Speeding Coast To Coast Through GTA V Takes About Six Minutes

Grand Theft Auto V is very large. But after the game's map leaked last week, Kotaku noticed some people speculating that, no, it's not that big. How about if we hop in a car and drive from end to end?

[GarrusVakarian]

Quality over quantity. Still, 6 minutes of non stop speeding? Still quite impressive imo.

[xPhearR3dx]

There's also a single highway that loops around the map. It's not like other GTA's where you had to get off the highway and back on.

[Regis]

Or Saint's Row

[Anon1974]

What the hell's a "Saint's Row"? ;)

[Hydrolex]

Saints Row is a synonym for direheae

[GameSpawn]

1) Saint's Row is not that bad. I'll admit I never took ANY interest in it until I got SR3 with PS+, but SR3 and SR4 have that "fun" factor that GTA used to have with GTA3 and GTAVC. GTA4 would have been nice if the damn "friends" would have stopped calling to do crap every 10 minutes. Saint's Row you play at your own pace; do what you want when you want.

2) This game looks to have scale on par with (maybe exceeding) Just Cause 2. As far as things to do -- definitely exceeding (JC2's map was pretty barren in between areas). As far as map size I have yet to see some "to scale" side by side comparisons.

If someone could find it (or make it) it'd be interesting to see GTA5's map, next to Just Cause 2, FarCry3, and GTA4's maps.

[ThanatosDMC]

I actually thought it was the three cities of San Andreas and not just Los Santos and the Blaine County. A bit disappointed but I bought two copies all ready and waiting for this ridiculous install time to finish.

Btw, first thing to do for PS3 owners is to pause the game (even during cinematics) and got to Settings, and change Controls to Alternate.

Oh, and max Aim Sensitivity.

[HammadTheBeast]

6 minutes straight through. Going around in a circle takes about 15-20 minutes driving in a sports car from what I've played.

[GarrusVakarian]

"from what I've played"

Lucky ******* XD

[acedoh]

I am very familiar with the environments. I have taken the I-5 from Nor Cal through So. Cal and they have done a phoenemonal job of recreating California. It's not a perfect recreation but it looks amazing.

[Ghoul]

i played 6 hours now and all i can say is

DAMNNNNN

this game is HUUUGE, and every corner looks so unique im totally stunned....

and its not only huge its packed with stuff, every corner every yard is beatifully staged.

the micro details are astonishing

[Mystogan]

That is nothing compared to the witcher 3. Which is 40 minutes.

[Jneal7]

I didn't know the Witcher 3 had cars.

[HammadTheBeast]

Dude.

You just got WRECKED.

Lata.

[Linwelin]

it has horses though

[okmrman]

@Linwelin

last time i checked, a horse runs faster than a sports car

/s

[TIER1xWOLFPACKx]

the witcher is nothing compared to the crew then which takes 2hours plus to get from one side of the map to the other

[KumquatGOATBEEF]

You can't compare 1 horsepower to 450 horsepower.

[Mystogan]

The horse vs car argument is idiotic. The witcher 3 has different physics compared to GTA.

So a horse in the Witcher 3 might be just as fast as a Car in GTA 5.

Remember these are videogames. they don't have the same physics as in real-life.

I underestimated this community's level of stupidity, I assumed you would understand these facts. I was wrong.

[pacifista3D2Y]

That's still quite a big map considering that running from one end to another in Skyrim took 30 minutes, he also had to go around mountains and forests. So 6 minutes while going 60+ on a highway is pretty good.

http://kotaku.com/5858498/f...

[GarrusVakarian]

Lol, ive played Skyrim for around 500 hours and never fast travelled and i can tell you for definite that it doesn't take 30 minutes to run from one end of the map to the other.

[Software_Lover]

Wouldn't it be great if the next GTA game implemented the maps/concepts of The Crew? That would be a huge open world GTA game to play.

[3-4-5]

I played 4 hours last night.

Only in the city, am saving the country side for in a little bit. Can't wait !

The city is big a more diverse than GTA4.

GTA4's city was similar in a lot of spots, where as in GTA5 Los Santos , each block has it's own "feel" to it and it's own unique vibe.

Loving the city so far, and the driving isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

It's not as good as gta 4, but sometimes it is. IT's weird to explain but some cars handle much better than others and that is kind of realistic.

So far I'd give it AT LEAST an 8.7

I'm only 3 missions in though, this could end up being like a 9.7 or so if it gets even better, which it will because I've only experienced 3% of this game so far.

[Stsonic]

I'm kind of wishing I just took a day of N4G today. So far I have watched 2 video reviews and completely regret it! I should have gone in with a totally fresh start.

[Shadonic]

I feel you bro, once I got a sliver of news about whats in the game I couldn't stop.

[Dee_91]

I am so happy I waited.Only screen shot I seen were the ones R* released.
A couple of article titles spoiled a few thing like dog mating, the map looks like a ninja turtle and uncensored sex, but other than that, i'm clueless :D

[Megaton]

I think Just Cause 2 still probably has the biggest sandbox map. It's almost big to a fault. I haven't tried it myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took longer than 6 minutes to fly from one corner to the other in a jet, let alone trying to drive it.

[Kingdom Come]

But Just Cause 2's map didn't feel alive. It's AI was ridiculously dumb and the NPC's lifeless.

[Megaton]

Yep. Just saying, big ass map.

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

I had something like 98% of that game completed. I believe it takes some good 10 minutes to cross the whole map by plane (although I never clocked it).

And although the map is mostly made of vastly empty forests, it's far from boring IMO. There's all funny ways to go through (you can make some huge scale "police" chases, destroy stuff, make stunts, find plenty of easter eggs, etc).

If anything, I would say JC's big empty map incentives what most of us already do in GTA... I found myself simply having fun doing nothing meaningful or setting my own minute goal, plenty of times I would completelly loose track of whatever mission I was doing and start fooling around. And even when I would go for the mission I could still have plenty of "out of the script" fun.

The only real problem is that when you're done fooling around, you may find yourself on a 20 minutes walk to the objective (if you don't have the money for vehicle drop), that eventually get annoying.

[xPhearR3dx]

Yeah but JC2 map is also very lifeless and uninspiring.

[sorane]

I think that would probably belong to Minecraft.

[porkChop]

"I think Just Cause 2 still probably has the biggest sandbox map. It's almost big to a fault."

It is to a fault. Avalanche focus too much on making massive worlds, and not enough on populating those worlds with life, personality, and things to do. The world is so static and dead in JC 1 and 2. They're fun games, sure, but I think they'd be a lot better and more fun with smaller, more focused and well-designed worlds. The vast majority of the maps in JC are never even used for anything. It's just empty space.

And for the record:

Part 1:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Y...

Part 2:
http://static.giantbomb.com...

[ZBlacktt]

Wait for the update of AC4 BF.

[Megaton]

Yeesh. If those are all completely explorable and open sandboxes, that doesn't seem like it would be very fun.

[WeAreLegion]

Just Cause 2 is pure, stupid fun. That's why the map is so massive. I can't imagine getting bored by Just Cause 2...even if most of the map is uninhabited.

[dj3boud]

huge empty map.. nothing like rockstar's attention to detail

[-Gespenst-]

I don't think Just Cause 2's map is big to a fault, I think it's great. Great variety in locations, great sounds and ambience, lots to see, and the grapple just makes it all like ten times better, there's nowhere you can't go with it.

I'll admit it's probably not as full of life as GTA, but I think it makes up for that in the fun factor. It has a lot of emergent gameplay stuff going on. Plus, with online, it becomes full of life in a real way.

[creeping judas]

Didn't True Crime's map take like 20 some odd minutes to travel across it? And that was on the old gen gaming consoles.

[Eyeco]

But True Crime was a borderline wasteland, absolutely lifeless, GTA 4 for example wasn't entirely big but it generally felt like a real city, this is something that allot of open world action games regardless of size have all failed at what GTA has always done so well, the city and vibe you get in GTA games is incredibly life like (for their time anyways), the worlds are really immersive.

True Crime was an accurate depiction of L.A in terms of scale, but the world was so boring and lifeless, driving to missions and objectives from what i remember was so long and boring it just became tedious after a while because it just felt most of the gameplay was spent driving down an endless lifeless road, there was hardly anything to do in that game outside of that, games like Far Cry 2, Just Cause, True Crime 1-2 and among others to a lesser extent all have this problem.

[Psychotica]

How long does it take to walk across it? It takes about 20 minutes from corner to corner in Liberty City

[Minato-Namikaze]

Woo does that? and why? I get upset if i have to walk a whole block in the game without seeing a car to jack.

[JohnS1313]

Coast to coast? Not really. It's California. There's one coast.

[JunoDivided]

GTA V's los santos is an island

[MotoDot]

It's out now in my country ^-^

[SIRHC13]

I'll be doing this on my own in merely seven hours, I won't be watching. But six minutes non-stop at full speed sounds very nice.

[newflesh]

Hmm... Expected it'd take more time. I wonder how long does it take to drive through San Andreas map?

[porkChop]

Probably a lot less time. The world in GTA V is multiple times the size of San Andreas.

[newflesh]

I remember reading somewhere that it takes about 30 minutes to drive from one end to another in SA

[Wintersun616]

@newflesh,

It takes 30 minutes to do that in SA with a tractor maybe.

[NarooN]

Driving from one end of the map to the other in SA would probably take 5~10 minutes. I remember that 30 minute stat, I think it was a magazine who did that, and that was for walking across, not driving.

[ExitToExisT]

I have been playing since Saturday and the city part of the map exactly equals to the city parts of GTA 4 (think the gta 4 map without seas, you get the city area of GTA V - the rest is countryside.

[C L O U D]

I want to do this, while playing some Outrun music

[ZBlacktt]

6 mins? What the.... ok, AC4 BF map must be 10 times that in real life scale.

[porkChop]

AC4 takes 30 minutes to sail across, however that's by ship which will be a lot slower than driving a high performance sports car in GTA V.

[ZBlacktt]

Have you seen the pan out screen game play of AC4? It makes you look like a very very very small dot on the screen compared to this map. Again 6 mins is nothing. I was just kind of shocked to see that.

[porkChop]

I understand what you're saying, but that really depends on what kind of scale they're using for the map. Just because a map looks big or small doesn't mean it really is.

[ZBlacktt]

I guess the difference here is real life one Island of game play vs the whole damn Caribbean Sea. Which is real life 1.063 million sq miles. Which in AC4 is hugely playable in every part. Meaning naval wars, diving for treasures in sunken ships, under water caves, 75 mini Islands with hidden items and maps, harpooning many different animals aside from the 3 major land Islands that have over 50 major locations on those.

[olddaysFRED78]

Test Drive Unlimited took you like one hour or two to drive around through A DEAD WORLD

[lav_s]

but you can get out of the car to play poker with actually nobody on servers! ain't that good? you're right: dead world...got that game back to gamestop after 3 days

[vector415]

I thought TDU was awesome! But you're right, I prefer quality over quantity. Smaller world with more features is always better

[optimus]

"6 minutes Dougie Fresh you're on."

[Underworld]

I want this game so bad, but I don't really have the money right now. I also want to wait a bit to see if it comes to PS4.

[STEWIE_PLAY_PS4]

I see would GTA V beat Just cause 2 speed size?

[lav_s]

aaaah shut up I'm going to sleep cuz I can't get it until 8 am, dammmm, and by the way you can't compare any JC to any GTA. good night

[feraldrgn]

For a more accurate representation, they should go on foot ;]

[GribbleGrunger]

That's not a very useful way of travelling. I walked up the highest mountain and it took me around 8 minutes to get 'close' to the summit. On the last push I was attacked by a puma and was sent immediately to the nearest hospital. I'm not trying that again. On a side note: finding hidden packages is headache inducing.

[feraldrgn]

Yes, but when comparing it to other open world games, people are using flying a plane or driving a vehicle at max speed to determine how big the map is.

In those other games, we walked or rode a horse & didn't have access to the whole map immediately making them seem larger in comparison.

That's what I mean by walking for a more accurate representation.

[GribbleGrunger]

Oh, I see. I thought you was just mucking around. If you walked from the bottom of the map to the top of the map, I reckon it would take around 45 minutes, which is frigin' HUGE. It's the most daunting game I've ever played in my life. For anyone who wants to search every nook and cranny, it's a nightmare that would take a lifetime. Luckily Franklin's dog can find hidden packages but I haven't figured out how to do it yet ... I also think it's a game for a more skilful player than me.

[Dirkster_Dude]

GTA 5 area of Los Santos city is approximately the size of the GTA 4 map all by itself.

[Animal Mutha 76]

It's actually not as big as I was expecting. I've driven and flown round it already.

Hyped up too much I guess.

[Dunban67]

how long would it take to walk/run or ride a horse coast to coast in GTA that would indicate a much better comparison