Possible Map Additions thread

[ivarblaauw]

Will we get map additions? No one knows at this point. But that's not what this thread is about. 
In this thread we'll talk, discuss and show others ideas of how we think Rockstargames could add new regions to the map, or expand current locations already present in the map. We'll also look at the 'evidence' that we have for Map additions. *Remember that we found evidence in GTA V, but never got any additions sadly.

 

Red Dead Redemption II:

We know that Red Dead Redemption is set in a living and breathing world, which is much larger than the map we currently can traverse.

 

Ingame references

Many times there are references to New York, San Francisco, Canyon City and many other off map locations.

Leaks

- Leaks from december told us that originally the game would have been much larger, including the west coast and set from 1877 to 1899. New Austin would also be bigger and have featured another city, the size of Blackwater. Guarma would also been entirely fleshed out and be used to escape the heat in the USA.

- Multiple other leaks gave us hope for Red Dead Redemption I being added as an add on, including Nuevo Paraiso!

Cut content

Our friends in the Mapping thread already discovered that there are many cut regions in the game. Here a short list of stuff that is found but didn't make it to the traversable region, but is entirely modelled:

Spoiler

 

West Grizzlies:

- Glaciers

- Avalance valley

- Snowy valley

*fun fact: one of the loading screens still shows this region (rocks in the snow)

 

North Grizzlies (based on Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado):

- Tempest Rim

- Forest Valley

- Canyon Valley

 

Then we have Nuevo Paraiso, which is fully modelled, but has no buildings or animals whatsoever:
- Diez Coronaz

- Perdido

- Punta Orgullo

 

 

Any other location is traversable, but isn't as fleshed out as these regions, with less detail and for example no real paths. While out of bounds, the player can traverse a huge region (3x+ the size of the normal region). At some point the 'floor' gets low res textures and you will fall through.

 

Obviously we know that nothing of that happened, but it makes many wonder if we will ever see anything related to that cut content? This thread is for ideas, for leak, for things we can see as 'evidence' or for simple cut content that we would love to see back in the game. We had a thread like this for GTA Online (and sadly we never got one add on), but Red Dead Online looks to have more options, due to it being land locked, and already having content ready to go, especially in combination with singleplayer stories.

Edited May 17, 2019 by ivarblaauw

[Sam Doe]

I will write as if we are certain to get map extensions. I believe, if they do so, the intent would be to keep the open free-roam world which to me means loading-free places.

 

I think we might get the Mexico 'expansion' first. We know that the place is accessible and already implemented. It would make sense to open this area (or another) by using the story missions as a guideline for players. I might be wrong but I have gotta say that I am really looking forward to this option which would allow us to see the world grow as we evolve in it. And I'd especially love being able to get to Guarma in Online !

[1898]

If they bring back Mexico, fine, but I'd rather see something new. I rarely spend any time in the old map as it is.

[ivarblaauw]

1 minute ago, 1898 said:

If they bring back Mexico, fine, but I'd rather see something new. I rarely spend any time in the old map as it is.

There are a lot of options for them to do, IF they chose to do so. The list is already quite big, and that is just the major locations. 

I personally would love to see East Elizabeth/East Mexico, so we can fully traverse around Flat Iron Lake. Plus more plains with buffalo is a big plus in my opinion. They could even add another US fortress based on the Alamo. Would be pretty neat.

[AUScowboy]

This wouldn’t work for the current map I don’t think, but it would be a great setting for a RDR3: Great Lakes/Michigan/Wisconsin/Canada. The landscape is ripe for a RD game, and story wise it could provide a good opportunity for having a Native American protagonist.

[gtafan1995]

A new area with a new town in Grizzlies North is a must, perhaps at Canadian border. There's not much to do in that region. Also mexico.

Edited May 17, 2019 by gtafan1995

[ivarblaauw]

4 minutes ago, gtafan1995 said:

A new area with a new town in Grizzlies North is a must, perhaps at Canadian border. There's not much to do in that region. Also mexico.

This, I would love to see Colter being inhabited with some people, or indeed a brand new town, since it is so... empty. Part of the vibe it should have, but now the nearest merchants are in Valentine...

 

1 hour ago, AUScowboy said:

This wouldn’t work for the current map I don’t think, but it would be a great setting for a RDR3: Great Lakes/Michigan/Wisconsin/Canada. The landscape is ripe for a RD game, and story wise it could provide a good opportunity for having a Native American protagonist.

I wish you could still get out of the map, since there is an entire valley (the size of Ambarino) north of it! Made me think of the map: Layton Lake District of The Hunter CotW. A bit of an North American region. However, it is all fall through, so nothing 'special'. They could easily use that region to create an Alaskan/Great lakes region, but don't be fooled: It would have to be made from scratch!

7 minutes ago, MadHammerThorsteen said:

Seeing as how the bayou is bordered in four directions be either water or traversable land, I doubt we'd see it expanded. On top of which, holy gun degradation, batman! You'd have to clean your gun every other shootout.

don't forget that there is bayou on the other side of the river as well! I agree that we probably won't see it expanded, but they could in theory extend the bayou southward to the Mexican/East Elizabeth shore.

 

[1898]

53 minutes ago, gtafan1995 said:

A new area with a new town in Grizzlies North is a must, perhaps at Canadian border.

This would a be a perfect area for the rumoured mining. Think Alaskan Gold Rush.

[CosmicBuffalo]

I personally believe that Mexico is already ready to be added to online only...I do not think there will be Single Player DLC because online microtransaction $ is better.  I also think it will be announced with the PC version of the game to try and get people to buy again.

[7th Ward Charizard]

I think Mexico will be added as an online exclusive in the future to prolong interest in RDO. Everything points to it being cut out of SP due to time constraints. Hell, my limited edition map even displays towns south of the border that aren’t on the regular one. Just think of the possible assets they had/have leftover, 

[ivarblaauw]

Mexico is meshed fully, no buildings are present though. It would make the most sense to be added first imo

[Chrismads]

I'd list it in this order of what is most likely imo:

 

1.Guarma. Its already a finished area and it is pretty high in demand from the players, therefore I think we'll get that first because it would be easiest.

 

2. Mexico. Mexico is there in it's full size (afaik?) but empty. And the demand for R* to add Mexico is very high

 

3. Canada. I was told that the Canada area was already there just like Mexico. I havn't researched this myself though.

 

The rest of the areas on that list I find highly unlikely that we'll see any time soon

[wehweh01]

I could see sisika penitentiary becoming an awesome Gun Rush map.

Edited May 18, 2019 by wehweh01
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[TiberiusMcQueen]

As others have said, the foundation for Mexico is already laid out, it would make a lot of sense for it to be a map expansion at some point.

[ivarblaauw]

23 hours ago, Chrismads said:

I'd list it in this order of what is most likely imo:

 

1.Guarma. Its already a finished area and it is pretty high in demand from the players, therefore I think we'll get that first because it would be easiest.

 

2. Mexico. Mexico is there in it's full size (afaik?) but empty. And the demand for R* to add Mexico is very high

 

3. Canada. I was told that the Canada area was already there just like Mexico. I havn't researched this myself though.

 

The rest of the areas on that list I find highly unlikely that we'll see any time soon

North of the Grizzlies is modelled to the same details as Mexico. However, this is far FAR from finished. 

 

Sadly Guarma is far from finished. Mostly the shores and some inland areas.

16 hours ago, TiberiusMcQueen said:

As others have said, the foundation for Mexico is already laid out, it would make a lot of sense for it to be a map expansion at some point.

Would love to see it happening!

[Pepperjack]

16 hours ago, wehweh01 said:

I could see sisika penitentiary becoming an awesome Gun Rush map.

Could see it too, i believe the new mode has a sisika map

[ivarblaauw]

3 minutes ago, Pepperjack said:

Could see it too, i believe the new mode has a sisika map

Yes it is a map in Overrun. Works great. Sadly only the exterior. 

 

Would love to see the interior some day.

[Chrismads]

13 minutes ago, ivarblaauw said:

Sadly Guarma is far from finished. Mostly the shores and some inland areas.

Would love to see it happening!

Waaaay more finished than Mexico.

I want both, but I think Guarma is most likely to be added before Mexico.

[Jabalous]

I don't think R* will spend a large effort designing and developing whole new areas for them to be just used in an Online game. That'll also require other stuff to be done, such as creating new ambient NPCs and hiring actors to voice them. Unless it's an effort for Single Player in the first place, which then can be used to expand the Online world, I don't believe we'll see any map additions in the future.

[CrissRiot]

3 hours ago, Jabalous said:

I don't think R* will spend a large effort designing and developing whole new areas for them to be just used in an Online game. That'll also require other stuff to be done, such as creating new ambient NPCs and hiring actors to voice them. Unless it's an effort for Single Player in the first place, which then can be used to expand the Online world, I don't believe we'll see any map additions in the future.

You never played GTAO then. Lotta new interiors/NPCs were created for Online. A little bit of the Doomsday Heist was intended for SP, but the vast majority of everything else was built for Online. I guarantee you, one of Rockstar/Take2s biggest regrets is not making it easy to expand San Andreas. Lots of dollars opportunities wasted there.

 

I firmly believe IF....and thats a big IF, we get an expansion, it's Nuevo Paraiso (and rightfully so). Feels wrong having New Austin and no Nuevo Paraiso tbh, and Rockstar maps generally don't have "wasted" space on the main map (again, look at San Andreas in GTAV), hinting they intend to do something with that land mass.

 

As for Guarma, I can't see it added aside from maybe a game mode set there (maybe capture the Plantation?), and somehow I think that is more unlikely than Nuevo Paraiso.

Edited May 19, 2019 by CrissRiot

[Jason]

If Rockstar are serious about RDO then there is absolutely no reason why they won't add brand new regions/locations, it's a pretty damn common type of DLC for any online game these days.

 

Anyway, outside of new regions I really hope they add to the map they already have especially in the north and north east regions of the map. Don't even need towns, just add some NPC camps around there with a butcher. So many potentially great hunting areas still not viable or practical cause of how far away they are from a butcher.

[ivarblaauw]

@CrissRiot I agree with your statement about GTA V's San Andreas. Any GTA had the same problem, which is why any next GTA featuring either SA or LC will have a vastly different layout/look. 

 

On Topic: are they hinting to do anything? I don't know, but at least all of the foundations are already present.

 

A few regions: Tempest Rim, Grizzlies Avalance Valley and Glaciers, are fully moddeled and can to be added without more than a few hours of work, since they were cut by simply placing a few big stones at the entrances . 

 

Larger regions would have to be either made from scratch, or from a basis founded in RDR lore. Nuevo Paraiso is the biggest candidate, but perhaps that later on Rockstar will add locations from Red Dead Revolver as well... no one knows, perhaps not even the developers. 

 

Speculation/wishes incoming:

As for Red Dead Revolver locations, some are already present (Twin Rocks as an example), while others could very well be placed north or west of New Austin.

Stoakes' Ranch could be located on the other side of the mountain ridge, west of Aurora Basin. Brimstone could easily be the larger settlement originally intended for New Austin, which could be a cool larger town somewhere west. This way you'll have 3 major cities from East to West.

 

But what would it take for Rockstar? They'll need to have level designers create new regions from scratch. This is a costly progress, especially when you add in that they'll need new voice actors and each location needs to have some sort of background.

However this could be easily worth it, since Red Dead Redemption 2 sold over 25 million copies, and Rockstargames already confirmed Red Dead Online is exceeding their expectations and is doing surprisingly well.

 

@Jason I agree we need more options to sell our pelts in those locations. I miss the trapper, but we'll most likely see those arriving someday in an update.

 

[Jabalous]

6 hours ago, CrissRiot said:

You never played GTAO then. Lotta new interiors/NPCs were created for Online. A little bit of the Doomsday Heist was intended for SP, but the vast majority of everything else was built for Online. I guarantee you, one of Rockstar/Take2s biggest regrets is not making it easy to expand San Andreas. Lots of dollars opportunities wasted there.

 

I firmly believe IF....and thats a big IF, we get an expansion, it's Nuevo Paraiso (and rightfully so). Feels wrong having New Austin and no Nuevo Paraiso tbh, and Rockstar maps generally don't have "wasted" space on the main map (again, look at San Andreas in GTAV), hinting they intend to do something with that land mass.

 

As for Guarma, I can't see it added aside from maybe a game mode set there (maybe capture the Plantation?), and somehow I think that is more unlikely than Nuevo Paraiso.

New interiors don't equate to new map areas. These interiors were either part of the original map but only opened up in Online, or bunkers. NPCs aren't ambient/pedestrian characters, but rather those that give story missions like what we already have in RDRO. I don't believe they're going to build Nuevo Paraiso, as an example, and bring actors to voice 100+ townsfolk, create background story, scripted events and mission types. The amount of effort could entirely be equated to creating a new Single Player game of a smaller scale, which is why it mightn't be wroth it for Red Dead Online only. 

[ivarblaauw]

20 minutes ago, Jabalous said:

New interiors don't equate to new map areas. These interiors were either part of the original map but only opened up in Online, or bunkers. NPCs aren't ambient/pedestrian characters, but rather those that give story missions like what we already have in RDRO. I don't believe they're going to build Nuevo Paraiso, as an example, and bring actors to voice 100+ townsfolk, create background story, scripted events and mission types. The amount of effort could entirely be equated to creating a new Single Player game of a smaller scale, which is why it mightn't be wroth it for Red Dead Online only. 

As far as I know, companies like R* have databases full of voiced lines for their games, the same for 3D assets, textures and photo's/videos (of real world locations).

 

Most work would be character specific voiced lines for missions or stranger strands, but the voiced lines for common towns folk or bandits are already in the game or saved in storage for later use. 

 

Great example is the Lemoyne Raiders in the old indian camp, they'll scream: make Lemoyne great again, etc. They didn't record new lines for these characters.

 

Don't forget they'll have hundreds of voiced lines for npc's from RDR1. Only town specific names in sentences could become an issue. But then, really, it would take them a few thousand dollars maximum to record these lines. Any dlc (not add on!) is probably already in the profit margin a few hours after release.

Edited May 19, 2019 by ivarblaauw

[tonko]

I hope Mexico. Western game without Mexico is like Liverpool without Steven Gerrard.

[CrissRiot]

2 hours ago, Jabalous said:

New interiors don't equate to new map areas. These interiors were either part of the original map but only opened up in Online, or bunkers. NPCs aren't ambient/pedestrian characters, but rather those that give story missions like what we already have in RDRO. I don't believe they're going to build Nuevo Paraiso, as an example, and bring actors to voice 100+ townsfolk, create background story, scripted events and mission types. The amount of effort could entirely be equated to creating a new Single Player game of a smaller scale, which is why it mightn't be wroth it for Red Dead Online only. 

And again, they built San Andreas in such a way that expanding the actual landmass wasnt possible, hence they got around that by adding interiors, almost all of which were made for Online. They also created numerous Online-only characters (The Agent, bringing back Tony), so these things aren't unprecidented.

 

Big thing to take from GTAO is that Rockstar DOES expand how they can. GTAO couldn't physically expand, so they expanded into interiors to flesh out the world. Red Dead doesn't necessarily lend itself well to how GTAO operated (i.e. it doesn't use interior instances, everything is pretty much a flat open map), so how they proceed will likely be in the form of map expansion, i.e. Nuevo Paraiso. Would it be a large undertaking? Hell yes. But GTAO proved New Updates = New Places = New Experiences = More Players = More Revenue.

Edited May 19, 2019 by CrissRiot

[ivarblaauw]

1 hour ago, CrissRiot said:

And again, they built San Andreas in such a way that expanding the actual landmass wasnt possible, hence they got around that by adding interiors, almost all of which were made for Online. They also created numerous Online-only characters (The Agent, bringing back Tony), so these things aren't unprecidented.

 

Big thing to take from GTAO is that Rockstar DOES expand how they can. GTAO couldn't physically expand, so they expanded into interiors to flesh out the world. Red Dead doesn't necessarily lend itself well to how GTAO operated (i.e. it doesn't use interior instances, everything is pretty much a flat open map), so how they proceed will likely be in the form of map expansion, i.e. Nuevo Paraiso. Would it be a large undertaking? Hell yes. But GTAO proved New Updates = New Places = New Experiences = More Players = More Revenue.

I think you are right. Where in GTA one could easily add within the existing landmass, in RDR it will be different, since it would be weird if players have the same houses etc. 

 

Even having said that, everything shows us that R* dug its own 'grave', since they know GTA Online is finite. The last major update was almost a year ago, whereas at first we had them nearly every two months. The map is full and not really much can be added without taking away something else. With RDO, R* can expand the map at least 3 times the current size, and still have options to expand (if we stay within current map bounds.

 

In RDO the world is also much more detailed and already quite full, so adding new stuff in an existing region could actually take away from the reality (look at the camps scattered over the map, now imagine houses, huts, homesteads and camps littered everywhere, it would suck).

[Mastah]

11 hours ago, CrissRiot said:

You never played GTAO then. Lotta new interiors/NPCs were created for Online. A little bit of the Doomsday Heist was intended for SP, but the vast majority of everything else was built for Online. I guarantee you, one of Rockstar/Take2s biggest regrets is not making it easy to expand San Andreas. Lots of dollars opportunities wasted there.

Oh yes, they've only earned more than 6 billion. With expanded map it would be twice, thrice that amount!

 

It seems people underestimate how much resources they need to develop map add-ons. Unless it's done parallel to main game's development (like in Burnout Paradise), they have to:

-take core design team away from working on the next project

-go through the same process as when designing whole new game, just on smaller scale - conceptualizing map, sending crew to take thousands of pictures, making assets, testing and fixing all bugs etc. - and it takes what, 1 or 2 years to only get map ready, without any gameplay

-hire voice actors, record all the lines, populate the map with humans and animals and so on

-congrats, you have map fully ready, now it's time to develop the same content as you would without going through this painful and long process, spending so much time and money

 

So no, there won't be any map expansion. All they're going to do is add more content to already existing map, like they've done with GTA Online.

[ivarblaauw]

@Mastah that is not necessarily true. I have a minor in Gamedesign/gameconcepting and during my study I have seen people create (from scratch, with the necessary assets in library) a map about the size of Tall Trees in a matter of 3-4 hours. Detail would be on par with that of Kingdom Come. 

 

This was one, not super skilled, guy, working with Unity. The trees, houses etc. were already premade ofcourse, so it was 100% leveldesign. But no, it does not take 2 years for a region to be build, especially not for a skilled team of designers. If you have a good team of what? 10 people, they could recreate Nuevo Paraiso in 3 months or less. They already have an npc creator and the clothing styles. 

 

The most important one would be to inhabit the region with missions, but Online already has some sort of radiant system created for that.

Edited May 19, 2019 by ivarblaauw

[ghostsoap01]

That high plains area north of New Austin looks really nice. Its got the red sand with fir trees, makes me think of parts of Utah. You can see it really well in Hennigan's Stead. I'd love to see that added!

East bank of the Lanahechee would be nice, but really it just looks like more Roanoke Ridge type of area.