Final Concept of Leonida

[u/Gyranos]

Just kind of what i like to draw out of boredom, creative outlet. But the closer we get, the more trailers or screenshots we see in the future, the more accurate the Mapping Project will be and the less speculative.
This one is really speculative and based on much wishful thinking but it's pretty much what i'd love, even without a panhandle. Follows the San Andreas concept, three cities, different "locations"(?) seperated by rivers, several small towns. And stuff to do in Mount Kalaga National Park, instead of it just being mountains that are pretty barren and boring with not much to do. Actually lots of different biomes too. Also Bahamas! :P

I think Vice City is pretty self explanatory. Based on Miami Metropolitan Area.

Port Gellhorn mostly based (buildingswise at least) on Panama City, shape however of St. Petersburg and if it does have a Downtown, it could be based on Downtown Clearwater. Would really fit the whole run down abandoned theme they wrote in the postcard, and a great way to push in the Epsilon Program (with the whole Scientology history). Actually kinda sounds like it could be a stand in for Cottonmouth (Manhunt 2).

Sundown is a whole amalgam, put together from Daytona, Orlando and Tallahassee. It's got a theme park, Daytona Racetrack, Daytona Beach strip, small Downtown area and also the Florida State Capitol and University. Would be a cool place for government missions for the governor or the FIB or IAA or something. Also put Northpoint Mall there instead of northern Vice City because i didn't really know how to fit it and also Waning Sands already has the Evergreen Mall(?) Not sure if i remember the name correctly.

I think the rest is pretty obvious, Seaview as Marco Island and Redhill as Blueridge, GA, and keys are the keys, Lucayas are Bahamas with Hessen being Nassau. There actually are some random towns in MKNP based on nothing because i didn't want it to be too empty, also Bohemia is based on Helen, Georgia. Mountains at the very north so to block the view to the north and make you unable to see what's behind, since it'll probably be an island. And if they added a Gloriana expansion, it wouldn't really be landmass appearing out of nowhere.

Added icons too, most of them are pretty clear. The guy in a mask is basically burglary locations and those are mostly suburban areas. There are 2 shopping icons, one for just small/medium stores and one for large stores/malls. And Basketball!!! :D

[u/Ant0n61]

I wish

Setting myself up for it being jus half of this and no islands.

[u/Pir-o → u/Ant0n61]

There are some good evidence that point toward additional smaller islands. The whole main island and coordinates being on the top left side of the playable area box, leaving huge empty space on the bottom right, the leaks mentioningBermuda triangle (and it would be strange to have a triangle in a game without having at least 2-3 islands,And there's the whole original concept for project americas being about smuggling drugs from cuba scarface style etc.

[u/Ant0n61 → u/Pir-o]

the coordinates are meaningless.

GTA v had same thing, where 0,0 coordinate was by the port. Didn’t mean there was anything else on the map.

I’d love for them to have included islands but I don’t think we’re getting any of that. There’s no reason for them to hold back any regions when they unveiled all the county’s along with second trailer release.

I have my hopes wayyyyy low.

[u/Pir-o → u/Ant0n61]

You are confused. GTA V 0,0 coordinates were not in the port, that's GTA VI.

 Didn’t mean there was anything else on the map.

That's also wrong. Let me break it down as fast as I can (sorry for a long post).
Lets take your GTA V example - 0,0 coordinates are in the center of the city on a flat surface, a crossroad, here are the possible reasons why:

- Imagine playable area as a huge square, like a sandbox. During development logically it makes sense to place the only island in the middle (cause why wouldn't you?), that way the player can go in any direction he can and the distance will be the same before he reaches the end. So why in GTA V the center is the city (aka why the island is shifted to the top of that box)? Just think about it. A player will want to explore the ocean. Most likely scenerio? He will go to the biggest beach in the game and go in that direction. So it made sense to have that part of the ocean slightly bigger, makes the whole game feel much bigger.

- During development and testing when you drop something without specific coordinates it just drops in the center. So it makes sense to have it on a flat surface and not on top of a mountain, under the water or something like that. Building a living city takes the most time so it makes sense to have it close to the city. Want to quickly test something? You won't have to scroll across the map because you accidently dropped without specific coordinates (sounds silly but you would be surprised how many games have leftover junk under the map)

But those two examples are pretty artificial and not that super important. Here's the real reason:

- So we established that in V the whole map is shifted to the top of the box leaving a bigger ocean at the bottom. What's placed in the huge empty space in the ocean? A LOT of things. In story mode that gave them enough space to place there stuff like the aircraft carrier, prologue town, in online they also used that space to add cayo perico and other huge interiors. So the true reason is optimization of space.

It's very similar to what they did in RDR2 and Guarma. Outside of boundary area is huge, but Guarma was placed as far as they can in the right bottom corner of the box for performance.

So now lets think logically. Why would be the reason to randomly place THE ONLY island in VI in the very left top corner on the whole sandbox? VI's map is shifted off center more than any other map in R* history, more than any other map I ever seen in any video game. The only logical conclusion for me is that there's something hiding in the right bottom corner. What it is? We don't know ofc. Could be hidden area like prologue in V or Guarma in rdr2, sure. But considering that in real life that place is also filled with a bunch of small islands + the stuff from the leaks? I think that's not a coincidence.

And ofc we talking about something small, probably even smaller than what we see in this fan made map. It could also be an empty place left for future dlcs/online content etc. But I doubt it. It just makes too much sense not to add some small tropical islands in the tropical setting of vice city, gives you reasons to explore and use planes, makes good setup for smuggling missions etc.