Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 5 are two of the most popular and influential games released in the past nine years, and they both have massive open worlds. While they belong to different franchises entirely, GTA and Red Dead Redemption are connected in various ways, be it through the story, recurring characters, or special Easter eggs. Although the two are very distinct, they share highly detailed environments that greatly contribute to the feeling of immersion. Their maps and special locations contribute to shaping the players' journey, but they present certain flaws that heavily impair their gameplay.

Grand Theft Auto 5, initially released in 2013, is an action-adventure game set in Los Santos, a fictional city that was heavily inspired by Los Angeles. As one of the three main protagonists - Michael de Santa, Franklin Clinton or Trevor Philips - players must travel and explore GTA 5’s large and detailed map to progress the story. By doing so, they encounter all sorts of individuals and strange occurrences. This repeated itself in Red Dead Redemption 2, released five years later, which immersed players in a breathtaking open world inspired by the southern United States in the late 19th century, this time with a bigger map and different events. Because of this, as well as these games' popularity, the two maps are often compared to one another and considered better than each other.

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Although they are very different from each other, many players have declared their preferences and opinions about why the two are so beloved, especially when discussing what Grand Theft Auto 6’s map should borrow from them. However, both have their respective qualities and faults, which can have completely different results in gameplay. Red Dead Redemption 2’s map is the largest Rockstar has ever made, and it contains a great variety of areas that can be explored, but the limited technology of the time can make travelling boring after a while. On the other hand, GTA 5’s smaller size allows players to familiarize themselves with it easily, but the lack of accessible locations, such as buildings and stores, combined with the limited exploration can be frustrating.

GTA 5 Had Better Fast Travel Mechanics Than RDR2

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In the 19th century, traveling between areas could take a very long time depending on the distance due to the limited technology of the time. Like many other aspects of realism and historical accuracy, RDR2 also managed to capture and depict this situation in-game. While cars already existed, the Red Dead Redemption games don’t let players drive them due to both aesthetic and immersion, which can often have a positive impact on gameplay. However, when combined with the incredibly large map, the excitement about the environments and the detailed animations can quickly be replaced by the frustration and the exhaustion of the traveling mechanics.

The game begins with the Van der Linde gang moving their camp’s location to the snowy mountains, while revealing that they have been on the run for a long time. This is a theme that is continuously explored in the story, which frequently proves to impair players’ experience, who must explore the map to complete missions and make progress. Stranger missions, collectibles and random encounters are also spread all around New Hanover and its adjacent states, requiring the players to keep traveling to not miss anything, which can be very tiring. Combined with a noticeable lack of effective and clear fast travel mechanics, one of RDR2’s biggest problems, exploration could grow tiresome.

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While Grand Theft Auto 5 received the same criticism upon release, given its map is the largest in the series, it has a dynamic fast travel system that makes the experience less tiring. At any given moment, players can use their cellphone to call a cab to their location, and the NPC driver would take them to whatever destination in the map. Although this presented other problems, given that not every area of Los Santos is reachable by car, it lessened the duller aspects of traveling in GTA 5. Red Dead Redemption 2's large map would have certainly benefited from a more specific fast travel system like this one.

RDR2 Had More Interior Areas Than GTA 5

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The older GTA games were set in a highly dense but confined location. Most of them offered players a variety of accessible buildings to explore, from shops and restaurants to bars and bowling alleys. The GTA games were also full of mini-games that served as a proper break from the story and the main missions. This type of map design was greatly appreciated by fans, expanding activities and allowing for a different type of immersion that had a less serious tone to it when compared to the rest of the game.

However, upon the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, this changed completely. Despite having a larger map that could account for even more accessible locations, the game limited the number of buildings players could access. It offered less variety in the kinds of shops and even less side mini-games, which created a new problem when combined with the map's size. Unlike what happened with RDR2's New Hanover and adjacent states, this issue made Los Santos one of the dullest settings of the franchise, with GTA 5 ruining part of San Andreas' charm from the original games.

While Grand Theft Auto 5 offered a viable solution to the problem of tiring travel across larger areas, Red Dead Redemption 2 made its environment much more interesting. It had a great variety of shops that were different from one another based on location and allowed players to enter certain houses from which they could steal or choose to rest in. Although it certainly had its faults, exploring the towns and locations spread out across the map had a certain reward, as they were all very different from each other. Not only that, but there are also different mini-games and activities that can be done in each of them, which added on to the experience that made Red Dead Redemption 2 feel unique. This served as incentive to keep fans interested in the game and was one of the reasons RDR2 was considered better than the original.

While the flaws in Red Dead Redemption 2’s environment were overshadowed by the number of areas players could explore, GTA 5 had a well-implemented fast travel system that made traveling for great distances less boring. Both maps have their own ups and downs, with Rockstar's Western epic including twice the detail as its predecessor, and Grand Theft Auto 5 having a more navigable environment. Both are well worth exploring, and it'll be interesting to see what the studio is able to accomplish with its next project: Grand Theft Auto 6.