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Fans predicted the ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ map weeks before it leaked

The map is out in the open now, and it looks a lot like one that fans have been constructing since 2011.

 

Fernando Alfonso III

Internet Culture

Posted on Sep 11, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 6:48 am CDT

In October 2011, one of Grand Theft Auto’s largest online forums began mapping out the in-game city of Los Santos, dissecting every morsel of information they could find in order to figure out what the world of the upcoming GTA V would look like.

Using videos and screengrabs from Rockstar, the game’s producer, they came up with this:

Now two years later, the cartographers of gtaforums.com have been proven right.

On Tuesday night, one Reddit user (who has since deleted his or her account) uploaded the official GTA V map just a week before its official release.

“Holy shit the fan made map was REALLY close,” pamander commented.

“Not gonna lie, that is impressive as hell that they all took the time to analyze pics and make a map that is almost dead on. im seriously impressed by this,” _stealth_ added. “[N]ever underestimate the brain power of the collective mind of a group of people with a goal…jeeezzz. simply amazing. 

The map also inspired redditor mandarijn to create this Google Earth-inspired GIF:

The GTA V map is “bigger than Red Dead Redemption, San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto IV combined,” Kotaku reports

In other words, this might be the greatest open-world game ever created. 

Photo by silviosousacabral/Flickr

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*First Published: Sep 11, 2013, 1:21 pm CDT