the upscaling theory, expect answer 3 or if we are very, very, very lucky, answer 4.

 

Are we getting Mexico and all of America too?

See answer above. We simply do not know at this time if we will see Mexico. Yeah it might be possible we see it in the base game, it might be possible it will be only for online, or as an add on.

 

Canada you won't see though.

Edited May 21, 2018 by ivarblaauw

[Cutter De Blanc]

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

Was doing some research, trying to figure out what the penitentary could be based on. The only prison on an island in the Mississippi river appears to have been Rock Island prison, it was a Union POW camp. However it looks like the prison was destroyed after the war. Interesting.

I think maybe they combined Rock Island and Cahaba Prison for Sisika, although Cahaba is along the Alabama river. Also, Cahaba was a Confederate prison. It's just that Cahaba seems to be of Native American derivation (Choctaw) as is the word Sisika.

I dunno though.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Cutter De Blanc

[vKing]

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

 

We already know what happened there. That is the fairy/boat/ship where Marston will be shot and left for dead by the gang, also a girl called "Haddy Mackort" will be shot in the head by Dutch there. This unnamed character from an RDR1 "Strangers and Freaks" mission says so:

 

I don't think the location was replaced, i just think the event hasn't happened yet, therefore no wreck is there. Kind of mindblowing how well RDR1 was written, normally i hate prequels but in this franchise and the story we experienced it kind of makes sense. Super excited to see how that robbery on the ferry turns out in-game in RDR2.

Edited May 22, 2018 by vKing

[xSilencedTNT]

 

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

We already know what happened there. That is the fairy/boat/ship where Marston will be shot and left for dead by the gang, also a girl called "Haddy Mackort" will be shot in the head by Dutch there. This unnamed character from an RDR1 "Strangers and Freaks" mission says so:

 

I don't think the location was replaced, i just think the event hasn't happened yet, therefore no wreck is there. Kind of mindblowing how well RDR1 was written, normally i hate prequels but in this franchise and the story we experienced it kind of makes sense. Super excited to see how that robbery on the ferry turns out in-game in RDR2.

Heidi McCort*

[IAmArthur]

Adler Ranch appears on the map in the mountains, in IGN it is mentioned that the game started with the band hidden in the mountains, everything makes sense,the surname of Sadie is Adler

[The Nefarious]

 

 

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

We already know what happened there. That is the fairy/boat/ship where Marston will be shot and left for dead by the gang, also a girl called "Haddy Mackort" will be shot in the head by Dutch there. This unnamed character from an RDR1 "Strangers and Freaks" mission says so:

 

I don't think the location was replaced, i just think the event hasn't happened yet, therefore no wreck is there. Kind of mindblowing how well RDR1 was written, normally i hate prequels but in this franchise and the story we experienced it kind of makes sense. Super excited to see how that robbery on the ferry turns out in-game in RDR2.

Heidi McCort*Heidi McCourt*

 

@IAmArthur: Yeah I think they're going to ride out of Blackwater through West Elizabeth and up by Cochinay into Big Valley and then onto the Grizzlies. They'll probably stop off at Adler Ranch and then wait out a snowstorm before continuing on further and crossing the Dakota River into the Heartlands. Then they'll pass by the oil fields (as seen in screenshots etc.) before finally settling in New Hanover.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Money Over Bullshit

[INFERNO E100]

 

 

 

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

We already know what happened there. That is the fairy/boat/ship where Marston will be shot and left for dead by the gang, also a girl called "Haddy Mackort" will be shot in the head by Dutch there. This unnamed character from an RDR1 "Strangers and Freaks" mission says so:

 

I don't think the location was replaced, i just think the event hasn't happened yet, therefore no wreck is there. Kind of mindblowing how well RDR1 was written, normally i hate prequels but in this franchise and the story we experienced it kind of makes sense. Super excited to see how that robbery on the ferry turns out in-game in RDR2.

Heidi McCort*

Heidi McCourt*

 

@IAmArthur: Yeah I think they're going to ride out of Blackwater through West Elizabeth and up by Cochinay into Big Valley and then onto the Grizzlies. They'll probably stop off at Adler Ranch and then wait out a snowstorm before continuing on further and crossing the Dakota River into the Heartlands. Then they'll pass by the oil fields (as seen in screenshots etc.) before finally settling in New Hanover.

 

cumberland forrest and the heartlands are in new hannover

​

​new hannover is the name of an area of the map just like west Elizabeth etc

[Little Big Man]

How do you know where New Hanover is.

 

Does this mean the mountains are in West Elizabeth.

 

Sorry, no question mark on this keyboard.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Little Big Man

[The Nefarious]

 

 

 

 

Just noticed that the Wreck of the Serendipity is replaced by a location called Quaker's Cove. I wonder if we will find out what happened to the Serendipity.

We already know what happened there. That is the fairy/boat/ship where Marston will be shot and left for dead by the gang, also a girl called "Haddy Mackort" will be shot in the head by Dutch there. This unnamed character from an RDR1 "Strangers and Freaks" mission says so:

 

I don't think the location was replaced, i just think the event hasn't happened yet, therefore no wreck is there. Kind of mindblowing how well RDR1 was written, normally i hate prequels but in this franchise and the story we experienced it kind of makes sense. Super excited to see how that robbery on the ferry turns out in-game in RDR2.

Heidi McCort*

Heidi McCourt*

 

@IAmArthur: Yeah I think they're going to ride out of Blackwater through West Elizabeth and up by Cochinay into Big Valley and then onto the Grizzlies. They'll probably stop off at Adler Ranch and then wait out a snowstorm before continuing on further and crossing the Dakota River into the Heartlands. Then they'll pass by the oil fields (as seen in screenshots etc.) before finally settling in New Hanover.

 

cumberland forrest and the heartlands are in new hannover

​

​new hannover is the name of an area of the map just like west Elizabeth etc

 

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Chinese Takeout]

On 5/16/2018 at 12:48 AM, Money Over Bullsh*t said:

On 5/15/2018 at 2:42 PM, JuliusCaesar said:

Did you read it? The point is that the map is not just shrunk in any rockstar game, it's got chunks all cut out. That's why it's desert on the west of rdr2 and why you can't just plop it on the US map like that. Because if it were all 50 states for example, you'd cut out 2 states between each one that is modeled...

Clear enough now, or?

I never said the states would be shrunk.. I said states are rolled into one another so there would be less states overall and the country would be smaller as a result. GTA III's Liberty City took inspiration from several East Coast cities so it's sort of the same thing here. They wanted to include certain areas so they cut them out and placed them in a similar layout to the real life states of America with massive areas missing in between.

I think we're all saying the same thing here. Did you guys ever play PilotWings64?

 

Spoiler

 

[BretMaverick777]

New Bordeaux

 

Haven't seen whether this has been discussed at length elsewhere, as I'm just returning to this forum after 2 years....but since the 3 new RDR2 trailers came out, and all this analysis of the leaked map has started pegging everything down, I'd like to ask a simple question, map-related:

 

Can we finally say for sure that RDR2's New Bordeaux is, in fact, Mafia 3's New Bordeaux?  

Some of the most recent YT commentary points to Rockstar confirming that New Bordeaux will be a pretty large city in RDR2, and the leaked map always indicated that.  And it's clearly modeled on a fin de siecle New Orleans, which certainly will add a new kind of flair to the game -- I'd expect to see plenty of gambling halls, showboats, brothels, plantations. etc.   Dutch definitely looks like the kind of guy who would be right at home with the painted ladies in the Big Easy, at least in the early stages of his outlaw career. 

 

And there's the fact that Take 2 Interactive is the parent company for both Rockstar and Hangar 13, so cross-pollinating games is definitely a possibility.

 

I don't have an imgur account yet so I can't post pics, but if you're willing to look at a side-by-side comparison of Mafia 3's New Bordeaux map with RDR2's leaked map (the earliest one, the multicolored one with New Bordeaux outlined in green), you can see that both versions of the city are clearly built on a series of islands in a swamp (Bayou Noir/Nwa?) in a large river (the Lannahechee?) with an almost identical layout.  

 

Still not convinced?  Or if you are, how much connective tissue do you think 1899 New Bordeaux would have with 1968?  Obviously a lot of the architecture in Mafia 3 is already old enough to fit in to the late 19th century, especially the signature French Ward and Delray Hollow, among many other neighborhoods.  Probably easy to port a good degree of Mafia 3's city into RDR2.  

 

Also, what does that say about the size of this map?   Surely RDR's version of New Bordeaux would be greatly compressed....I can't imagine using the same scale as Mafia 3's city, or else we're looking at New Bordeaux being big enough to comprise its own game, while still only occupying a fraction of the whole RDR2 map....

 

Whaddya think? 

 

 

 

 

[Svip]

I don't think so.  The terrain around the two New Bordeaux is just too different:

 

(This being from a German version of the game, so don't mind the German descriptions.)

 

Mafia 3's map suggests that the old part of the city is built north of the swamp area, i.e. Bayou Noir (which would make sense), and it's a relative modern expansion into that area.  The leaked RDR2 map suggests New Bordeaux is specifically in the swampy area (perhaps on some non-swampy part of it), or at least surrounded by the swamp.

 

In Mafia 3, the river that flows through the city is called Mississippi, as in the real New Orleans.  There is no Mississippi in RDR2, but rather a different major river, although heavily inspired by that river.  But the river in the leaked map looks far wider than the Mississippi actually is as it runs out in New Orleans or in Mafia 3's New Bordeaux.

 

But even ignoring all that, the terrain in and around the two versions of the same city is just too different.  I'd argue that Mafia 3's New Bordeaux is a fictionalised version of New Orleans, while Red Dead Redemption 2's New Bordeaux is merely inspired by New Orleans.  And that they are not the same city.

[SeniorDerp]

Considering Mafia 3 came out in 2016 and the RDR2 map was also leaked in 2016 but had been in development already for quite some time, I'd say it's mere coincidence on names and that it has been since been changed the leaked map was created.

[Spider-Vice]

It's likely that the placeholder name was inspired by Mafia 3, but it's probably not gonna be New Bordeaux in the final version of RDR2.

[HandSoap2811]

43 minutes ago, Spider-Vice said:

It's likely that the placeholder name was inspired by Mafia 3, but it's probably not gonna be New Bordeaux in the final version of RDR2.

Weird placeholder name

Dont you think they would have made it something that isnt so recognizable??

Edited June 4, 2018 by mombo2811

[SeniorDerp]

13 minutes ago, mombo2811 said:

Weird placeholder name

Dont you think they would have made it something that isnt so recognizable??

Considering no one outside of R* was supposed to see it, it probably didn't matter much

[HandSoap2811]

23 minutes ago, SeniorDerp said:

Considering no one outside of R* was supposed to see it, it probably didn't matter much

things always leak..though... 

So they didnt do a very good job of hiding it

[arno_cat]

Looks like New Bordeaux is called Saint Denis

https://imgur.com/a/pAgR14x

Edited June 4, 2018 by arno_cat
Didn't know how to insert link

[tsycho]

And if i read it correctly, state it is in is called "Lemoyne" (at least i'm guessing it's the state like "Los Angeles, Califonia" - "Saint Denis, Lemoyne")

 

[arno_cat]

20 minutes ago, tsycho said:

And if i read it correctly, state it is in is called "Lemoyne" (at least i'm guessing it's the state like "Los Angeles, Califonia" - "Saint Denis, Lemoyne")

 

 

Stupid question: how did you post the image? I don't know how to in the new layout

EDIT: Solved it

Edited June 4, 2018 by arno_cat

[Svip]

Yeah, I guess that that settles that:

 

Quote

Double Sided Puzzle: This double-sided, 100-piece wooden jigsaw puzzle features an illustrated view of the bustling port of Saint Denis on one side, and a classically inspired Rockstar Games logo on the reverse.

 

And Lemoyne would make sense, as Le Moyne, Alabama used to be the capital of Louisiana between 1702 and 1711.  And in other places in North America, the name 'Le Moyne' has become 'Lemoyne' (except Alabama, for some reason).  Sort of like how it's Lafayette today, even though his name was La Fayette.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Svip

[arno_cat]

More confirmation on the map being real

Edited June 4, 2018 by arno_cat

[e1999KrayzieBone]

FYI--It says "A Bird's Eye View From the South" on the box