The Red Dead Redemption games take place in the USA and Mexico of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Crucially, however, the locations that players can visit within the games are heavily condensed amalgamations that are inspired by real-world locations. The city of New Orleans in RDR2 is reimagined as Saint Denis, and the in-game state of New Austin is a condensed fictional version of the Mexican border region of Texas.
This is an idiosyncrasy found in most open world Rockstar games. Most famously, the Grand Theft Auto series has seen games set in Los Santos which is based on Los Angeles, Liberty City which is based on New York City, and Vice City which is based on Miami.
One feature of Red Dead Redemption 2 which surprised many returning RDR players, is that the entire American half of Red Dead Redemption’s map had been recreated for RDR2, despite it being locked off until the game's epilogue. RDR2’s massive world expanded the game far beyond the Flat Iron Lake which marked the edge of the map in RDR. This has led a Reddit user named Ailien to imagine a third game in the Red Dead Redemption series, and what its map could look like if it were to do the same thing.
The Reddit user’s incredible game map spans the entire United States, parts of Canada, and even down through Mexico into South America. The island of Guarma from Red Dead Redemption 2 has also been included off the east coast. Based on the size of Red Dead Redemption 2’s map, which still makes up a fair chunk in the middle of the Reddit user’s map, this proposed Red Dead Redemption 3 game world would be truly massive, and it would likely take over an hour to ride from one end of to another.
A massive game map like this would also be incredibly versatile for story missions in Red Dead Redemption3. Most of the first RDR’s game world was very emblematic of a typical Western genre location, but Red Dead Redemption 2 included more variety in its locations, with snow-capped mountains and industrial cities. A Red Dead Redemption story that takes players all across North America would make for a real video game Odyssey. Also, since the Red Dead Redemption games cover themes of expansionism and civilization, it would also make for an interesting contrast for players to ride eastward across the USA, and watch their surroundings become more populated and industrial.
The most fun part of Ailien’s incredibly detailed map is zooming in and finding the real-world locations that the Reddit user has reimagined in a Rockstar style. An early Los Santos from GTA can be found in the location of the real-world LA. Although New York City’s equivalent has not been named Liberty City, but rather New Rotterdam, this is likely in reference to New Amsterdam which was the original settlement on Manhattan Island that was renamed New York.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
