[Groundogg]

I'm curious as to how big the map will be, I prefer game areas to be diverse, but having both a huge and diverse map is a bonus. Judging from the trailer alone, it seems quite diverse, I'm just curious how big the game area will be. There is a huge building (labelled as "A") shown in various parts of the trailer, using it as a point of reference you can see somewhat how big the game space is, or at least the game space shown in the particular trailer.

Picture 1



A: This is the huge building I'm talking about, it's fairly distinct.
B: Blimp!

Picture 2



A: This is the same building shown in picture 1.
A2: If you look at "A2" in picture 3, you can see that building A2's roof has a partially flat part, and a partially elevated part. In this picture, you can see that towards the back it is flat, and elevated slightly just as it's cut from the shot. This will important in "C" of both pictures 3 and 5.
B: I've circled these as they're important to show what side of the city this shot is from. In picture 1 there are no other buildings surrounding A, in picture 2 there are many however. I believe this is because the golfer's are placed on such an angle that it looks like one building, you can see from picture 2's perspective that they are smaller, and if someone were to be looking at building A from a distance on the left side, you'd only see what would look to be one large building. This is further shown in building A's chunky structure in picture 1, if you look at it in picture 2 you can see it's fairly slender, or at least noticeably more slender than the same building shown in picture 1.
C: Mountains, but are they explorable? You would think they are from the opening shot involving three people stood at the foot of one (Mount Chiliad?), but I'm unsure as to whether a game could even be the scale of San Andreas using current-gen technology. I hope so, it'd be cruel of Rockstar to have huge mountainous regions that only serve to lock players in a specific area.
D: A motorway leading out of the shot, is this the motorway shown in Picture 4? It looks like it could be if you look at the placement of the buildings.

Picture 3



A: The same building shown in previous pictures.
A2: The same building shown in previous pictures.
B: Blimp!
C: A rough guess of where the man shown in picture 2 would maybe be stood, in order to have the building shown to the left of building A (in picture 3) appear so close, one would have to be stood at such an angle. Notice how in picture 2 this building is shown to the right of building A, and how in picture 3 it's shown to the left. My guess is that he would have to be stood somewhere along that line, if not further in the direction illustrated.
Note: If the man were to be stood here, the mountains shown as "C" in picture 2 would appear to the right of this shot, if not directly behind.
D: Beach/sea? If you were to play as Tommy from Vice City, wouldn't he live near a beach? He likes the weather, after all. This could be the same place the sun rose/set in the beginning of the trailer, but it could be rising at the beginning and setting in this shot, or vice versa.
Note: Notice the sunrise/sunset, it's exactly the same in picture 5

Picture 4



A: The same building shown in previous pictures, notice again the correlation of the buildings, this is what makes me believe this is the motorway that leads off of picture 2, labelled as "D". Maybe it leads out the city?
B: Blimp!

Picture 5



A: The same building shown in previous pictures.
A2: The same building shown in previous pictures.
B: Blimp!
C: Another guess as to where the man in picture 2 may be located. I feel he would be further up from the point illustrated, so he is at the same distance shown in picture 2.

Note: The shot before this shows Vinewood, I would assume this sign and area is directly behind picture 5.

It would be amazing if the map was as big as San Andreas, and judging from various shots in the trailer I'd guess there's more to this city that hasn't yet been shown, particularly the shots that show farmland and wind turbines. What are your thoughts? Have you made any other similar discoveries, do you think this is going to be a more compact San Andreas?

This post has been edited by Groundogg on Sunday, Nov 27 2011, 02:31

[chestycougth]

that blimp must be a permanent feature.
it'd be worth trying to piece together a map out of the differant shots in the trailer, it looks quite similair to the III era los santos except that the hills curl around the eastern side of the city

This post has been edited by chestycougth on Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 18:50

[Street Mix]

If those mountains will be reachable and if the game has SF & LV than you can only imagine the scale of the map.

[Lazy Squirrel PT]

Nice finds! I'm a bit worried about the mountains though, what if they are like RDR and their only purpose is to cut you off from the outside world?

[chestycougth]

i dont really think san fierro is particularly necessary, its hardly anybodies favourite and personally i couldnt stand it in san andreas.
anyway if they have done much more than what we have seen then there is going to be downsides graphically and maybe performance wise, but i would prefer it to be large and bad graphics than high graphics and small map.

[StellarFish20]

QUOTE (Lazy Squirrel PT @ Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 18:54)

Nice finds! I'm a bit worried about the mountains though, what if they are like RDR and their only purpose is to cut you off from the outside world?

I hope they're not

Also, That's some great work dude!!

[hambones]

nice observations. i'm still betting on it being the whole SA map and not just los santos.

[lefantome]

probably the map will be at least 4 times SA.

the mountain is huge and the people are already on a moutain in the video. Also LOS santos from the oil drill pics seems big, and I'm sure it lacks all the south part.(Airport etc..) but don't expect Los Santos as big as Liberty city, LA map is boring as you have seen in La Noire, but surely is bigger than the 2004 version.

[Snake Without a Tongue]

I'm wondering if those enormous hills around the city are meant to keep us in. Doubt it, but still.

Edit: D'oh, Somebody beat me to it. Damn these threads move fast.

[dre1218us]

Yeah I'd be happy with just Venturas at least. San Fierro was whatever to me.

[Slamman]

Enough to warrant multiple discs for Xbox360 users, and I can say this, I own a few Xbox360s now! I use it as my main game machine! Anyway, it should be more spread out then GTAs we've already played....ok, GTA IV, since that scale was actually rolled back (this is fact!)
(ask Aaron Garbut and Sam Houser.....or read the past threads here in our archive (they maybe tough to find!)

RE: Red Dead Red, I found a way to get on top of the mountain ridges on both the Southern and Northern side of the map, it's called "a glitch!" So it's possible there maybe some of that in every Rockstar game, who knows at the moment
There's also that blimp, seen in virtually all the shots, in Vice City it just circled the skyscrapers, so it was not obtainable, just for show, lets hope it's not that generically programmed!?!

This post has been edited by Slamman on Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 19:28

[ccrogers15]

of course the mountains are explorable. There was beaches which means its not a box. And theres planes...

[Groundogg]

QUOTE (Lazy Squirrel PT @ Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 18:54)

Nice finds! I'm a bit worried about the mountains though, what if they are like RDR and their only purpose is to cut you off from the outside world?

I'm worried about that also, there are still shots though that I can't find in the trailer, such as the man on the jetski driving through what looks to be an industrial area. I don't think there's a bridge, let alone an industrial area in the pictures I presented. The turbine area seems to be in a mountainous region too which I'd assume is higher than the mountains shown in the pictures as they seem to be almost cloud level, there is also a plane in the distance in this shot and a car driving down a dirt road. Surely the mountains further out must be explorable if a plane can reach them.

I noticed too how quick the fighter jet was, it'd be insane to have a plane that fast in a small map. The plane at the end (in picture 5) also flies over a Vinewood sign, which in San Andreas lead into the countryside-ish areas of the map. If a plane is flying over this sign into the city, the area it just flew over must also be explorable.

[Slamman]

I believe we WILL be able to swim....obviously jet ski is not hidden from view, so expect there to be some open areas, and some on the map that are "closed in"

[BULLSEYEMK1]

In this pic below it looks like the freeway is heading out past the industrial area/docks into a fairly low level (No Hills/Buildings), Other than a freeway dead end it could be heading across water to may be a new area like Las Venturas, similar to San Andreas.

[Karlip]

Groundogg, you're right.

If you make a small area and add planes, that's just wrong.

Prepare for something huge guys, bigger than you expected because looking at the landscape in the trailer, the map is gonna be HUGE.

In GTA: SA, planes didn't fly much distance too, and I think R* really thought this through. Either they make planes slow, or huge areas to fly in. Second choice is it I guess, because the planes go too fast.

[Slamman]

Just an off the cuff observation, but I'll be looking under every bridge for the hidden packages! Some reason, I always expect to find some weapon stash or hidden packages placed there

[Columbo]

That fact that we'll have planes really points to it being the whole state of San Andreas imo. Mountains can't keep us from flying over them. Invisible walls are a thing of the past, right?

[GTAlove]

QUOTE (StellarFish20 @ Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 18:59)

QUOTE (Lazy Squirrel PT @ Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 18:54) Nice finds! I'm a bit worried about the mountains though, what if they are like RDR and their only purpose is to cut you off from the outside world? I hope they're not Also, That's some great work dude!!

Yeah, I would much rather have an Island Surrounded by water than that.

[Vormek]

QUOTE (dre1218us @ Wednesday, Nov 2 2011, 19:04)

Yeah I'd be happy with just Venturas at least. San Fierro was whatever to me.

So you're saying you didn't like the hilly roads? It was fun driving with nitro on a road with 3 big jumps.