GTA V Map...Soooooo, is this really all there is?

[omega 616]

snip

Don't get me wrong, the game is awesome.... Has a few niggles but nothing that ruins the experience. It just feels weird that they stuck everything into the bottom of the map and the rest are just hills. It's more of "but why?" rather than "this is shitty".

To be honest, the game has to make some concessions and think this is one of them. The city is so beautiful, detailed and varied (as in you don't see copy and paste shop fronts) that they can only fit so much of that in without a crazy install time (the installation already takes a long time).

 

[piinyouri]

Please do correct me if I'm wrong about this(it has been some while since I played San Andreas) but weren't the country/desert bits in SA mostly empty too? I never looked at it as "Look at all this dead space! This place needs some side quests or NPC's!" but more as a quiet retreat away from the city and the mayhem. A place to go to just chill and explore.

 

[Something Amyss]

Even if it is, it sure doesn't feel like the biggest map. The suburbs of San Andreas and the huge countryside make it feel larger.

That's both a blessing and a curse. It feels like they fell short of their goals, but at the same time, it isn't a complete snore to get around like Just Cause (and to an extent, JC2).

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Yeap, fun fact is, Saints Row, Minecraft, any UE3 based game, Oblivion, Skyrim - all those other games and their game engines can also make areas on par or larger than GTAV's. Heck, I've been mucking with Unity3D and I can pull off designing a similar world.

OT: I'm using UE3 in a game's development course in doing at college. I generated the largest area I could, 4000 x 4000. Can't seem to find any info on how it translates to real world scale. But the sheer size of it is staggering, I set markers up in the corners and the middle and I couldn't see them.

Comparing the map for San Andreas and GTAV, the terrain and features don't exactly line up. And yeah, square mileage doesn't count. No San Fiero or Las Venturas and 90% empty space doesn't make this game bigger than all the others put together.

 

[Brotha Desmond]

I've been saying this since the map was leaked and was giving hell for it. Aside from missions I never have any motivation to leave the one small(ish) city on the map since there is virtually nothing to do and hardly anything of not to see.

 

[Ravage]

Don't forget there's an entire body of water that, by itself, is bigger than Red Dead Redemption's entire map. They're just factoring that in. But where else are you going to see such a large amount of detail in such a large map, right?

 

[Doopliss64]

RDR's map always felt huge to me, but in retrospect I guess that comes down to the fact that a) You only had primitive turn-of-the-century transportation technology and b) that the game used the long travel times in conjunction with clever biome transitions to make it FEEL as if your commutes were country-spanning odysseys. If RDR had had helicopters and planes, I'm sure it would have felt laughably small, as you could just zoom up to the top of the map and see that the mountainous plains to the north were unrealistically close to Mexico, within a few miles even.

So, yes, GTA V's map is ginormous, but there's nothing to make a large space feel small like extremely efficient modern transportation methods.

 

[GiantRaven]

Don't forget there's an entire body of water that, by itself, is bigger than Red Dead Redemption's entire map. They're just factoring that in. But where else are you going to see such a large amount of detail in such a large map, right?

Do you mean the inland sea in the middle the map? If so then that's definitely where I'm accounting for a lot of missing space because I wasn't really perceiving it as particularly big.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

So how long before we get a Las Venturas DLC with an Ocean's Eleven style bank heist?

 

[Azaraxzealot]

San Andreas still exists, and still holds that honor for biggest map.

Biggest map ever is some open-world driving game. I think elder scrolls games before morrowind also have larger worlds as well.

 

[PLightstar]

San Andreas still exists, and still holds that honor for biggest map.

Biggest map ever is some open-world driving game. I think elder scrolls games before morrowind also have larger worlds as well.

Yeah Daggerfall was about the size of the UK. Just Cause 2 map is pretty big, but there are plenty of ways to traverse it quickly so it doesn't become boring to travel across. I am enjoying the GTAV map, but I was hoping for the other 2 cities aswell. Just hope the next GTA is brand new and doesn't include any cities from GTA1.

 

[A Weakgeek]

San Andreas still exists, and still holds that honor for biggest map.

Biggest map ever is some open-world driving game. I think elder scrolls games before morrowind also have larger worlds as well.

Yeah Daggerfall was about the size of the UK. Just Cause 2 map is pretty big, but there are plenty of ways to traverse it quickly so it doesn't become boring to travel across. I am enjoying the GTAV map, but I was hoping for the other 2 cities aswell. Just hope the next GTA is brand new and doesn't include any cities from GTA1.

ARMA III is also way bigger, it is an actual island from greece

Spoiler

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

I have movies, base jumping, planes, cable cars, and large mountains in the same game. I really like it.

Yeah i have that game too it is called Just Cause 2. And the map is pretty huge too.

 

[shootthebandit]

I have movies, base jumping, planes, cable cars, and large mountains in the same game. I really like it.

Yeah i have that game too it is called Just Cause 2. And the map is pretty huge too.

Just cause 2 map in no way has the same impact as GTA V. Theres shit tons to do in JC2 but when you look closely it just repeats the same task over and over. Sure there are some cool vehicles but theres only a few times you can grapple a boat to a jumbo jet before it gets boring. GTA V has some sort of substance backing up the humour the world may not be as massive as JC2 but every inch of it seems alive and organic whereas JC 2 map just feels a bit flaccid.

 

[ItsNotRudy]

From the first screenshot of the map it was already clear 95% of it was gonna be unused terrain such as hills, forests etc.

 

[Bad Jim]

These aren't complaints though. A map as big as they say would get dull fast. Imagine having a 15/20 minute drive to get to Sandy Shores. It would be awful.

If the map was that big there would be fast travel options. Bus stops, for example. Maybe starting missions from the map screen and being able to warp to the next objective. Maybe they could put a few small airfields around so the player could fly.

Also, the map in San Andreas was made manageable by the fact that you generally stayed within one area, doing lots of missions before moving on to the next. You rarely had to travel from one side of the map to the other.

 

[WaysideMaze]

I don't mind the open wilderness, gives me something different to explore when I'm tired of the city. I would have liked a more built up area somewhere north. Not necessarily another LS size city, just a decent sized town on the north coast would have been cool.

 

[mad825]

These aren't complaints though. A map as big as they say would get dull fast. Imagine having a 15/20 minute drive to get to Sandy Shores. It would be awful.

If the map was that big there would be fast travel options. Bus stops, for example. Maybe starting missions from the map screen and being able to warp to the next objective. Maybe they could put a few small airfields around so the player could fly.

Also, the map in San Andreas was made manageable by the fact that you generally stayed within one area, doing lots of missions before moving on to the next. You rarely had to travel from one side of the map to the other.

But there are already options. You can use a Taxi to go anywhere you want (within reason) and instantaneously warp there at a push of a button.

Personally, I see "fast travel" as a cheap way to combat bad game design. It's very tempting to implement because it means less work for them.