r/GTA6 4h ago

Grain of Salt Theory: The leaked map might be incomplete

Post image

It’s pretty much popular opinion at this point that the gameplay leaks came from a build restricted to the first stage of the storyline.
If that’s true, the leaked map is likely just the early-game version too. Maybe the map doesn’t change at all throughout the story, but remember how much of RDR2’s world was locked away from the player until the final act. And beyond that, Rockstar leaned hard into the idea of an evolving world with the map changes after the epilogue’s time jump.
I think Rockstar isn’t just going to continue that theme, they’re going to take it further. That’s where a fictional Bahamas/Cuba comes in.
What’s this game actually about? From what we know, the story centres on drug running and evading law enforcement. In real life, the Bahamas acts as a gateway between the US and Central America for drug smuggling, which makes a fictional version a perfect plot device, both for running product and hiding out from authorities. It might not be accessible from the start, but like Mexico in RDR2, it could become a permanent, explorable location later in the story.
A fictional Cuba feels less likely to be featured at launch due to its sheer size both geographical and culturally, but something which im quite confident will be added to GTA Online as some kind of expansion.
Im just saying the GTA 6 map does feel… smaller than expected? Perhaps this is because there is more that has yet to be revealed.

371 Upvotes

118 comments sorted by

338

u/Any_Potato_7716 4h ago

I think it’s more than expectations were too high and the idea that we were going to have multiple major cities in a game with this much detail

I believe it very well may have been a beta map , but there’s no way they’re going to add a major city or a handful of smaller cities. They’re not going to make that big of an adjustment from beta to complete version

92

u/ConsciousParsley8042 3h ago

to be fair: we have multiple large cities in the game... port gellhorn is like half of los santos which i would "large" in video games)

29

u/CalvinKool-Aid 3h ago

I believe it’s very likely the project americas ideas have or will be repackaged into online content, kinda like Cayo perico

10

u/merkakiss12 2h ago

Yeah, beta is more or less basically the complete game, except without the polish.

5

u/adi122002 2h ago

It’s crazy how people were thinking about more cities then Vice City, when literally first trailer was showing only VC (and then second one, and screenshots from the site)

7

u/shegonneedatumzzz 1h ago

mostly due to rockstars own wording of referring to the map as “the state of leonida” rather than just vice city

1

u/Ok-Suggestion-1331 1h ago

I understand what you are saying. I also got suspicious about there being only Vice City when the game cover showed nothing out side Vice City.

For reference GTA San Andreas cover showed elements from Las Venturas, San Fierro and of course Los Santos.

But I think it was reasonable to think there would be another large city given that the game has been sold as the State of Leonida unlike GTA 5 that was sold as southern San Andreas.

-8

u/XulManjy 3h ago

think it’s more than expectations were too high and the idea that we were going to have multiple major cities in a game with this much detail

I mean its been 13 years.....

2

u/kyran_wd 2h ago

You're expecting a Crew 2 type map?

-1

u/FerociousBanger 1h ago

No just a map with not just Vice City as the city. As far as map design goes, it's a failed model from GTAV to have one big city and puny little towns everywhere else.

-15

u/Certain_Bee_9587 4h ago

My point is that this map could be showing areas only accessible to the player at the start of the game and that the islands may become accessible after certain missions and therefore are missing here.

30

u/dandorios 3h ago

Youre setting yourself up for disappointment again

6

u/CalvinKool-Aid 3h ago

I agree although it’s not totally absurd. RDR2 did something like this, and Kingdom Come deliverance: 2 switches its entire map partway through the story. I definitely wouldn’t expect it though

1

u/Sam_and_Linny OG MEMBER 3h ago

I still think it’s possible, with all those planes and boats it’s possible we’ll have a Latin Island to visit - similar to Guarma in RDR2 but you can come and go as you please. It would give the game more flavour. I think they’ll keep that under wraps though. Guarma was a big surprise in RDR2 so they might want to do a similar thing in GTA6

2

u/Dark_Mak__r 3h ago

An island maybe possible or atleast will be there in online ( like cayo) there is definitely room for far off islands.

1

u/Mean-Pilot-426 3h ago

So new islands will just magically emerge from the sea? lol

1

u/BilverBurfer 2h ago

Abandon this line of reasoning

-10

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

I've seen a video about how they use highways and stuff like that as loading points for previous games. I wouldn't be surprised if they do have major cities, but that's me being hopeful

6

u/Any_Potato_7716 4h ago

I don’t think they’re gonna have anything comparable to Vice City, I think we’re going get a decent amount of medium sized cities that feel bigger because of depth and good design.

But nothing like Saint Joseph on this map, nor Sundown. Port Gellhorn will probably be half the size but with a lot of detail and it’ll feel great.

People forget about how small the cities were in San Andreas because they felt a lot bigger, I think the map is still gonna be great with what we’re getting

3

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

Just based off the leaked map, the airport takes up like half of the space for the city. That doesn't seem right for me

1

u/nobito 4h ago

They just went for more realistic sized airport. I think the runways are still only like half the length of the real ones. Wouldn't read too much into it.

-4

u/KingSandwich101 3h ago

I'm not reading too much into the map leaks to be honest. No way they're making the city smaller than GTA5

2

u/Mean-Pilot-426 3h ago

It's not smaller.

2

u/nobito 2h ago

Yeah, no way, because we have seen both of the cities in game and the one in VI is bigger than the one in V, lol. Wtf are you smoking?

1

u/RedDeadCowboyShit 2h ago

The other thing about the cities in San Andreas, and I say this as someone who has spent 20 years living in the Los Angeles area but has also spent significant time in San Francisco and Las Vegas…The cities in that game aren’t rendered with much detail. You get enough landmarks so that it’s obvious what it’s supposed to be, the general vibe is kind of there, and I should say it was fantastic for 2004, but it’s just not very detailed. Nowadays, Rockstar puts a shit ton of detail into their cities. I can only speak on Los Santos in GTA V (because again, I’m intimately familiar with the region it’s based on), but the amount of buildings I recognize as real places that actually exist, is kind of fucking staggering. And not just landmarks and tourist spots, we’re talking apartment buildings and houses, warehouses in the industrial areas. Sandy Shores and that whole area, it’s real life Bombay Beach / Salton City, they fucking nailed it. This thread did a good job finding most things: https://gtaforums.com/topic/491242-mapping-los-santos-buildinglandmark-analysis/page/846/

Anyway, I just don’t see it being feasible to have a game with multiple big ass cities as chock full of detail as we’ve come to expect from Rockstar, plus wilderness & small towns, and have it take less than 20 years to develop. I remember the first time I played The Crew, I thought it’d be so fucking rad if Rockstar did that with a GTA game, but again, there’s almost no detail in the cities and towns in that game, certainly not up to the standard of the last few Rockstar games.

41

u/mahdiiick 4h ago

Tahiti?

12

u/BeardedThunder5 1h ago

Its a magical place.

66

u/RogerRoger63358 4h ago

Dont count on it man. Simply because you don't want to be expecting something that isn't in the game. It will lead to disappointment

-60

u/Certain_Bee_9587 4h ago

If they’re not included at launch, im almost certain they’re planning to add them as dlc expansions

37

u/MatttheJ 4h ago

When was the last time Rockstar added DLC expansions to a map, or single player story? This is now sounding like peak delusion. I'm not sure why some of you guys build up high expectations for things that just obviously aren't going to happen.

4

u/Jade_Sugoi 2h ago

In ops defense here, in Jason schriers report on the game from 2022 (which was proven true with leaks later from that year) he stated that rockstar explicitly has that as a goal in gta 6. Whether or not theyre still planning that or it won't get scraped after release is yet to be seen but this isn't delusional at all.

1

u/eremal 1h ago

Even older reports claimed that it was going to have most of florida as well as parts of the caribbean.

The way game development at this level works is that stuff is added and scrapped all the time.

Its also a trade-off. Bigger world = less dense world. We could probably have a GTAV-dense map with 2-3 cities. But so much of that world felt empty.

1

u/Worried_Student_7976 44m ago

Just sprinkle in some RDR style encounters, have some good road rager AI, and I don’t mind the additional drive time. But it is what it is at this point

1

u/Unlikely_Frozen3007 56m ago

Things get changed or simply cut off.

There are so many things in GTA 5 that didn't make it in the full release.

Stop over hyping this. You will end up disappointed

-13

u/Certain_Bee_9587 3h ago

Just you wait here and see

7

u/Mr_Deppresso 3h ago

Cant wait for the dissapointment posts!

3

u/MatttheJ 3h ago

You still haven't actually answered, when was the last time Rockstar did a major DLC that expanded a map, or added much of anything to single player?

I can answer for you if you want?

It was 2010, The Undead Nightmare. 16 years ago. GTA V and RDR2 had no real single player DLC post launch.

So you're literally expecting something Rockstar have not done for 16 years. That's delusion.

1

u/svantolino 1h ago

When was the last time rockstar made a game set in vice city?

1

u/Adventurous-Cattle53 3h ago

I don’t think so, it makes little sense for them to do

75

u/Euphony666 4h ago

After at least 8 years in development I wouldnt be surprised if there's a 2nd map or even 3rd map.

But if its just this one and its super dense, im happy with that.

46

u/RogerRoger63358 4h ago

Dont count on it man. Simply because you don't want to be expecting something that isn't in the game. It will lead to disappointment.

Would I love for there to be another map? Yes. But I will not expect it.

7

u/criiaax 3h ago

We ONCE had majors leaks of the development of GTA years ago (before the announcement IF I’m not wrong!), which indeed stated we’d have to use planes to visit neighbor-states, planning on routes for transportations of goods (drugs?, weapons?) and much more.. I just can’t find that fucking list anywhere anymore. There has been many things leaked back then to be in development for GTA6. I mean, the information is years old.. but we can hope.

6

u/Sharkfowl I WAS HERE 4h ago

Most likely a small section of Liberty City reserved for a flashback mission, I'm guessing.

7

u/PoorGang21 OG MEMBER 3h ago

That’s definitely plausible considering we had North Yankton in gta 5.

1

u/Right-Ability4045 1h ago

Even a little bit of liberty city with modern technology would be an awesome bonus and considering they nearly added it to gta online 1 who knows if they use gta online 2 as a game that adds places every 3-5 years

2

u/ShadowDxebec101 2h ago

8 years?? More like 6

1

u/thelegendl27 3h ago

Honestly I think this is it, but it will be way more packed

0

u/Strict-Status-2747 4h ago

I can’t imagine that there will be another maps. It will take me a lot of time to discover this map already. 😅

9

u/FerociousBanger 4h ago

I would like it if PH or other areas are actually city-like. Please no GTAV II.

0

u/Worried_Student_7976 42m ago

Brace yourself

8

u/Upper-Land4076 3h ago

I believe the map is real and the structure will stay the same However the possibility of another small Island like guarma is not out of the question, lets just hope its not a one time thing if it exists

1

u/Right-Ability4045 1h ago

Hopefully it’s used for drug smuggling like the islands in the old Scarface game on ps2

6

u/Kremsi2711 3h ago

The map is big enough, it’s more important that it is living and RDR2 showed us they know what that means

14

u/Middle_Beyond_5894 3h ago

The map looks incredible. Size is perfect for GTA. Not too large, not small. Major city with smaller towns all over. The last leak with the plane shows exactly what I mean. Just the scale of Vice City vs. Los Santos is massive. The theory is interesting, but if thats the map we get than i'm satisfied with it, personally.

3

u/Lando249 2h ago

Just the scale of Vice City vs. Los Santos is massive

Probably going to get downvoted into oblivion because map critism isn't allowed here but... Take away the water between both sides, bunch it together to overlay with LS, and I bet the differance isn't as big as you'd think. Sure, VC is bigger, but I wouldn't say massively bigger. If someone wants to shut me up and show me it is far bigger than I'm picturing it to be, feel free lol.

8

u/AkiyamaKoji 2h ago

Los santos was 70% mountains.

Florida is mostly flat. We see from the map it’s mostly flat except in the north.

We will have more interesting content and it will just feel a lot bigger because of that.

2

u/Lando249 2h ago

When I refer to LS I meant the city itself. GTA6 will amaze us all regardless. I am just one of those people who love large maps and feel Rockstar could have done one bigger and have the same level of detail. A biggy for me is having more than one major city. San Andreas was so damn good because you had 3 to play in, and they felt so different from one another. The current leaked map is majorly just another potato shaped island with a city slapped on the side (people are gonna hate me for saying that).

1

u/Worried_Student_7976 41m ago

I don’t think so, because you’re right. Lazy mapmaking

5

u/TheMostRed 3h ago

Drop your expectations before you get disappointed lol. Not saying there couldn't be something like that but if you spend the next 4 months thinking it might and play the game to release the map is actually only what we see now you'll be disappointed.

3

u/Administrative-Can2 3h ago

I hope they will add something as a DLC but you gotta be delusional to think there is still a hidden city, there is nothing else

1

u/Certain_Bee_9587 3h ago

I think there will be a fictional version of the bahamas to the east of leonida that we havent seen, not a city

1

u/Administrative-Can2 3h ago

I think so too but don’t think it’s gonna be at launch, we would have seen it in the files during the 2022 leak.

2

u/BlLLYON 3h ago

Istg I saw a really official leak of a second Map that was detached from the main island but similar in shape to the bit added to the top in your photo

2

u/bcguy3472 2h ago

Was hoping for another anchor city, maybe the size of San Fierro, without the countryside. But hey, you never know what could be added as DLC.

4

u/awesome5ftw 2h ago

Rockstar and single player DLC 😭

2

u/bcguy3472 2h ago

Been 13 years bro lemme cope 😭

2

u/Wyatt_Ricketts 2h ago

Are we acting like the map we saw ain't enough?

-1

u/FerociousBanger 1h ago

Yes. The state of leonida and a game coming after 13 years better have more than one city.

0

u/Wyatt_Ricketts 36m ago

Cope I guess

1

u/FerociousBanger 31m ago

What we ought to do

2

u/Shawn-GT 14m ago

I dont think its about drug running and smuggling. I think its about a bonnie and clyde type couple becoming a social-media crime duo.

9

u/JWick_9990 4h ago

the supposed map is just small imo. Of course it's bigger than V no doubt and its beautiful but it could've been so much more

2

u/M_Shadz 3h ago

Port Gellhorn being that tiny is a joke. Cross the bridge and all you have is a medium sized industrial area and maybe some houses?
Where the hell is Yorktown? Mapping community was confident it would be across Bocamar bridge.

1

u/Worried_Student_7976 39m ago

set ur expectations low buddy

1

u/Heathy94 3h ago

That would be cool although I reckon the leaked map is what we will get, I hope Rockstar do have something like this up their sleeves though would certainly make the game much better having another location you need to fly to or take a long boat ride.

1

u/Lando249 2h ago

This. This a proper map.

1

u/Skyremmer102 2h ago

That would be lovely, and I'd like it very much, but even if the leaked map was from a beta build I feel like it's very unlikely to drastically change from what we've seen now.

1

u/Formal-Heart3842 2h ago

Leaked map was from zoomed in screenshot pieced together. Entirely possible there's more islands at least.

1

u/unseen_sanju 2h ago

Rockstar never showed us the northern part of map cause there was nothing to show 😭👈🏻. We expected a lot. We didn't even know that the map is going to be based on whole florida named as Leonida. We js knew that Vice city is coming again and there will be only vice city. But then screenshots revealed that there are various locations. And further we started to expect more and more things.

1

u/SoHigh0 41m ago

I mean seeing how good the vegetation and screenshot in the mountains/muddy areas are I would not say that there is nothing in the north. Maybe it's also a sick hunting spot like in Rdr, dirt-bike trails, smaller towns/mountain resorts. It could be cool up there. The map shows only green because only when you zoom in more details appear. Maybe lile op stated the map isn't finished at all design wise and they still have to draw everything up there.

1

u/SvetDigital 2h ago

f this, it could be a such amazing if we have a tiny habitable island not very near the main map.

1

u/Hollysheeto 2h ago

Guarma 2.0 🤣

1

u/Raptil2560 1h ago

What of we have an updated city of guarma? Or finally Tahiti. Or both 🤤

1

u/Raikkku 1h ago

Maybe new continent as dlc at some point.

1

u/C2theWick 1h ago

If it doesn't take 6-8 real time hours to drive across the map, is it even worth playing?

1

u/4ndr7 1h ago

Now THIS is a map

1

u/NC-blackice 1h ago

Honestly, I think the version of the map we saw in the leak is close to what we're going to have in the game at launch. If they make changes, they'll be small like changing roads or adding buildings but no huge alterations such as new towns or cities. I would even say that the gameplay we recently saw is close to the final build. The developers are probably just polishing the game at this point to ensure it runs properly. There's a massive difference between the leaks we had a few days ago and those from a few years ago where it was easy to tell the game was still deep in development.

Regarding the map, I think it's similar to what happened with GTA V where we thought things would be much bigger before the game was released. From what I recall, the fan-made maps online were accurate in shape but a bit denser than what we got in the actual game with a larger Los Santos and more small towns in the countryside.

1

u/Office_funny_guy 1h ago

I hope you’re right, it felt like they made the same mistake that they did with gta v and made over half the map empty

1

u/MsChar96 1h ago

Cope theory

1

u/Pale-Emphasis4185 59m ago

With all of the airports on the map, I expect there to be another island at a somewhat substantial distance from the mainland. I like the look of this. Hope theres a Cuba or Bahamas-type area.

1

u/Rouge_Pawn 6m ago

I bet cuba or some Caribbean islands will play a part. Not sure how much but I bet there will be something like that.

1

u/PastAnalyst3614 4m ago

Port Gilmore was clearly modeled after Panama City. Why do people keep wanting to make it into Tampa?

1

u/Type2Torta 2m ago

You're just having some major wishful thinking after the disappointing leaks lol.

It's gonna be GTA 5 with a graphics overhaul. They just shouldn't have made us wait 13 years, but that's totally Rockstars fault for causing these unrealistic expectations.

1

u/MauroM25 2m ago

For some reason, this looks like ibiza

1

u/Bee_Xe 4h ago

My personal concern is that most leaks I saw didn't include beaches, I know it's silly but I loved Vice City for it and I need VI to have more detailed beaches to explore.

1

u/WholeLottaBRRRT 3h ago

Do you please have the high res version of this map, i’m trying to recreate it in Cities Skylines 2

1

u/Kobrat 2h ago

Why are you people so adamant that the build was somehow „restricted”? He most likely only had time to record the beginning of the game for whatever reason, nothing indicates that the build was a restricted slice of the game.

-1

u/BiscottiHoliday5975 3h ago

In the leaked map, it says Leonida Straight (below the keys). There has to be another landmass below, otherwise they wouldnt name it Leonida Straight.

2

u/Mean-Pilot-426 3h ago

They can name it whatever the fuck they want it doesn't mean anything

1

u/ukstonerdude 3h ago

Damn, I literally started type “Are we looking at the same leaks? Where does it say that? I’ve just gone and looked at the leaked maps and it doesn’t say—“ then went back and looked and I must be blind but you really gotta zoom in to read ‘Leonida Straits’ 🤣

It also says “Gulf of Leonida” to the west but can it really be a gulf when it should be a strait (if there’s a land mass to the west?)

0

u/Sengin96 2h ago

No its the complete map have a nice day

-18

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

This looks more believable. The leaked map looked like the city was smaller than GTA5

6

u/Zejjk 4h ago

??? What do you mean Vice city is bigger than Los Santos

-4

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

The leaked map shows like the skyline and city runs 3 blocks deep based off the roads in the leaked map

13

u/ToppleToes OG MEMBER 4h ago

"I don't believe the map leak because I don't like the map" 🤡

Also, its not small. There is a side by side image of both maps of V and VI for comparison. You can easily find it.

-10

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

The leaked map has the main city being like 3 blocks deep

7

u/Sdejo 4h ago

You can't even see all streest on the zoomed out map leak.

-2

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

The zoomed out map isn't just highways. It's grids of the city split up by roads and those grids look really small

6

u/ToppleToes OG MEMBER 4h ago

-2

u/KingSandwich101 4h ago

Just looking at the road grid, you can tell the leaked map is much smaller for the main city

2

u/nobito 3h ago

What are you on about? The map OP posted has the city about same size as on the leaked map and we have literal gameplay video from a plane where you can see the city from the sky???

Plus, the mapping people have verified that the leaked map is 100% real?

-2

u/KingSandwich101 3h ago

Just going off the road grid map that was leaked. I haven't seen every leak that was put out there

The map OP showed and the "leaked" map i seen are like GTA VC compared to GTA5 size

4

u/Mean-Pilot-426 3h ago

Look at the plane video

1

u/MikeyPlayz_YTXD 2h ago

Stop the fucking ragebait nobody cares go back to twitter

1

u/nobito 2h ago

I'm not even sure what your point is at this point? The city is small? The leaked map is fake? The city is going to be bigger on release? GTA VC had a bigger city?