Empty Mexico in RDR2 could be canon after all.

[Acid_Snake]

Now I'm not the type to come up with wild theories about games, but given the attention to detail in Rockstar games, specially RDR2, many things caught my attention when it comes to the Nuevo Paraiso region.

At first I didn't think too much into it and thought the same as everyone did; Mexico was left unfinished. However my perpective changed when replaying RDR1 again after RDR2 and I was able to notice some interesting details that tie nicely with RDR2's rendition of Mexico.

 

The first thing we all note is the obvious emptiness of the region, except for El Presidio, all other buildings are gone. Many people of course guessed El Presidio was there as it's the only structure viable in New Austin with the naked eye, this is however false even in RDR1 with its lower draw distance, where you can easily spot Escalera and Chuparosa, among others, which are missing in RDR2. I will explain soon why this makes sense and is in fact the only possible thing in RDR2's Mexico.

 

Another key place in Nuevo Paraiso adds even more to the mystery, and I'm talking about the empty graves at El Sepulcro. These empty graves weren't just carried over from RDR1, they were blatantly updated for RDR2 and they also don't seem to match the graves in RDR1. The very existece of this place constrasts greatly with El Presidio, since you are not supposed to see them at a distance, you must actually set out to find them. Which adds another question, what is the point of these empty graves? I will get to that later.

 

The last man-made structure in Nuevo Paraiso is a dock that appears just below El Presidio, which again appears to be just for decoration, but it may well be a hint at something else that could, along with El Sepulcro, explain why Nuevo Paraiso is deserted of any people.

 

Last but not least, another piece of the puzzle can be found in the form of the entrances to the caves at El Matadero and the mines at Plata Grande near Tesoro Azul, or more like, the non-existing entrances. This is even more blatant at El Matadero, where the entrances are sealed off.

 

Why did the bother having such interesting details such as the empty graves at El Sepulcro and the caves at El Matadero when they didn't even bother to have structures like Chuparosa and Escalera?

 

The last peice of this strange puzzle comes in the map that comes with the physical copy of the game, where unlike the in-game map, Mexico is fully labeled and the entire geography chartered, including the outlines of Chuparosa, Las Hermanas, Tesoro Azul, No Salida and Agave Viejo. However when you visit these places in RDR2, only the ground work can be found, but not the structures themselves. When viewed closely, all of these structures, while very similar in design to RDR1, they appear to be different: Chuparosa doesn't seem to have a wall surrouding it and is missing a few buildings. Agave Viejo seems to be much smaller. Overall it appears as if though they are the original layout before the final building was complete.

 

Now, to piece together the puzzle, we need to pay close attention to a few details that both RDR1 and RDR2 give about Mexico that are extremely hard to miss.

 

- Despite being a considerably poorer region compared to New Austin, all the buildings and settlements are notoriously more luxurious and modern compared to New Austin.

 

- All settlements in RDR1's Mexico have signs of deterioration except for Escalera.

 

- All settlements in RDR1's mexico appear to use the same materials and build patterns, except for those built by the rebels such as Torquemada and various destroyed houses.

 

- Despite having more bigger settlements than New Austin, the vast mayority of Nuevo Paraiso is just as empty in RDR1 as it is in RDR2, unlike New Austin that is full of people and small camps everywhere. This hints at the region probably being unpopulated if it weren't for those settlements.

 

All of this points to one and only one possible explanation: Nuevo Paraiso in RDR1 is a relatively newly populated and constructed area and the game implies this with two interesting conversions:

 

- Allende mentions to John that he had built that province himself (he mentions having brough civilization to this land). This means Escalera, Chuparosa, Las Hermanas, and other big settlements were built when he took power.

 

- John mentions to Reyes that in America they talk about the Mexican president Ignacio Sanchez doing a lot of good work to grow and build the country. This implies Mexico had a big economic boom during the years Sanchez and Allender where in power.

 

- In RDR2 it is implied that there's growing tensions between the US and Mexico, which explains why it's difficult to cross the border, and there's an aparent civil war. This cannot be the same civil war we see in RDR1, since by the time of RDR1 the president of Mexico appears to be working on fixing relations with the US, and the timing doesn't add up between 1899 and 1911.

 

 

After analyzing the facts its appears clearly hinted that Nuevo Paraiso's emptiness is actually the canon rendition. Having Chuparosa, Escalera, and the other settlements in Mexico in 1899 would make no sense from a story point of view.

 

The final conclusions are:

 

- Nuevo Paraiso was originally an empty wasteland with very few farmers and houses. This would also be true with northern Mexico during that period in real life.

 

- The civil war that led to Sanchez becoming president would have obliterated all the shacks and farms of the local peasants. As you can see in RDR1 with Luisa's house being burnt down, and several other destroyed houses being scatered around as well as the fire bottles thrown in Tesoro Azul during The Demon Drink, it shows that Mexicans are prone to destroy buildings during wars. If these buildings are made of wood as they probably were before Allende took over and started constructing more modern buildings, they would basically disapear and leave no trace, we've seen this with shacks in New Austin between RDR1 and RDR2.

 

- The civil war would have most likely forced the local residents to flee, either to New Austin or to sourthern Mexico, as what happens with Luisa's sister in RDR1. This would explain the dock at El Presidio being intact, if it was used until the last very moment until the area becase deserted. It would also explain the presense of the Del Lobo gang in New Austin, as they could be runaway mexicans fleeing the war torned Nuevo Paraiso.

 

- The reason El Presidio is the only structure that appears is because it was most likely built by the Spanish during colonial times. It however appears to have been abandoned and lacks many of the things we will see later in RDR1.

 

- The empty graves at El Matadero point at grave robbers. The fact not a single body is left would indicate extreme poverty and that eventually people stopped being burried there for a while. It is more than known that grave robbers exist in RDR (Seth and Moses).

 

- The closed caves in El Matader and the closed mines in Plata Grande seem to point at the fact that they were built after RDR2's epilogue. It also appears that Tesoro Azul and El Matadero were built around these caves. Tesoro Azul becoming empoverished when the mine closed, which appear to have closed not long before the events of RDR1.

 

- By the time of the epologue in RDR2, the Mexican civil war should have ended and Allende should have gained power and started building his Nuevo Paraiso. Which is exactly what we see in RDR2: the ground works for Nuevo Paraiso.

 

- They probably used Chinese labor to construct all the buildings in Nuevo Paraiso, which might explain the rise of the area in such a small amount of time between RDR2's epilogue and RDR1.

 

 

There are probably more conclusions that can be thought of, but for now I will conclude by just saying that it simply doesn't make any sense to have any other building than El Presidio in RDR2's Mexico, and it makes perfect sense for the area to be completely deserted.

[Cutter De Blanc]

Its either in the mexico topic or the beta hunt topic, but they found the models for like Chuparosa and a few others, they're just low detail and completely disabled

[Acid_Snake]

6 hours ago, Cutter De Blanc said:

Its either in the mexico topic or the beta hunt topic, but they found the models for like Chuparosa and a few others, they're just low detail and completely disabled

Leftovers from RDR1. With Rockstar's attention to detail, and having these LOD textures there, why didn't they use them to decorate Mexico?

Simply because it doesn't make any sense. The New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso we see in RDR2 are from 1899, by that time Allende was still not the governor, so he hadn't built Escalera, Chuparosa and others yet.

In RDR1 it's made clear that Allende turned that area from a savage wasteland into a civilize country. John himself comments on that to Reyes too, saying that in America they see Allende has done a lot of work to improve the area.

In Undead Nightmare it is revealed that Allende had built on top of Aztec ruins, and this is actually visible if you notice the difference in textures between the ground work that appear to be of Aztec style, and the buildings on top that appear much more modern.

 

There's also other details like the empty graves and the marked entrance to the catacombs in Escalera being clearly visible, that seem to be a reference to Undead Nightmare.

Also the caves at Plata Grande are sealed by a perfectly cut stone wall, much like the entrance to an Aztec temple or catacomb, one of which has some washed out drawing.z

 

A similar thing happens in the caves at El Matadero, though those appear to have been sealed by sand accumulating over time.

 

There's just too many things that point to Mexico being unfinished, but in the completely wrong direction that people think, it's not unfinished because it lacks RDR1 buildings, those don't make sense in RDR2 (at least on 1899), it's unfinished as it lacks even more removal of RDR1 buildings like like the train tracks and tunnel, Nuevo Paraiso is meant to be mostly deserted with remnants of old forgotten civilazions, mostly the Aztecs in the west (Escalera, Chuparosa) and Spaniards in the east (El Presidio, Torquemada).

[CataniaSicilyMan]

On 7/7/2022 at 12:48 PM, Acid_Snake said:

- In RDR2 it is implied that there's growing tensions between the US and Mexico, which explains why it's difficult to cross the border, and there's an aparent civil war. This cannot be the same civil war we see in RDR1, since by the time of RDR1 the president of Mexico appears to be working on fixing relations with the US, and the timing doesn't add up between 1899 and 1911.

The fact that it's not the same civil war is also confirmed by John when he says "Revolution? Another one?" to Ricketts, and he explains how there is "...another local guy running around and promising the peasants their freedom", i.e. Abraham Reyes.

[stag3coach2]

It is pretty clear that the buildings in Mexico are quite old. Las Hermanas monastery for example is clearly a baroque building from the 18th century. So no, no way it is cannon, more like Rockstar ran out of time and left unfinished that part of the map.

[Jabalous]

I honestly don't think the writers thought about the whole thing to this level of detail you're explaining, otherwise they would've also left out New Austin. Why? Because in RDR, I remember it was heavily implied, or stated explicitly if I don't remember well, that John has never been to New Austin or most of it. In RDR2, we reached to as far as Tumbleweed to engage in some bounty hunting. The simple explanation is that R* didn't have the time to include Nuevo Paraiso and do it justice. I wish they'd have planned it for a Story DLC playing Javier, but they don't do that anymore if it's not for Online, unfortunately

Edited July 14 by Jabalous

[LeonVegaSuarez]

A lot of overthinking. 

 

Maybe Rockstar had plans to include Mexico at some point but when they figured out they weren't going to obviously they didn't think it was necessary to put complete buildings and settlements there. 

[Cyper]

RDR2 takes place in 1907 and RDR1 in 1911. Many buildings in Mexico is clearly older than four years. Las Hermanas is from the 18th century. There are other buildings that must be older than four years due to its wear and tear. From canon we know that Mexico suffered two civil wars. If your theory is correct, we must conclude that both of these wars broke out during the period 1907- and 1911 while all towns and settlements simultaneously were being built up from scratch.

 

Therefore, my conclusion is that the most probable answer is that Mexico was scrapped (which explains why its so detailed and why there are remains from RDR1). Why it was scrapped no one knows for sure except the folks at Rockstar.

 

[Edward RDRIII]

I just wish Rockstar didn't make El Presidio visible from New Austin since there's nothing else there (Torquemada, Chuparosa, Escalera, etc...), it feels weird seeing one of Nuevo Paraíso settlements, but not the others.

[Unspoken OH]

I'm 99.99% sure that the developers had the intention to include a fully fledged Mexico in RDR2 and they may have began the work but was scrapped later on. I'm pretty certain it had something to do with game production issues. Imagine if they had added Mexico, the game would be 200gb or more. There has to be limits unfortunately. 

[DarkDayz]

Overthinking it.

 

Mexico is not supposed to be accessible. They made crude flat buildings that would be visible from the other side of the river but nothing else.

 

We can't begin to theorise about why they left things out of a portion of the map that nobody was ever supposed to access. 

[Edward RDRIII]

5 hours ago, DarkDayz said:

Overthinking it.

 

Mexico is not supposed to be accessible. They made crude flat buildings that would be visible from the other side of the river but nothing else.

 

We can't begin to theorise about why they left things out of a portion of the map that nobody was ever supposed to access. 

Exactly, this is too hard to understard for some people, I don't know why, there's nothing in Mexico because we're not supposed to access it, that simple.