GTA V is empty compared to GTA San Andreas or Red Dead Redemption 2

[Accuracy_challenges 32]

I decided this was the best forum to set up the topic i am sorry if it isn't.

 

 

I have finished 2 games by Rockstar, GTA V and Rdr2, and i am playing San Andreas.

 

 

To me, the world of GTA V is kinda empty when compared to these games. Outside of missions there is very little to do. Exploration is basically pointless.

 

Meanwhile the world in RDR2 feels alive and full. There is always something to do. Bounties, hunting, fishing, robberies, something for everyone. I have finished the main quest, done the 70 gold medals achievement, and yet i am very very far away from being anywhere near having done everything availaible.

 

Same with GTA SA there is a lot to do.

 

 

I dunno why people say GTA V is so good. Imho it's very empty compared to these games. There is basically nothing to do. 

 

[0909090 985]

A lot more care and effort went into RDR2 than GTA V or really any other Rockstar game. The wildlife, interactive NPCs, random events, and the level of detail in general just make it a superior game to many of us.

I think V suffered a lot because it was made with singleplayer dlcs in mind, but they were never released in the end. I think with RDR2 the team knew they aren't going to expand the SP part post-release, so we got a much larger campaign, with an epilogue that feels like a short game of its own.

[JaeDan 101 693]

On 1/21/2021 at 10:00 PM, Accuracy_challenges said:

There is basically nothing to do. 

Play GTA Online instead of GTA 5 Story Mode

[reeversky 25]

I completely agree. Modding is the only reason I still play GTA V occasionally. After finishing the story, the few side missions available are so boring that I didn't even care to play them.

[TheSantader25 7,535]

I never understood this statement. GTA V has a lot of side content when you compare it to the other entries in the series. The only GTA that slightly beats it in this regard has to be GTA San Andreas. You can look at the list of things the two games have available for you to do and you find identical results. The quality of the content though is another thing to discuss. RDR2 definitely takes longer than the other two to complete but while I found RDR2 to be an exceptional game I found a lot of the side content (those f*cking challenges) to be tedious.

 

But I 100% agree with the world feeling lacking compared to RDR2 and SA. While I found the map to be more interesting than most other GTA games and being very accessible and masterfully designed for fun, it does feel lacking and empty at times and that's clearly because of lack of interiors and having only one city. 

Edited February 22 by TheSantader25

[Americana 8,203]

I don't understand one thing. People always praise 3D Era Grand Theft Auto games for having these side-missions, but to be honest, nobody really enjoys doing them. 

[MiamiViceCity1986 52,262]

On 2/24/2021 at 4:35 AM, Americana said:

I don't understand one thing. People always praise 3D Era Grand Theft Auto games for having these side-missions, but to be honest, nobody really enjoys doing them. 

I don’t.

 

There’s really maybe a couple of side missions/activities I really enjoy from the 3D era, but the large majority of them are tedious, overrated and just not very fun. Having more means jack sh*t to me.

 

I feel ever since GTA IV across every every R* game made since the side missions/activities are generally better fleshed with alot more thought put into them. They even have a better sense of context IMO.

 

You won’t see HD era protagonists delivering pizzas or fighting fires for no reason. Just about every side mission/activity is usually explained away by the narrative.. It’s more immersive and gratifying if you ask me than just a bunch of random side missions/activities being thrown in for something to do.

Edited March 7 by Algonquin Assassin

[Americana 8,203]

That's what I think. Every single side-mission in any 3D Era Grand Theft Auto game is meaningless and annoying as hell.

[MiamiViceCity1986 52,262]

1 minute ago, Americana said:

That's what I think. Every single side-mission in any 3D Era Grand Theft Auto game is meaningless and annoying as hell.

The ones I did were mostly for the end rewards like increased health, armour etc, but boy were they a slog to get through.

[BrynnaDaRosa 145]

I feel this way but i've never played RDR2 and I only played San Andreas for a few minutes in 2012. Instead I'm comparing it to IV. At this point i like GTAO more than story mode, but there's just another different environmental emptiness, but with a player character I've made, dressed up, and gotten attached to.

[FranticGrape 1]

It's probably empty because people are sick of all the cheaters using cheat codes.

 

They're probably also sick of being constantly attacked by Oppressors (flying bikes) and then being sent to the Bad Sport arena for 6 months for simply defending themselves against these same Oppressors.

Edited March 12 by FranticGrape

[FanEu7 671]

RDR2's open world is the most detailed and immersive I have ever seen.. 

 

V's open world is still way better than SA, its not even close

[Jokeman123 32]

On 3/13/2021 at 2:03 PM, FanEu7 said:

RDR2's open world is the most detailed and immersive I have ever seen.. 

 

V's open world is still way better than SA, its not even close

Yup

[geekblog 0]

GTA 5 is LUV! Can play 24X7X365!

Edited June 18 by geekblog

[KingAJ032304 928]

On 2/22/2021 at 1:19 AM, TheSantader25 said:

I never understood this statement. GTA V has a lot of side content when you compare it to the other entries in the series. The only GTA that slightly beats it in this regard has to be GTA San Andreas. You can look at the list of things the two games have available for you to do and you find identical results. The quality of the content though is another thing to discuss. RDR2 definitely takes longer than the other two to complete but while I found RDR2 to be an exceptional game I found a lot of the side content (those f*cking challenges) to be tedious.

 

But I 100% agree with the world feeling lacking compared to RDR2 and SA. While I found the map to be more interesting than most other GTA games and being very accessible and masterfully designed for fun, it does feel lacking and empty at times and that's clearly because of lack of interiors and having only one city. 

Gta VCS "slightly beats it". GTA SA has significatly more content.

[sabitsuki 4,080]

As tedious and monetarily unrewarding as they are, I'd have to give credit to some of the wet work missions in Online. I feel a lot of the content in GTA Online gives me the same sort of feel as the side missions in the older games, albeit with a more personal gains feel which was definitely missing in them.  I wish that Rockstar adds those sort of missions to 6's SP as a way to let the players feel in control of the city.

 

I personally enjoyed the Nightclubs, Gunrunning and Import-Export DLCs along with their respective activities. Promoting the club, selling weapons and cars to clients made you really feel like a Level 100 Boss in one of those Mafia City ads rather than the sort of padded out, scripted missions featured in the vanilla game.

Edited July 16 by DownInThePMs

[Fidzy 581]

On 2/22/2021 at 6:19 AM, TheSantader25 said:

I never understood this statement. GTA V has a lot of side content when you compare it to the other entries in the series. The only GTA that slightly beats it in this regard has to be GTA San Andreas. You can look at the list of things the two games have available for you to do and you find identical results. The quality of the content though is another thing to discuss. RDR2 definitely takes longer than the other two to complete but while I found RDR2 to be an exceptional game I found a lot of the side content (those f*cking challenges) to be tedious.

 

But I 100% agree with the world feeling lacking compared to RDR2 and SA. While I found the map to be more interesting than most other GTA games and being very accessible and masterfully designed for fun, it does feel lacking and empty at times and that's clearly because of lack of interiors and having only one city. 

 

My 100% checklist gives you an idea of just how much there is to do after the storyline. Of course this doesn't take into account the time it takes to perform any of the activities but San Andreas still takes the lead for number of post storyline activities.

https://ibb.co/qp7y8p1

 

(Bonus LCS, CTW & Bully android checklist https://ibb.co/bXs7Xty)

Edited July 17 by Fidzy

[TheSantader25 7,535]

On 7/17/2021 at 11:23 AM, Fidzy said:

 

My 100% checklist gives you an idea of just how much there is to do after the storyline. Of course this doesn't take into account the time it takes to perform any of the activities but San Andreas still takes the lead for number of post storyline activities.

https://ibb.co/qp7y8p1

 

(Bonus LCS, CTW & Bully android checklist https://ibb.co/bXs7Xty)

Nice checklist. Based on howlongtobeat.com SA takes 82 hours to complete while V and IV take around 77 hours. RDR2 takes 167 hours lol. Though I think the numbers were lower for me but that could be the average.

[Fidzy 581]

On 7/17/2021 at 9:35 AM, TheSantader25 said:

Nice checklist. Based on howlongtobeat.com SA takes 82 hours to complete while V and IV take around 77 hours. RDR2 takes 167 hours lol. Though I think the numbers were lower for me but that could be the average.

That's about right, it took me literally weeks to finish RDR2 playing 4-5 hours a day

[The Tracker 1,692]

On 7/17/2021 at 10:35 AM, TheSantader25 said:

Nice checklist. Based on howlongtobeat.com SA takes 82 hours to complete while V and IV take around 77 hours. RDR2 takes 167 hours lol. Though I think the numbers were lower for me but that could be the average.

 

I think the "Completionist" duration takes into account not only the 100% completation, but everything there is to discover and finish in the game that isn't required for it, like the whole Compendium, missable content, interactable secrets, and even achievements. Try to get all of this and it will take you ages. 

Edited July 17 by The Tracker

[paperbagdude 7,204]

I agree.

 

The map has quite a lot of dead space between the various locations of interests (e.g. Los Santos, Sandy Shores, Paleto Bay), and to some extent, that is okay as remote locations are vital to the map. However, especially the Eastern and Northern coast of the map has little to none to offer, other than coastline and the Humane Labs plus NOOSE HQ to the East. As for the hills to the North of Los Santos (marked red in spoiler), it becomes more severe.

Spoiler

 

While it isn't surprising that the coastlines and their surrounding area is limited of content to explore, as it serves primarily as the world's landlocked boundary, having a large, central part of the map consisting of nothing but plain hills, a couple of farms and a tree here and there seems more like laziness from the developers' part rather than a deliberate and rational choice to do so. Yeah sure - they added a couple of caves including the mineshaft to the terrain years ago, but the area still fails to provide any real purpose or interest in roaming and exploring what so ever.

 

Generally speaking, there are plenty of locations including some with their locked interiors that have totally missed out on their potential, in terms of making the game more interesting to explore and interact within, which applies for both singleplayer and Online. And don't let me miss mentioning the potential some of the surrounding islands could have had.

[Lioshenka 1,366]

I agree. I haven't played a game so much praised and hyped by its developers and yet so boring and shallow.

 

In a nutshell, half the map is the grey motorway spaghetti, the other half - brown desert sand. The mountains were a massive waste of space, for instance, with empty slopes and badly designed routes up. The city lacked colourful areas with unique character.

 

It reminds me of the original Far Cry and the criticism it faces - it's as if R* were no longer interested in making the map engagine and exciting, they just filled in the space with roads and cacti. Is it realistic? LA residents may argue that it is; but is it fun and fulfilling to play and explore? God no.

[CynicalMexican 3,559]

On 7/20/2021 at 2:26 AM, Lioshenka said:

I agree. I haven't played a game so much praised and hyped by its developers and yet so boring and shallow.

 

In a nutshell, half the map is the grey motorway spaghetti, the other half - brown desert sand. The mountains were a massive waste of space, for instance, with empty slopes and badly designed routes up. The city lacked colourful areas with unique character.

 

It reminds me of the original Far Cry and the criticism it faces - it's as if R* were no longer interested in making the map engagine and exciting, they just filled in the space with roads and cacti. Is it realistic? LA residents may argue that it is; but is it fun and fulfilling to play and explore? God no.

 

You know, to add on to the shallowness, I really hate how ped interactivity is so dumbed down.

 

Conversations are limited unless you play as Trevor with his hilarious ass burns. All peds will automatically hate you after 5 seconds, and their actions seem limited. They also don't seem to react much unless the player does something. 

 

Yes, I know I'm a massive WD2 fanboy and will say that game beats GTA V when it comes to ped interaction, but that game was made purely on new hardware with a large team, and a different engine, so I'm not gonna go too hard here. It's just that GTA 5 *feels* immersive, but then it feels hollow.

 

I think one thing that R* made a mistake in is making every ped feel like a stereotype. I know it's always been this way, but it felt very toned down in GTA 4. In GTA 5, everyone feels fake. I guess it's "because it's LA" but come on now.

[KvynB 4]

No matter how much we request them to improve or enhance the game they busy be focusing on GTAO. They need to some new aspects in game to make look more lively. More interactions should be added to players and peds and diff skills should be added to random peds. Some new activities (in singleplayer) should also be added. They have a good engine and they can make good use of it in SP also.

[CynicalMexican 3,559]

On 7/22/2021 at 11:39 PM, KvynB said:

No matter how much we request them to improve or enhance the game they busy be focusing on GTAO. They need to some new aspects in game to make look more lively. More interactions should be added to players and peds and diff skills should be added to random peds. Some new activities (in singleplayer) should also be added. They have a good engine and they can make good use of it in SP also.

I wish they just expanded the map and content for SP with missions. Either they're cheap, putting all the attention on VI, or both.

[Kris194 10,538]

Of course it's empty, most locations even in Los Santos don't serve any purpose in this game. Restaurants, nightclubs, mall, hotels, gym  nothing of all of this have any purpose in GTA V, it's there just to be there.

Edited July 24 by Kris194

[Emmi 10,781]

Bully, GTA IV and RDR2 do have the most engaging and interactive worlds to date. RDR2 is far and beyond the number 1 and will be until GTA VI comes around. I see no other developer getting even close.

[CynicalMexican 3,559]

On 8/12/2021 at 3:24 AM, Emmi said:

Bully, GTA IV and RDR2 do have the most engaging and interactive worlds to date. RDR2 is far and beyond the number 1 and will be until GTA VI comes around. I see no other developer getting even close.

Bully has such a unique and interesting concept and I wish they would revisit it. Would stand out in today's gaming market.

[Emmi 10,781]

7 hours ago, CynicalMexican said:

Bully has such a unique and interesting concept and I wish they would revisit it. Would stand out in today's gaming market.

 

Absolutely. I'll start another playthrough soon. Before I will finish my 2nd RDR2 one though, currently at around 40% overall completion (25% story) with 40 hours of playtime so far. So good!