Hello everyone and welcome to the channel. In this video I’d like to go over the reasons that GTA V’s map is just kind of boring. Los Santos and Blaine County are lacking and have been for quite some time. Hopefully I can explain why I feel this way, Grand Theft Auto 5 has lasted much longer than it had any right to, mainly because of GTA Online. It’s a shame it was never updated in any way.
Thank you for watching!
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
01:05 - Size & Shape
03:21 - A Boring Layout
04:46 - The City
06:55 - The Countryside
07:59 - Conclusion
#gta #gta5 #ps5
It always annoyed me that they got to the effort of designing a whole interior like the life invader building and you're only allowed in it once during a 5 minute mission. That's so so stupid
And that they designed like 50 guns and car parts but neither driving and shooting feel that good Rockstar had priorities wrong
I think it was the limitations of the hardware most likely. If they could have I don’t see why they wouldn’t
@@alrvwpvekcopI mean opening up the building wouldn’t be that hard, modders have already done it to more than just the lifeinvader building so obviously it can’t be something that requires a whole game rebuild
@@KhaosInductionCreator The saddest interior is the mission row pd. You can only explore the front upstairs entrance. The briefing room is locked, and the jail below the pd and back entrance aren't accessible. Only get to explore it for a 2 minute hiest setup in gtao.
@chrissy9466 yeah it's crazy they go to all that effort for 2 minutes of gameplay then block it off
"The actual size of the map doesn't really matter when the perception is telling you otherwise" EXACTLY! GTA V and San Andreas are probably the 2 videogames I've spent the most time playing and after memorizing GTA V's map, I remember coming to the conclusion that the game had a "smaller" map than San Andreas. Obviously I immediately did some quick internet research because, as it turned out, that just couldn't be possible...but my perception was actually not wrong: SA's map FELT bigger! Why? Because it contained THREE (not 1, not 2, 3) main cities (and each one actually had it's vibe and atmosphere), TEN minor towns spread across the map, so many different forests (Shady creeks, Back o Beyond, North Rock, The Panopticon, the area around Catalina's house), Mt. Chilliad, the desert and more unique areas (Bayside and the cordillera, all the weird and creepy areas). And of course because it had a much more squared shape in comparison to V, it meant that you could move from an area to an other in so many different ways. For example if I wanted to go from Los Santos to Bayside, I could get there through Red County, or by going to Las Venturas first or even by passing through San Fierro! I think (and hope) that GTA VI's map ends up being much more similar to San Andreas's one than to V's map. Hopefully we'll get a 3rd major city besides VC and Port Gellhorn and I really hope that they make the various areas of the map unique and full of unique areas. As you said, many areas of the countryside just feel so hollow in GTA V.
San Andreas is not that big and driving through the whole state did not take that long, but the map felt like a galaxy of distinct places with unique environments, and that is why it seems SUBSTANCIALLY BIGGER than GTA V's underwhelming map.
Well it's not that big today, of course. But for a game that was release in 2004 on the PS2, that was a BIG map. In fact GTA IV's map was SMALLER in terms of square km @@rafaeltemplario
Actually in my opinion the biggest problem is LS itself, Liberty City for example was just a single city yet it never felt small for me I always felt a disconnect between how the city looked in certain misisons Vs what it felt like when i played it, Biggest example is that mission where Trevor visits LS for the first time and stops to look at the city from the top of a mountain, The city looks MASSIVE in that mission, But that's mostly because of how many lights there were You know what i realize tho? More than half those lights were actually from street light poles, Then it clicked for me! Because so much of the space of the city is taken up by massive 6 lane streets and highways and intersections, The actual buildings which is what makes a city special are very few and scattered, So if you've played the game longer than 5 hours you're already tired of seeing the same buildings over and over again which kills the immersion of this being a big city, Made worst by the fact not even 5% of those buildings are enterable
I know every rock in RDR2
@@kidguerrila my feeling exactly. I can't understand what's interesting about LS as it is just roads... Liberty City was a walkable city, as is real life NYC. Nobody walks in LA but at least it is a megalopolis, LS feels more like Oklahoma City... Just a pile of empty skyscrapers in the middle of a suburban void 😢
I always thought the beginning area in Strawberry felt the most alive. You had Franklin’s house, the strip club, a car wash, a convenience store, a clothes store, the car dealership, ammunation and a bunch of side missions all densely packed into a relatively small area. All of this along with the incredibly detailed environment, I remember just walking around that area on release day with Chop, taking in the atmosphere and thinking it was amazing. It’s a shame this didn’t really carry through for the rest of the game. The story quickly hurries you out of that area and then you soon find that, despite everything looking amazing, there’s really not much more to see.
@@PauloHernandezXDtbh it's pretty similar with most open world games although not as noticeable now. Back then they were able to make a new GTA in 12 months.
They probably rushed other areas as the release date comes closer
@@burakroket They planned to fix all of this later via DLC but didn't because of Take2's greed once they saw how profitable GTAO was. *⚠️WARNING! LONG READ AHEAD! ⚠️* It's a massive shame because someday all GTAO servers will be taken offline, thus effectively locking all content added there back in time. GTA:V was an incredible success because of how different it was at the time. If we were to objectively examine it in today's landscape, we'd see just how rushed, mediocre & poorly written this game truly is. The game's plot is _somewhat_ probable at best, and extremely convoluted at worst. You need graphics mods to improve the, you guessed it, graphics to modern day standards (even the "Expanded & Enhanced" version looks like doodoo!); You need Zolika's Patch for game breaking bugs; Euphoria was downgraded, you need mods to fix that; You need mods to UNLOCK INTERIORS YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN IN BUT CANT ACCESS BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT ON MISSION (-cough cough- LifeInvader anyone?). This just goes to show what gems and household icons of media Rockstar can put out when they didn't reach their full potential. RDR2 showed what they can achieve. I full believe that GTA:VI (with offline DLC and regular updates, not just to GTAO2) will be absolutely revolutionary, forever raising the bar in what it means to produce masterpieces. Thank you for reading my TEDTalk. *TL,DR: GTAV bad cuz no updates bcuz T2 greed, GTAVI brek internet and gaming world 4evrr*
Franklin's Vinewood Hills house feels so far away from everything, and going from there to anywhere always feels like a chore. I think the first section of the game is the reason I've played so many different saves. That early game environment is such a cool experience.
I hated how short that part of the game was. I wanted to see more of Franklin and Lamar’s story, let alone Franklin living with his aunt. It feels like in half an hour he goes from the hood to the hills
It's crazy how theres simultaneously SO many things to do, vehicle races, triathlon, hunting, parachute challenges, flight school, golf, tennis, darts, shooting range, rollercoaster (singular), taxi side job, friends meet ups, strip clubs, lots of collectables, and yet NOTHING to do and nowhere to go, the game has so much content on the surface but feels so empty and lifeless
Bro said strip clubs 💀
@@R4VNG3 ok club* and I don't even think anyone goes in there😂
It may sound crazy, but LS being lifeless and boring is actually an accurate portrayal of American cities. It's all built for driving from Point A to B, barely anyone walking and feels like a concrete husk. Even the countryside doesn't escape from this. Compare LS to the maps found in the Yakuza series, and it's night and day.
@@AeonPhoenixSaints row was in America and had plenty of life Don’t gone that lazy excuse for the devs it feels lifeless because the passion for the game wasn’t there
@@lilericinnacut Don't get me wrong, I know modern Rockstar is soulless when it came to GTA 5. It's just that the issues of the map design became an eerie representation of American city design.
I think people have come to realize that map size is not a good selling point for most games. What makes a world feel real is depth.
Which GTA 6 won't have
@@PointNemo9 judging a game that ain’t even out yet. Get real man
@@alrvwpvekcop The writing is on the wall considering what happened to GTA V
@@PointNemo9 look at RDR2
@@PointNemo9 What happened to GTA 5?
The last part at the end is probably the best way to describe the problem of GTA V’s map, it wasn’t made to last a decade. GTA Online caught Rockstar off guard of the success. If GTA Online failed, we would’ve gotten VI sooner. Rockstar just kept milking V
I wonder if it was for better or worse
I mean i kinda get why they are milking it. Its a money printing game so why stop it ? Also now they spent more money on gta vi (alledgedly 2billion dollars)
I mean they were working on rdr 2 and when the pandemic hit the game was delayed if we didn’t have the pandemic I theorise we would have the game like the right now
That might be the case but still no we wouldn’t have gotten it sooner. Rockstar isn’t just producing for the GTA franchise. Between 2013 and 2018 all of rockstar’s resources were focused on making Red Dead Redemption 2, a game with over a half a million lines of dialogue, so a game of that size means it would take years to create. Rockstar has only really been working on GTA 6 since 2019-2020 so it makes sense and wouldn’t be different because of gta online just because the size of modern games is incredible and it takes a lot of time and money to produce them.
@@ArthurMorgan18993 that’s intresting I also theorise that the reason we haven’t gotten a ps5 version of red dead is cus they want people to be Amazed at the 60 fps gameplay cus essentially red dead with 60 fps would look like gta 6
They should've expanded Yankton and added it as DLC.
That was the most interesting part of the game I spent a lot of time in north Yankton back in like 2014 back when they had the glitch that u could visit it online even tho it was undeveloped asl it still was more interesting than the base game map
Ten years and they never once thought about adding in Yankton
It'd be cool if we had every city in the HD universe we've already seen + some rural area.
So liberty city plus upstate, then Carcer City and some of Michigan as buffer room in between, then moderb day Ludendorff and a bit more of North Yankton, then as you go further west into San Andreas there's Los Santos and Blaine County + HD Universe San Fierro and the bay area, + HD Universe Las Venturas and surrounding area then south of LC there's somewhere based on the southeast like Georgia or South Carolina, for an empty padding in between, and then Leonida as we will see it in VI
Gta online happened
theres so much space just filled in with mountains that i feel like they just gave up halfway
There were supposed to be more forests in that area of the map but they had to be cut because the consoles this game launched on couldn't handle that amount of foliage
@@El_Soy These kids won't understand. They've no idea how game design works.
@gamerdude4465 absolutely true. Also the same people who hate on V's map endlessly praise GTA IV despite the fact that the entire map is just a city with no environmental variety at all.
@@El_SoyAnd yet despite all city, all 4 sections of gta 4's map actually felt different from each other and their own unique layouts and atmosphere. Meanwhile 5's map is just the city and everything else tacked on because. Paleto bay and Blaine county are empty with nothing unique about them to warrant exploring. And the entire upper region of the map is just mountains that have the exact same issue as I just stated. 2.5k hours on gta 5 and rarely have i felt the urge to go to outside Los Santos unless I was required to for a mission.
@@El_Soy Then either put something else there, or get better developers... Or, you know, prioritise game design above visual design and sacrifice graphics for gameplay... Oh, the horror! It’s never truly a hardware issue, but a lack of skill from developers and bad priorities from higher ups.
Just going to blaine county or paleto bay just felt like a straight up chore especially in Online
real
Man I hated that shit, especially with the lack of things out there
Paleto Bay feels like end part of LS and continuation of SF. If they made SF and LS together, Paleto Bay would be middle of the map.
Doesn't help that you're forced to go for stupid reasons.. Hey! Go to the very edge of the map to retrieve some truck or item that you can get easily from the city!
@@user-so4ov7re3sThe paleto score:
5 showed me everything first playthrough, while 4 still shows me something new.
Such as?
BAM! shot and to the Point, Exactly.
@@Hyperrr721grabbing trash and throwing it to pedestrians
@@Nombrenooriginal The game shows you that in a MISSION.
@@Hyperrr721 oh
“Filled with plastic people and just not much in the way of things to do.” That sounds like LA in real life.
There’s not things to do in LA??? You’d really hate it where I live then. Lmao
@@TitaniumTurbineMeaningful things he means
Truth. The only place in the US where I can legitimately say there is lots to do is NYC.
I go back to IV more than I do V
I’ve gone back to SA more than all of them.
I've definitely racked up more hours in GTA 4 compared to 5.
Jeez,what a masochist you are.
nah@@Naitehax
4 story was honestly the best in the franchise and that’s saying something bc San Andreas is right up there w it. I wasn’t rly into 5’s story at all it seemed cool w the prologue but after that I was bored w the missions entirely and super unrealistic whereas 4 seemed to keep me interested and seemed like I was watching a rags 2 riches movie. San Andreas gets alittle wonky after u leave los santos but at the same time I couldn’t get enough of it
took almost 11 years for someone to speak some truth...
People been Saying this for years idk where you've been. It was even an issue during reviews when it came out
Ive been literrally saying this and thinking this since Day 1 back in 2013, well once i finished story and got over the excitement i did feel thoughts in the back of my mind in my first playthrough like oh that sucks i cant enter this building and the map is far worse than GTA SA and Shooting, Driving , Physics is worse than 4
@@iJamie8467xSan Andreas map was crazy compared to gta v map
I hate the driving in the game it feels so lame
of course, all the fanboys just simp hard for R*. They see no flaws in these games. Level headed people enjoy it but can see flaws.
I really wouldn't have minded if they brought back the entirety of the map from GTA San Andreas into GTA V with extra levels of detail, activities, etc. Instead of doing what feels like a downgraded version of the map.
No no more remakes of old shit! Go play the old game you have your nostalgic goggles on
@@atiagooqkinguliaalu4027 Its not about nostalgia it's about having a map that doesn't suck. I don't really have nostalgia for the older GTA games because i grew up with the more modern ones, I just think the San Andreas map is better and should have been in GTA V
@@SevKast_7Too late for that. 11 years late. No use in crying over it now. Let's focus on GTA 6
@@fezzy5591 I ain't crying over it lol I just wish it could've been better. Not every critique is "crying", geez.
@@fezzy5591”Let’s focus on the game we have nothing to do with making, developing or producing!” Dummy
GTA 4 felt more alive and larger despite it being smaller.
Gta 4 felt like the blueprint for RDR2's vibe
Mfw bigger empty map isn't better
4 didnt feel larger, I can’t be the only one feels that
@@aSnugglyDuckling but it had the atmosphere of feeling large New York. It’s not gonna be too big in them three sections I think it’s definitely got more of an appeal and things you can do in it then in GTA5.
Yeah but for me the map was tiring, its all city with not much of diference
GTA 5 is the only one I got bored of. The story didn't pay off for me and so I didn't have the motivation to 'live' in the city once it was finished.
No one cares about u tho
nailed it!
I wish I played GTA games like IV and SA when I was younger. Younger me constantly looked for things to do in free roam and I just know I would’ve preferred those games over V. Even smaller things like the combat system and cheat codes would’ve came a long way in making it feel more fun.
As much as I *did* have fun in GTA V's story mode, I completely agree with what you just said. That's exactly how I feel.
feels like an Island after you complete it
I agree
They should've delayed the game for one more year to make it next gen only. It's so funny how outdated this map feels even when compared to the older games. But I guess that would've significantly decreased sales.
I’m not sure even Rockstar thought they were going to be able to milk GTA V as hard as they did. Probably thought they’d get another game in within 5 years
@@redseven4040 GTA V/ online was R*'s biggest hiest.
If they had a successful online mode like GTA Online at the time then they likely could have, as that could bring in a lot of money overtime
@@channel45853the success of gta online is exactly why they never bothered expanding the map. “Why fix what’s not broking?”
@@Jason-eu5zx no, they wouldn't have added anything to the map regardless. All substantial changes stop at release for Rockstar. They have never done expansions for their maps in their HD era. They didn't do it with Liberty City and they wouldn't have done it with Los Santos. GTA Online or no.
it's not just the map, it's the entire game. so many features but most are boring as hell or underdeveloped. the property ownership stuff seems thrown together at the last minute. there's no point to the friend activites and if you want to play darts you need to drive out all the way to the middle of the desert to play on the only darts board in the entire state. the game nails the stuff it gets right but falls short in so many places and i hope gta 6 fixes a lot of these problems
It's crazy how theres simultaneously SO many things to do, vehicle races, triathlon, hunting, parachuting, flight school, golf, , tennis, darts, shooting range, rollercoaster (singular), taxi side job, friends meet ups, strip clubs, collectables, and yet NOTHING to do and nowhere to go, the game appears to have so much content but feels so empty
@AtomicHaven That just describes life at this point.
It’s mainly due to the console 5 released on. The fact we got GTA 5 to run on PS3 and especially Xbox 360 is borderline a miracle. Rockstar had to cut a lot of things out and use absolutely every last ounce of space to fit everything onto the limited hardware they had. If V came out on Next gen we’d easily have more stuff to do.
@@mr.longjohn0014 Not really an excuse because San Andreas pushed the ps2 to it's absolute limits whilst having far more content. The real problem is Rockstar purposefully left GTA V unfinished as a stopgap until story dlcs arrived, GTA online ruined that prospect due to Rockstar's greed.
@@Stryker98 You’re right the PS2 was absolutely pushed to the limits, but even then the game was significantly smaller and there’s a plethora of things that aren’t in the game because of its limitations. Same can be said with V. I don’t necessarily thing rockstar left stuff out for online, but once they realized how much money online was making, they decided to scrap the DLC and just throw it online.
Thats because we played 12 years of it
Wouldn't really agree. The Yakuza franchise has been using mostly the same map in every single game, but even then the world doesn't feel stale or boring because of how lively it is or the amount of content available.
This my second day playing gta v for the first time, i feel everything of what he is saying it feels so empty.
No it just sucks ass. It's not a bad sandbox to screw around in if you ask me but it is also barren. Every time I've played through the game (Like only 4 times since I first played in 2016) I've done the story and nothing else because there isn't shit else to do. 12 years of it is only amplifying how bad it is, not making it bad to begin with.
I played through V long after the hype had died down, never bothered much with online and these were my exact thoughts too. I remember being amazed at the size of it all and then immediately disappointed by how bored I felt doing literally anything except the main story. I was also let down by how quickly combat was trivialised. You unlock guns that can decimate any level of enemy within the first third of the game, then never encounter anything tougher
To expand on that: Combat is just way too easy to the point it's repetitive. Special abilities + regen health + player has way too much health compared to gta 4 + every gun is laser accurate. All these ruined any sense of challenge missions that required shootours had. In gta 4, guns had a lot of spread require you to either tap fire, or risk getting closer to enemies. You didn't regen health so you couldn't rush in blindy and had to play tactically around cover. And lastly Enemies could kill you just as fast as you could kill them.
I actually don't mind that combat is so easy, I think it lacks extra mechanics that make it interesting. It just doesn't look cool or badass like the action films I grew up on from the '80s. It's all so hollow.
@@thepoet9253 ironically a lot of the changes made from 4 to 5 were made especially to try and resemble 80's action movies
@@LeaveMeAloneFBIYou sure about the player having too much health in V? I swear my health would drain out from 3-4 bullets. I feel like IV had the most character health than V.
The problem that I had with los santos by itself was that not only it felt small with only a desert and a mountain, but it lacked interiors in alot of the areas, san andreas map on the other hand had 3 whole cities and small towns in between with shops as pit stops, it was so diverse, I hope gta 6's map gets the same treatment as san andreas
Hopefully
We need more cities and interiors for real. It's so boring only having the outside world and not even restaurants enterable like GTA 4 and San Andreas had. Small towns, activities, and random events sprinkled throughout the map is the dream. I want a couple tunnels like GTA 3 had going to other cities.
The thing with San Andreas is that they used fog shades to hide any city you weren’t in. I think personally they tried to do the same thing with GTA 5 and all the big mountains. Because say you’re driving from Richman or Vinewood, it doesn’t take that long driving through the mountains and you’re practically in Harmony and the desert already.
Rockstar did it very clever, they even made radio ads to explain that there is smog in los santos
It’s also why the San Andreas remaster can be so jarring. They no longer hide Venturas and San Fierro with clouds so you can just see them and it’s really weird to see a whole other city from where you are on the map
@@Tomw337It is going to be boring without the mountains.
@@Tomw337 Maybe the rainforests might help out a little, I hope that the GTA VI rainforests can look as cool as the Minecraft Rainforests (with the GTA VI graphics of course).
@@raymondcerv1370that’s why we can still always go back to los Santos even after gta 6
One thing that always fascinated me about GTA 4's map is the amount of "layers", at one point you have one of the car bridges crossing over 2 roads, one a bit higher up than the other. There's a pedestrian tunnel going from the high level to the low level road, and somewhere around there there's also a little skate park. GTA 5 is much more flat, with everything spread apart alot further
That’s modern games as a whole. Not defending 5 at all, but big and flat worlds is the standard, and has been for a decade. Giving your world depth is illegal, i guess...
@@schnek8927 well from what I've seen, Cyberpunk also does this very well. I saw something where there was an underground road, a park or something on top of it and another road going over that park. So it is still possible, most games just don't seem to do it
Even Los Santos in San Andreas felt like it had more verticality than Los Santos in 5
@@kazcav Definitely, especially around the highway interchange in Los Santos
You'd never see that in a Los Santos map regardless because it's LA not NY
"The actual size of the map doesn't really matter when the perception is telling you otherwise" One thing that is funny about this is that you are so correct about it. There is a walk timelapse available on KZhead with all GTA games, GTA SA still is the longest one that takes more time to walk across the map. That means GTA SA it is bigger in some way.
One of my biggest complaints is that one third of the map is occupiad by bland empty mountains: we got Chiliad, el Gordo, Josiah, Tataviam, San Chianski, Palomino Highlands, Tongva Hills, the Whole Chaparral area behind Vinewood Hills; neither of these mountains (except for Chiliad and Gordo) have anything going on or point of interest, the map feels much smaller as it's enclosed by mountains adding to the feeling of compactness, and while the mountains are devoid of any detail the desert is utterly filled with manmade objects that defeat the point of having a large desert in the first place. P.s I find the lack of more than two airstrips incomprehensibile, i mean there are so many planes, but the entire northern half of the map is inaccessible as there is nowhere to safely land a plane, what?
I played the PS3 version and they had almost no grass, the countryside was just flat textures Even GTA SA had more grass! the mountains are literally shapes
I know that I will forever be part of "Silenced Logical Decision Making Community" but I still stay loyal to my beliefs; And those beliefs are that Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3, and every Yakuza game is infinitely superior to Grand Theft Auto 5; I don't even see how anyone could have the patience to beat that game; And yes, I was entertained by Trevor, but having a humorous functional crackhead as a main character doesn't make up for all the other shallow bullcrap in the game
I think there are 3 not including the military base. Main airport, and 2 near Trevors, one where he does his daily gun and drug running from and the other one that is used a few times in missions. I think he took it from the lost
@@yokuzo11 I liked Mafia 3, but it can get a bit repetitive.
@@hakshustletv True but the Zancudo airstrip Is off limits, McKenzie Airfield Is unusable, and the northern top of the map Is devoid of any landing field. What Is the point in using any civilian aircraft bigger than a fixed Wing to travel if everytime you want to Land you are forced to either bail out or attempt a crash landing that makes the aircraft unservable afterwards?
And on GTA 4, all of the map is used evenly. On GTA 5 there's parts of the city that you will probally go in once or twice in the whole story.
angers me that we have been stuck with the worst GTA for over 10 years
So you are saying that the oldest GTA's were the best? Like GTA I & II
@@jonnetiistola15gta v should be better but they downgrade it asf when it release
I swear: Los Santos and Sandy Shores int GTA 5 dont feel nearly as far apart as Los Santos and Las Venturas in GTA San andreas, even tough it obviously is much farther apart
I thought this earlier too. In my mind the distance between Los Santos and Las Venturas is much bigger than the distance between LS and Blaine County, even though like you say it’s nowhere near. San Andreas still holds up as pretty much the best all round GTA game imo.
Honestly, Would’ve been great if they could’ve added a modern rendition of San Fierro and maybe even Las Venturas. But they could barely fit what they have in the game now on ps3 so having this game put on old gen definitely served to make it far inferior than it could’ve been, maybe that’s why they’re really taking their time with 6.
Right after GTA 6 there mission should focus on Expanding los Santos with those cities on new gen consoles PS5 and Xbox series X
Why do you guys have so much hope for Rockstar after how they handled 5 post release?
@@AJayZy I agree they fucked online up
@@eeelpuma The worst part is you could tell they were held back by the 360/PS3’s hardware so when they re released it on PS4/XB1 everyone thought they were gonna add more to the map especially in the countryside and of course the story DLC I mean IV had EFLC in 2009 so of course V would have more fleshed out, better expansions but nooooo here’s a 10M dollar yacht to do NOTHING on it. Don’t get me started on the RE RE release on PS5/Series X & S 😭
@@AJayZy faxs 💯 like they didn't care for San Fierro and las Ventruas and online they lost me with all these heist missions and futuristic vehicles sad but I think they can't bounce back from there franchise if GTA 6 is trash 🗑️ smh
what i don't get is the following. LA is gigantic. Why is los santos so insanely small? Why is it a miniature version with all the sights cramped into a tiny space? Why not have a open sprawling space with all these giant street grids to get lost in like IRL?
you're right, it's just a collection of land marks, but it's missing all of the residential areas in between that make up like 90% of the LA metro area, the biggest one in the US. If you look at the city through google maps, you see that Los Santos doesn't resemble it one bit, except for downtown. Even LS in San Andreas looks more like real life LA, when you look at the street layout.
Because it had to run on a PS3...
@@ileutur6863 i mean gta IV Liberty City is way bigger and Gives a great Sense of scale with the huge spaces just covered by Street grid
This is something I can’t stand too. Somehow they managed to make Los Santos in GTA:SA feel big and diverse but utterly failed in V. It feels completely inorganic. There are high rise corporate offices two blocks away from the hood. It makes no sense.
@@MonsieurMoustachiogta iv liberty city is bigger because thats the only thing in the map... also its barely bigger at all. It might not even be bigger.
Splitting the map into sections 1 and 2 was how it was for me day 1. Trevor and Michael lived in different halves of the same map. Michael was in the urban cityscape, while Trevor was in the desert wasteland. It’s been like that for the last decade. Hopefully, GTA 6 will not have such a dichotomy with so much empty space in it.
Lets just hope GTA VI they give us Major map updates in Story mode and Online too make Travel less tiresome, make it like a new Experience Every time you Drive, such as Events that Sometimes play out like a Crazy person is stopping traffic or a people Doing Stunts for GTA version of Tik-tok funny stuff, something too make the map worth being explored, otherwise its just gonna be the same one, sections of the map that hardly gets seen because there is nothing too do.
Gta 6 will be insane, gta 5 is already one very good game imagine how good will be gta 6 after 10 years of development.
@@Hws2966 more like 5 ot 6 years because of rdr2
I have a feeling gta 6 will be the first GTA to receive map expansions with previous cities and new cities all in one game
@@dudemp4 i think they have whole team only for red dead and for gta too so they probably started early
you know GTA 5 had taxis right?
I didnt realize this until playing story mode on trevor to do a cletus mission. It just takes me a few minutes to go from los santos to the desert on the single road. Back in the ps3 days it felt like it took me a bit, not anymore maybe because of the story mission after the first heist where you are forced to take a specific path instead of that single road that is much faster
yeah the entire map is only 5 miles north to south
@@redseven4040crazy to think about to be honest as that's the distance from my house to work and it takes me 10 minutes to drive that, yet rockstar want you to think you're exploring an entire state lol.
Just don’t forget it only takes 20 seconds to drive from Los Santos to Las Venturas if you take the freeway. GTA SA has evidence that direct routes were a bad idea. Thankfully it only had one direct route between cities.
Completely agree. Love the game to death, but it's map is so heavily one sided. I feel no reason to go up North unless I physically have to for a mission. Great video!
I’ve been playing GTA 4 and San Andreas more than 5. Yet I’ve never gotten bored. Always chalked it to how diverse the map was. But never took into consideration road layout or just how balance the map was in terms of dimensions
Perhaps the most underused and least visited part of the map has to be the grassy mountains east of los santos around and primarily below humane labs Also i wonder how useful offroading will be in gta 6 as in gta 5, more so online its mainly only used to avoid NPCs The only way you'd experience offroading as a efficient shortcut in gta 5 online is to own the facility right next to the fuel station that is a MC clubhouse,
They could have carried on, added more of East LA, put in renditions of the Riverside/San Bernadino metro area... nah not Rockstar, they're sPeShUl
The entire east coast of the map is pretty much nothing except for that one house with the tireless tractor. I used to explore there during my first playthrough to find something but there just wasn’t anything out there
Yea the entire metro area got shrunk into a tiny city the size of downtown LA. The countryside is also lame as hell. If you going to add rural California towns at least make it interesting and well scaled.@@olliegoria
@@dr.woozie7500 EXACTLY! All they put in really was everything important from Santa Monica to Silver Lake to Long Beach, and then threw in east Imperial County (which is closer to SAN DIEGO) and some of the SBNF and Mt SJ for the countryside and called it a day. Ventura's barren except for the museum, the Temecula vineyards for some reason, and the seaside suburb they passed off as Malibu. No OC, no IE, no nothing. So much they could have done.
There's kinda less activities to do in Los Santos and Blaine County compared to Liberty City. There's restaurants, there are more friend activities. Little mundane things that makes the world alive. Even the driving in Liberty City is more fun.
Vast as an ocean means nothing if it's shallow as a puddle. It's one thing I've come to love about RDR2 in comparison to GTA5, and it gives me *some* hope with GTA6. The world feels varied and lived in. You have reasons to go to every area. There are maybe 2 large swaths of land designed to only be "Passed through", and even then, the wide open range makes these areas act as hubs for the rest of the world rather than simply padding. It's the difference between an empty hallway with one door on either end and a hotel lobby with various doors surrounding it leading to the cafe, the pool, the bar, the rec room, and the actual hotel rooms. Even then, these areas have collectables, unique animals, plants, and encounters scattered through them. GTA 5's map gives you no reason to explore most of it.
Quality > quantity San Andreas felt bigger than GTA V because it had a much better map design even though the actual size of its map was much smaller GTA V had the potential to be the best GTA ever but that potential was wasted because of GTA Online and Rockstar's greediness and laziness Imagine if we got single player DLCs for new missions, new activities, updated map or a whole new city like the Liberty City DLC that supposed to be released but got canceled cuz of GTA Online Especially since the game is now on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S this would have been possible if only Rockstar stopped being so greedy with GTA Online
For planes I think they need to do a few things, instead of just restricting some airspace.(though military bases and prisons should still remain restricted.) 1. They need to add more airstrips, runways, airports, and heliports. Even if it is just a small grass or dirt strip, there need to be more places dedicated to aircraft. 2.) Aircraft should be genuinely fast. There should be nothing that comes even close to aircraft in terms of getting from point A to B in a short time. A big issue with me in gta 5 is that, if I’m in a supercar(especially the cars added after the story) then the amount of time I’ll save by going to the airport or heliport is too little for me to care. I’m not going to divert myself and often times go in the exact opposite direction of where I’m going. Since the largest public airport is at the BOTTOM of the map. If my friend in a supercar will get there at about the same time. Adding more places for aircraft will alleviate the diversion time and making them fast will give ample reason to want to use them. 3.) Do not allow players to spawn aircraft outside of heliports and airstrips. Aircraft should be valuable in getting around, but only accessible at designated spots. With all of that combined you’ll get players taking different air routes from the various airstrips around the map. And the trip will feel like a journey since you would start in a car, transition to a plane, and then maybe transition back to a car. In gta 5 the car is the end all be all method of transportation. Helicopters and planes should be the best way to get somewhere fast, but only if you’re going a fair distance away. Each region should have an airstrip and heliport of some kind and aircraft should be generally regulated to those spots only. That way cars will have their uses, when getting around in the region you’re currently in or getting to an adjacent region. But planes and helicopters would have their area of expertise.
I would love that but also: make planes way less accessible. make it so when you're actually in one you appreciate the saved time. the reason why Rdr2 felt huge was because the travel time on a horse was nowhere near that of a car.
Bunch of shit ideas I’m glad rockstar won’t do
Horrible idea for (3
The only time I've really used my jets is when I started owning a lot of businesses all over the map and wanted to try a different way to travel to all of my businesses. I actually liked it at first until it felt like the map was too small and as you said, often driving or just spawning one of my helicopters was a faster way. It's the same way how I used the luxury helicopter in CEO, it can teleport you back to your office but when I stopped using my office it became useless. Rockstar should dedicate more time to how we can use our planes and even boats like going from one island to another. I would love to see certain parts of the map separated by sea so we can see more boats and planes make trips to islands further out. Even bring in the option to have your own pilot take you there and you can either enjoy the entire journey or fast track.
Perfect honestly. Who ever said it was shit ideas probably plays Ubisoft games fr
Back when I used to play, I sometimes forced myself to go north to try to diversify the gameplay, but outside of the city, it was so boring, very few minutes past before I was racing south to spend the rest of my online or single player experience in the city for the rest of my time during that session. It was easy to spend multiple hours on the game without going north, and it shouldn't be like that.
This is a HUGE Reason why San Andreas' Map aged so well. 3 cities separated by countryside. Each 1 was small, granted. But each was visually distinct. And each area either had exclusive shops or content that couldn't be accessed anywhere else. If you wanted to mod lowriders and do lowrider competitions and get the van to burgle houses, You MUST be in Los Santos. Wheel Arch Angels can only be accessed in San Fierro. And Las Venturas was the only area that had Gambling and Casinos. And the wilderness/Countryside wasn't completely dead and pointless because there were a few girlfriends that gave special bonuses to the player that encouraged exploration too.
You make some good points. I always thought the ring road alone made the map feel smaller than it is. You can just mindlessly drive and get all around the map.
this video reminds me of Just Cause 3. The map in JC3 is absolutely massive, one of the biggest videogame single maps ever made, yet the entire southern third of the archipelago is a big sea, the entire northern third is mountainous and the few points of interest are abandoned towns that all look like one another and military bases. The actual inhabited and usable part of the map is the coast of each island, once again with towns that all look like one another, few of them feel truly unique and memorable. I like that its biome is at least coherent, unlike the other titles in the series where you see every single biome imaginable in the same map, and for what it's worth, it's a really pretty map. It's a shame most of it is wasted space.
At least the towns in JC3 could be liberated. Remember JC2 where 1/3 of the map was empty desert? Or the huge snowy and jungle areas of that game with barely anything in them. Was still fun to explore when I was a kid but any easter eggs were few and far between.
@@wikwoo yeah and i loved JC3 because of what they improved over JC2, including making the map a lot more coherent. I'm still a little disappointed about all the wasted space
I'm loving the videos recently, Glack and I do agree, imo The pause theme mirrors the feeling of being out of los santos
I wish the forests around Mt Chilliad were much larger but I understand that a lot of the trees were removed due to technical limitations on the PS3 and Xbox 360. If you look at the first GTA 5 trailer there was supposed to be a lot more trees on Mt Chilliad and other areas of the map.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I can’t even play 5 for more than 30 minutes!
100% agree. I played hours upon hours of free mode on gta 4 and still do sometimes, whereas with gta 5 I finished the story and basically never touched it again apart from online. This is due to multiple reasons but one of the main reasons is the free roam is boring. The map is definitely a large part of this equation. As you said in the video there is not enough variety im the map and in the routes. Gta 4's map had different sections but still looked mostly similar throughout. The difference is gta 4 had better mechanics like fighting and driving physics to keep you entertained, compared to 5 having a boring map AND boring fighting w no activities to do. If gta 5 had better mechanics it could maybe get away with a boring map but all of these things coming together make the free roam a very boring experience. Hoping they learn from their mistakes with gta 6 and improve map variety, mechanics, and story to deliver something that you can still enjoy 20 years from now, as they did with San Andreas
The boring factor was never the map, it was the part where we just kept playing the game 24/7 which made us bored of the map
Nah, hard disagree here. We all played GTA 4/SA as much and I remember very little about it becoming boring on forums. Both games tried to spread the content more evenly. So yeah; it was almost definitely the map and lack of interiors etc. Read some of the comments here and you'll see it was far better in GTA 4.
Even as far back as 2014 I saw the huge issues with the map in GTA 5. Too many hills, mountains, and wasted space. GTA SA is so much more varied and interesting. Each area having its own vibe and theme.
Well GTA 6 wont have mountains so you'll enjoy on it.
Since day 1 my immersion in GTA 5 has been broken because the map is so unbelievably small and not enjoyable. This just explains why I've been feeling the same for like the last 10 years...
If only gta 4 had a large countryside and snowy pine barrens it would be the best game in every aspect.
it originally was going to happen but limitations and time came in
Trash consoles couldn’t handle the countryside, so they had to delete it in GTA IV. In GTA V they deleted the physics so they could add the countryside, because consoles are underpowered trash and they couldn’t handle both.
@@commie_remover stupid consoles
If they had some of upstate NY or/and the pine barrens it would’ve probably been the best map in the franchise ur absolutely right (though I may be somewhat biased bc I’m from upstate NY however I’m like an hour north of the city so no way my city would’ve made the cut, still would’ve been cool to see tho)
Exactly, also I would love for it to have a bigger city space with more access to the inside of the buildings imagine being able to enter 50% of the buildings that would be crazy cool , I don't care so much about freaking mountains but what really captivated my attention in GTA 4 is the amount of detail in liberty city, the city felt so sentimental and beautiful, I wish there would be another game like GTA 4 in my lifetime with upgrades and bigger map .
I wish RS would find a way to *not* have their game maps surrounded by water on all sides or hemmed in by mountains on all sides. Give me an infinite horizon or initiate a cut scene or something. I hate the island motif.
I like how Skyrim did it
They kinda did it with rdr2 tho
By far the biggest problem for me wasn't the lack of content but rather a painful lack of humanity. GTA V's world is so utterly mean-spirited and spiteful that it becomes outright inhospitable. NPC's will either nervously walk away from you, start fights or call the cops on you just for standing near them, minding your own business. How am I even supposed to immerse myself in this world when there's not only nothing worth doing in it but it's also violently pushing me away? I don't care if Rockstar deliberately did this to satirize American culture, all it does is deny me the ability to feel like a part of its world. Like, does anyone remember how in Vice City, you would sometimes see a cop chasing a thug and if you decided to help the cop by punching the thug you'd get a $50 GOOD CITIZEN BONUS? The game was literally rewarding you for being a good person and that feeling of warmth and joy was worth more than any monetary reward. To be fair, sometimes in GTA V you can return a woman's stole purse but there's no feeling of warmth or achievement due to the game world's persistent contempt of your existence. GTA IV might've been gloomy and depressing at times but at least it had moments of levity and humanity to balance it out. GTA V is nothing but a dehumanizing slog from start to finish.
Agreed, I’ve felt that too all along the fives
I think the introduction of animals in GTA was truly a double edged sword, while yes it was cool to see wildlife all across the state the fact that it took them 10 years to add them in online hindered sections 2 and 3 as it could’ve made for some of the most interesting and dynamic gameplay yet (you get in a shoot out that startles a mountain lion and now it’s hunting you, your allies, and the enemies) and it’s far too late because we’ve experienced everything we possibly could have
Wait, they finally added wildlife in GTA Online?
@@channe3049 yes, but only on ps5 and xbox series x|s. Not on last gen consoles and not on pc for some reason.
Honestly GTA 5 did feel boring after beating everything throughout the story campaign and even the side activities (note that I platinumed the game on PS5). I have to say though it feels the same with Online mode that I can no longer play by myself, and that's the point. The point being that Los Santos got very dry over time and the only thing keeping it interesting are having friends to play with, and just maybe the DLCs... That's my opinion, not sure about you guys. I'm hyped for GTA 6 becaus we will have more reasons to explore the map and cruise around it, something GTA 5 couldn't do because of hardware limitations at the time. Love you all and Rockstar Games, it feels great to be a fan of Rockstar Games. :)
Rockstar really dropped the ball for GTAV when they didnt add Las Venturas or San Fierro.
Bro honestly if they could’ve waited for PS4 and Xbox one, maybe we could’ve gotten at least San Fierro.
@@prowthegamer fax the weak consoles they released them through at the time werent going to able to handle all that😞😒
Revisiting those 2 cities is presenting an interesting question. If they do, then are we gonna see Los Santos remade again, or is it gonna be excluded?
Las Ventura's isn't even within the state of San Andreas (California)....... You want several hundred miles of absolute nothingness thereby increasing the load times?
@@kevinperlow4595 so its why this state called san Andreas instead California because its different Rockstar prioritizes distance based on how fun is it instead based on real life
Just like Trevor put it... "It's all PLASTIC and FAKE"
RDR2 did the map perfectly. Each state had its own vibe and each town was so different visually. And not everything was in one town. Some towns didn’t have barber shops and some didn’t have gunsmiths giving you reason to not stay in the same place all game. As a bonus they give you the biggest state in the game being nearly half the map as a complete bonus after you beat the game giving you that to explore when your finished. GTAVI needs to have different vibes to their towns and areas to make the map feel bigger and they must seperate where all the content takes place. Pairing this with how alive each town feels is just incredible just taking a walk in towns and riding around the map is just something that feels soulless in V which I’m sure GTAVI will fix. Even with the biggest town (Saint Denis) it wasn’t even the main town because there never really was a main town it was all spread out which saved the game from feeling repetitive. The potential the VI has is just insane. Amazing graphics paired with a huge detailed world and multiple cities /towns would be a world unmatched
After playing Jurassic world evolution 2, you gotta appreciate the landscape in gta v. But it’s been 10 years now. I’m done grinding in this game.
Mountain Chiliad and nearby mountains are wasted space as well, and it is a big part of the map.
What annoys me the most is the lack of atmosphere. San Andrea’s los santos definitely had that. Despite much of Gta 5 being based around the movie Heat, a film famous for its atmospheric depiction of LA’s criminal under world. It never fully translated over to Gta 5. I always felt like gta 5 lacked a lot of focus. It seems caught between 2 vision of wanting to depict a criminal underworld and also be a satirical comment on LA’s hollowness and toxic culture.
GTA 5 map has too many mountains which made the countryside feel empty compared to the city itself. also mountains felt like a waste of space on the map compared to GTA SA I really hope GTA 6 map will be much more fun to explore and not have waste of space locations to make certain parts of the map feel dead.
no mountains in florida
A place without Mountains is a place with no real soul.
Really great video you perfectly summed up the issue in 9 minutes like others and yourself have said San Andreas felt far bigger even tho technically it wasn't. The fact it had more cities when V just had one yes that one city was bigger than the Los Santos in SA but thats it 11 and a half years possibly 12 years by the time VI is here of being stuck in one city which is the main part of the map were most players will spend a lot of their time even tho the countryside takes up the majority of the map size. I think it just simply boils down to the fact that this is a ten year old game that released in 2013 and were still playing in now in 2024 and till at least 2025 when VI comes out unless it gets delayed further. It doesn't matter what fancy new console generation we are playing on or how many times they try and freshen it up for a re release its still the old map the only major change to the map they've made was the diamond casino but that's about it. Thankfully if the leaks and rumours are true about what VI map looks like then we should be ok. Bigger map both technically and perceptually more city's and towns, more diverse areas that feel different in tone and atmosphere that's why you dont really hear anyone complain about RDR2's map still yes that game's not as old as V but its been out for a good 5 years but we are still discovering new things about the map but compare that to V i think we pretty much found everything after a good year or two definitely by the time it got ported to PS4 and the Xbox One. RDR2 followed the rules of SA before it and if we're stuck with VI for another 10 or 11 years then lets hope it follows suit that way we shouldn't get bored of that games map but of course as always time will tell!
I'm really loving these type of videos. Can't get enough of discussion about designs of gta gameplay, map, environment and sound designs. I hope gta 6 has some new vehicles that aren't near identical to their real life inspiration. Most new gta online vehicles look almost exactly like their real life inspirations, in gta 4 and gta 5 (Og release) most cars while having a real life inspiration had some originality to their designs. I really liked when they took inspirations from 2/3 irl vehicles for the design of one. they don't do that nowadays, most new cars look exactly like their real life counterparts
Man your on point cause I tell my cuzzin this all the time that gta 4 world is so much more immersive and detailed in so many ways it ridiculous I think gta 6 will have some of what gta4 had definitely hope alot of interiors
After looking at rdr2, its safe to assume that a very large amount of buildings will be enterable
Liberty City will never be topped
Los Santos is more beautiful, nothing beats the Mountains and the Ocean, The Grand Senora Desert
Facts! Sunny beaches and Mountains are always boring as hell
@@phaseshift943 I can tell you guys live in areas with no Mountains.
@@phaseshift943 The landscape is boring without Mountains
@@raymondcerv1370ok and? Is not living around mountains a bad thing?
Your videos are relaxing please keep them up, no pressure though
that fucking mountain took up so much space. All points you've mentioned are so damn true. There was just not that special "oh I can't wait to see what next part of the map has to offer" feeling. Also it was lacking great physics. In IV I wasted so much freaking time playing with the rag doll physics, car crashes and so on. I really hope they fix all those things in VI
Mountain size is ok but then why is the rest of the area so tiny? They could have easily made it larger.. unless it was really just technical limitation. For me the worst thing was visiting Paleto Bay, spending like 10 min there before realising there is nothing to do or explore. Contrast that with San Andreas where you would be dropped in the middle of nowhere after SA and it really had a strong difference in vibe and you really did feel like you were in a different place. GTA V simply did not deliver in this aspect. Everywhere just felt the same and nowhere really felt remote in the way San Andreas made you feel.
Finnaly some one saying this !! I never liked Gta 5 in general from the start, It just didnt hit that well as the other games did.
Whenever I think about the map of Los Santos I think of a small, claustrophobic map where you are on an island "isolated" from the world. Unlike GTA San Andreas, GTA 4 and Red Dead 2, it feels like I'm on huge maps.
Great video. Easy decision to sub. It didn’t help when they added the Oppressor MKII. It was one thing having jets and helicopters, but the MKII had such a high ease-of-use that constantly jetting around the map within minutes made San Andreas no longer feel as giant as it did in 2013 and 2014.
The Opp mk2 was easily the worst decision Rockstar ever made, literally no one I talk to about GTA thinks it's a genuinely decent and fun vehicle to play with or against. It's only role is to facilitate griefing.
@@MrSuperkaji It’s the ultimate vehicle for grinding; I’ll give it that. But the decision to make it weaponized is the most baffling choice of all.
@@jamiehexum5905The grind is bad too
What's unfortunate as well is that lack of content available on the south east side, it has so many mid-construction buildings and things that would make awesome side content.
the way you mentioned GTA5 having 3 sections that just feels like 2 is exactly how it feels for me. Going all the way out to the edge of the map was a chore for me because I’d have to pass the same scenery like you mentioned
Great video and great points, I'm glad your channel got recommended.
One thing I have to tell is about the section segment. GTAs before GTA 5 and Red Dead Series all of them worked good in so many ways. Unless you progress in the story, there is nothing forcing you to go outside the town/neighboorhood you are in. GTA 3 starts at one place and its all close untill you progress in the story, same with SA and Vice City. Games that came after GTA 4 didn't blocked you anymore but they didn't forced you to go that way unless you progress in the story. In RDR2's chapter 2, you can clearly explored the whole world anywhere now but the missions are all around the camp with the map being blurred before exploring it. Making every section something to learn about. Since RDR2 is a game about being on the run it definetly captures well the feeling of lefting towns behind and never come back. Like you don't get to see Rhodes on the map until you actually go there, but mainly you go there because you are already in chapter 3. That's why Rockstar nailed RDR2's map design better than they did with GTA 5.
Personally for me, GTA 5's rendition of Los Santos has the same problem with Steelport from Saints Row the Third. From a distance and at the right time and angle it looks larger than life. But when you get down to the nitty gritty it's just...hollow. Except SRTT didnt cut off 2 massive cities from the previous iteration...
Always love Rockstar map analysis videos. Good job on this one.
I still to this day believe that the biggest problem that held this game back was the xbox 360 and ps3. Had rockstar waited till 2015 to release gta 5 right in the prime of the 8th generation I think that we would have seen many more interiors, perhaps more larger scaled areas like talked about in this video and even more mini games. I think this game just pushed those 7th gen consoles to its limits
GTA5 is one of my fav games of all time, but you really made some great points. SA and LC maps are better but there are some parts of LS that are better then some parts of LC and SA, great video.
Thanks so much, and don’t get me wrong I love GTA V too, but the map didn’t have the staying power.
yeah me too man, I never liked the athmosphere Los Santos and (GTA V map in general) either. Wish they had the map like GTA SA, full state of San Andreas having 3 separate cities (LV-SF-SA) together mixed with some small countryside towns
Another banging video. I came from your Joys of GTA IV video. I'm a big fan!!
Personally GTA V as a whole didn't quite survived the time test and aged bad. Its flat and hollow. Even GTA3 for exemple has alot more character.
How can you say it hasn't survived the test of time when it's the top 3 most successful entertainment product of all time and still has millions of players over a decade later??
@@rightbehindyou9398 its kept alive artificially because of the online but it never had a solid base to begin with, thats why every bs dlc they add gets consumed and forget for the modt cases and even you went to talk directly about the aspect that only interess the online lmao because the SP is ass
Meh it's sp is my favorite making it the best for me. Don't care much for online, even without it i spent 100s of hours in sp and i enjoy the comical story every time.
The fact that GTA V was the first main GTA game in forever without Cluckin' Bell and a working gym is an absolute travesty. Without even getting into anything else
Even tho GTA sa has a smaller map, it feels larger. When you have to leave Los Santos and go to different cities and small towns such as the story progresses you really start to feel like you're playing a game in a "State" and now just a city. Because that's what it's supposed to be. A state. However gta 5's San Andreas while being larger never felt like it was a proper state. Just a city with a backyard.
That's why I'm playing instead of GTA 5 it you nailed it on the head
This video actually makes a lot of good points! I should be hyped to visit Los Santos and the entire map Online but I don’t, I just want to do the story mode because let’s face it there’s nothing different about the map outside the story mode. Hope VI improved this.
You did a very good observation and pointed what it lacks .... i also have the same impression or thought while playing gta V and they also realized this and rectified the mistake in red dead redemption 2 , but i think gta 6 will be different since they will make the map like rdr 2 but , they will keep expanding the map northward through their gta online dlc , which was absent in rdr 2 and they didnt expand the map in that case..... I wish they did a remaster of the sanandreas map like in gta sanandreas(los santos, san fierro and las venturas) where there is a variation of terrains , weather , climate and so on.... gta v whereas felt very monotonous in contrast........
You've put exactly how I feel about GTA V into words. The map is the biggest yet the most hollow feeling in the franchise. Always felt like it was just me who preferred GTA 4
I remember telling my friends within a few days of release on the PS3. The map ain't it, and I was laughed at somewhat. It took them a little longer to realise I was right. What bothered me most of all was underused the east of the map is in comparison. At least the west side is a nice drive aesthetically. But 95% of the east side is underused, especially online, and that continues all the way to the northern most central side of the map, too. I could include the dam, the wind farm, etc, as well. It was evident once there was no San Diego-esque second city with the original map leak, things were looking peak as Paleto Bay just was lacking, unless it was going to be a 3rd or 4th town if you will. The desert is a sandbox for kids. Edit - I agree with everyone thar said San Andreas felt bigger. The fog mechanic was a part of it, sure, but remember that first time Tenpenny kicks you out LS, you felt you were genuinely in the middle of nowhere.
Incredibly made video mate. I love 5's map but it is very repetitive and I think the largest reason for that is the freeway that loops the map like you said.
For me, another problem was how the city felt massive at first, but then you realise how small it is when compared to the countryside. If we go by your sections, 2 and 3 are just wayyyyy too big. Its annoying because the city is like under 1/3 of the map yet still contains like 80% of the content. That space could have been used for a bigger, more immersive Los Santos.
Fun fact: This whole idea was planned for GTA 4 but they didn't have much time and space for the game on PS3-X360. They saved this for GTA 5. GTA 4 would be much more expanded with forests and houses around. Perhaps whatever GTA be with LC again will be much bigger, different and expanded than 4. VC is already bigger than LS, but not fully big like in reality. This same case happened with LS about LA. LS isn't that big in main game. They only added interesting parts. And back then in 2008 Chrysler building was allowed in videogames which later under new ownership isn't anymore. Insomniac was forced to remove it in SM with 1st DLC. It won't appear in whatever GTA be set in LC. There's already buildings that don't appear in GTA 6 because of cp.
The issues you mentioned were perfect especially with businesses. They are cheaper to buy outside of the city, like meth, so the causal player must transport between county and city often. Too often on one highway system that loops around the entire map making it feel like you’ve got a boundary at every edge. IV’s feeling of islands tied the map together and gave more options via highway and road systems
You’ve explained it very well and I agree with most of it. But I think main reason for the map to suck (now) is that’s it’s been over 10 years of driving down the same highway. GTA Online not having any significant map changes or additions is just sad.
I genuinely just think it’s the lack of any trees or vegetation across the map. I always thought Farcry 3 and 4 were so much bigger than what they were, due to how dense the vegetation and foliage was. Everywhere was different nowhere felt the exact same as somewhere else or blended in with another area. Interiors are also another issue. Saints 1 & 2, had The University, Casino, Meat Factory, Underground Stillwater, Underground Caverns, separate island for the Prison, Trailer Park, Cemetery, separate island for the Nuclear Plant, Police Station, Old Police Station, Ultor Tower, The 10s of Saints Row hideouts or apartments that you could purchase and customise, Saints Row Church, Strip Club, Cargo Ships, Fish Mongers, Courthouse, Robin Hotel, Heron Hotel, Brotherhood Hideout, Donny’s, Drug Factory, The Rec. Centre with an underground casino, The Hospital, The Roman Coliseum, A Lawyers office, An Airport, Several apartment buildings in Somerset, Kanto, Train Station, Museum, An underground military base, Shivington Projects, An entire shopping mall, Secret Island with the Easter egg, The mountain wit the Jason Vorhess mask, and each shop with a unique interior etc. As well as 21 different areas, that are completely different from each other, with different aesthetics and more, and yet it still feels like much more than GTA V
I’m glad I’m not the only to see that. I was disappointed in 2013.
i really like your videos! keep up the great work :)
Glad you like them! :)
Congrats very good video. Really expressed well how i personally feel about it!
Really like your videos bro their very high quality for your channel size was expecting a AI voice when I clicked.