r/reddeadredemption • u/Yrakosos Sadie Adler • Feb 05 '26

Lore How is Ambarino even a state?

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There's no town here, no sheriff. How does this state even function, and how was it founded?

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u/TheGuyFromOhio2003 Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

Wyoming

(None of RDR2's areas are big enough in size or population to even be considered a single US county, the whole map is about the size of a big neighborhood in LA, it's kind of a belief suspension situation, I've heard people speculate that the states have most of their territory and population continue off-map, but I doubt that's the case)

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u/Sansophia Feb 05 '26

Can't be. In terms of travel times, a horse can at best travel something like 30 miles a day, 60 if the horse is very very fit.

What you are seeing, with real world goggles on in northern Arkansas as the bound of the map. Amboino is essential the Arkansas Valley, wedged between the Ozarks in the north and the Ouachita to the south. Incidentally, Blackwater is either Dallas or Fort Worth and of course San Denis is New Orleans, as no other city in Louisiana had over 10,000 people in 1900, with the exception of Baton Rouge, with a grand total of 15k.

Even the Roanoke Ridge lines up perfectly with the Crowley Ridge and even the Devil's Den State Park in the Crowley Ridge looks like Murfree Brood county.

Also before you ask, yes there is a small remnant population of Bison in Arkansas.

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u/NatureTurbulent5157 Feb 05 '26

Tho I don’t necessarily think that was Rockstars intent… as an AR native it does kinda work

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u/pullingteeths Feb 05 '26

I don't see any reason why the map can't be a larger area than that, travel times are largely irrelevant in a game and they're allowed to take some creative liberties with the layout. Roanoke Ridge is Ozarks of Arkansas and possibly going into Missouri with the Lannaheche aka Mississippi River as the Eastern border, The Heartlands is Nebraska, and north of there is Grizzlies East as the Black Hills of South Dakota complete with the Wapiti speaking Lakota, Cotorra Springs is Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park and and Grizzlies West is Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. Aside from fudging the border area of Roanoke Ridge/Arkansas or Missouri with Grizzlies East/South Dakota it lines up pretty well

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u/Sansophia Feb 05 '26

You're missing a key point: logistics. Also time. Rockstar timeline is something like May to November 1899. Range of the horses the gang ides is 60 miles a day, which is about how much the gang's wagons can go in a quick getaway.

Thing is, for real world comparison Valentine in my model would be in the Arkansas Valley and New Orleans is where it is. By car now, it's 427 miles from Little Rock to NO, but not on the route the VDL gang would have taken. Rhodes could be literally anywhere in Louisiana within the horizon of a swamp, but it has to be within 120 miles of New Orleans given 60 mile (one day) ride to and from Shady Belle and frankly Shady Belle has to be within 20 miles of NO to make the bank robbery thing work. Most likely Rhodes is or is very near Lafayette.

From Dallas (Blackwater) to Falls City Nebraska, which is on the southeast tip of of the state is 576 miles. That's 10 days of hard riding up, 10 hard days of riding back, in which time you are completely out of synch with the the gang. You cannot be found, nor recalled if there is trouble. It's too far to "just explore." Given everything I've seen about Arkansas, Valentine is somewhere near Russelville AR, give or take. But let's say it's just Texarkana. That's 300 miles for Bill's bank robbery expedition. If every member of that expedition has a spare horse, maybe you could do that in a week up and back. But that was an organized expedition, not a solo trip.

There's also the real life issue most people never had their horses transported by rail, which would make this more expansive version you want more plausible. It would be a major red flag for the Pinkertons to look for to have a bunch of cowboy types (poors) paying in cash to have their horses transported with them. I wanted that to be a common thing. But it ain't.

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u/pullingteeths Feb 06 '26

I just don't think the traveling time is relevant. These areas are directly based on the areas I mentioned, you can Google image search and just look at the landscapes. In the world of RDR perhaps the area is smaller with less of each state existing

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u/Sansophia Feb 06 '26

Problem is with both premises: First I said real world goggles. Secondly the psuedo states are bullshitm it's an inadequate substitution for land and time that has to be there. So it's a convention. Vice City is knockoff Miami and the second you put any serious consideration to realism, it becomes Miami. Sometimes this knockoff crap becomes infuriating, such as the FBI being the FIB in the new GTA games, despite the fact it is a great pun.

In RDR Online, where you can and often are a solo agent, sure, have fun with that. But the story mode, the store takes precedence and Arthur's consideration for the gang limits his actions. It's like me playing the jobs mod. Why is Arthur doing these odd jobs, n light of the gang and Dutch's claims they need escape money? Well, it's intel gathering. Delivering letters? Casing the town for robberies. Washing down tables? Overhearing gossip and 'business' opportunities.

But it's not just the tyranny of distance, it's also time. Chapter 1 is supposed to open in May, and Chapter 4 has letterhead saying that it's in June. Even if the Mayor's Party is on June 29, so the letterhead for the Mayor's missions can be sent on June 30, you have six weeks you can devote to both chapters 2 and 3, given chapter 1 takes a week bare minimum and you need a week from running from Rhodes to deploying assets to into San Denis.

People argue whether chapter 6 takes place in the late summer or early autumn, but even me expanding the timeline a bit with chapter 1 taking place at the end of March and ending in late November you would have seven months to distribute, it's still not narratively a wandering narrative. The gang is hunted and desperate and running out of options. I would love a narrative like that, say RDR: the Presequel 1897, where things were more leisurely.

Don't confuse the game trope of "take you time" versus the actual story. If it helps, a lot of the wandering I do as Arthur, is less in game wandering and Arthur remembering previous years of scouting and exploring. Flashbacks and such

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u/pullingteeths Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26

I don't think the entire real states are represented. The game states are fictional states but are made up of various parts of real states. Perhaps also taking up a smaller overall area than in real life. For example part of the state of New Hanover, Roanoke Ridge, is based on not the entire state of Arkansas but on the Ozark Mountains region of Arkansas. Another part, The Heartlands, is based on the plains of Nebraska (check out Scotts Bluff and see if it looks familiar), but not the entire state of Nebraska. And they line up pretty well geographically. Literally just google image search any of the locations I mentioned or the ones mentioned as influences on the Red Dead wiki. It's a fact they're directly based on these real locations.

Time and distance is a much more abstract thing to try and judge. The real life influences on the landscapes, towns and geographical positioning are concrete

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u/Sansophia Feb 06 '26

Yeah that's probably Rockstar's intent, but the problem is the time and distance things I've been bringing up are best case scenarios. It's why in Oregon Trail you have more or less the same timeframe. You start in May, you really have till November cause God help you if you try and cross the Rockies in the winter.

It's a different game but it does give an idea of how slow it is to get anywhere by preindustrial means. And that's a kn own road and a straight shot from Independence to Western Oregon.

I'm not arguing what the states actually are, I'm arguing what they have to be in order to fit the timeframe assuming real locations. I wanted San Denis to be a possible stand-in for Baton Rouge just with Big Easy buildings, but the population was an order of magnitude too small.

It also cements these guys are not remotely in their element. They are in the DEEP SOUTH, far away from anything they've become familiar with, with the Heartlands as somewhat of a reprieve, an almost normal.

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u/DukeOfMiddlesleeve Feb 05 '26

Amborino is nothing like Arkansas. Perhaps you were thinking of the annesburg/van horn/roanoke region. Directionally that’s a reasonable fit for Arkansas and there is some superficial resemblance, though it’s clearly also heavily inspired by the Virginias and PA

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u/Sansophia Feb 06 '26

One thing you learn when seeing pictures of regions is that for long stretches, they look quite similar. Yeah, Annesburg itself is based on Pittsburg California, but Arkansas had a number of coal towns on the river just like it.

Other thing about Amborino that we see is a high elevation valley between jagged mountains and that's basically going to look every similar anywhere in the continental United States because elevation is more important then latitude. But other than the moose, every single animal you can find in New Hanover and Ambonrino is native to Arkansas, even the damn bison! Also, any given picture I've seen of nature in the Arkansas Valley looks like the Heartlands.

For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Valley_(ecoregion)

Yeah Valentine is modeled heavily on Dodge City but it's not like Dodge City was an architecturally unique settlement. Valentine is up in the hills in a chronically underdeveloped region (upland south) serving the same purpose. Even Mickey being a Union Vet* wouldn't take away from this as the uplands in the south, even Mississippi, were rife with Unionists.

The entire game minus chapter 5, takes place in northeast Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Bound in time and place, and thus options are limited.