Anyone who knows anything about anything knows GTA 6 is going to be a huge game. It’s likely the most expensive video game ever made and is expected to be the biggest launch in entertainment history, but until now it wasn’t known exactly how big it is, in terms of map size. Well, we have a rough estimate now, and it’s even more expansive than anyone could have predicted.
Accompanying today’s GTA 6 extended look from Netflix is a write-up from the New York Times (paywalled) in which, for the first time, Rockstar gives a pretty definitive confirmation of the game’s map size: it’s three times bigger than the one in Red Dead Redemption 2, folks.
If you’ve played Red Dead Redemption 2 for any length of time, you’ll know its map feels nearly limitless and surprisingly dense for its size. To imagine something three times that size, and presumably with Rockstar’s level of attention to detail, is genuinely daunting.
Of course, there are much bigger video game maps that exist already if we’re talking pure square mileage – No Man’s Sky and The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall come to mind immediately – but they’re built by procedural generation with tons of empty space in between major hubs, whereas GTA 6’s map, taking place in a satirized and fictional version of Miami, Florida, looks incredibly dense and packed with things to do and systems to interact with.
Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson has said the game feels like “a whole other world” with “a whole lot of stuff that you discover emergently that we’re not necessarily directing you to through objectives or blips or icons on a map as well,” adding that, “If you take a bit of time and explore you will be rewarded – a lot.”
GTA 6 sounds like it’s going to consume me, frankly, because I’m the type of open-world game enjoyer who needs to explore every nook and cranny to feel like I’m really getting my money’s worth, so to say.
That said, Nelson’s playthrough of the main campaign took him about 80 hours, which isn’t too bad. It sounds like if you stick to the critical path you can beat the game in a somewhat reasonable amount of time, at least when we’re talking about open-world games.