If the map were that big, I can't imagine how different the story would've been. I wonder what business Niko would've had in Connecticut or Niagara Falls, LOL
I imagine that if they had stuck to the original concept then the story more than likely would've been completely different and it would probably still be set within the 3D universe, as the graphics would've been no better than San Andreas if they had indeed gone down that path.
Here's how I see it Niko would still start in Bohan but after Dimitri runs him out of the city and Niko relocates to Upstate, it would kinda be like when Michael and Trevor have to live in Sandy Shores In Ballad of Gay Tony I'm sure Connecticut would be great for the kinda socialites Gay Tony hangs out with, Long Island could work for this too
At that point, I only feel like "Well why not include Boston and Massachusetts if you have Connecticut? Why not have Toronto if you have Niagara Falls and Buffalo?" It just keeps getting bigger in my mind and there needs to be a limit. But honestly, a GTA game set along either the US-Canada or US-Mexico border would be very cool. Lots of opportunity for drug smuggling missions where you need to be sneaky.
Fun fact: the GTA IV name for Brighton Beach being Hove Beach being so called is likely a reference to the Brighton and Hove constituency in the U.K. How creative the R* lot are...
I've been waiting to see this concept ever since they first mentioned it! So has a friend of mine who's super interested in the game's development history, I just got off the phone with him and we spent like an hour talking about it. I'm really glad I could cover this!
Yep, like GTA V is a bigger map, but it doesn't *feel* bigger. GTA SA has more stuff in it, 3 distinct cities, half a dozen towns, desert with Area 51, woods where people sent countless hours looking Bigfoot. I remember the first time in SA getting to the countryside and it really did feel like I was in the middle of nowhere. GTA V is honestly a lot of wasted space. The mountains take up like 1/3 of the map. Area with no roads and nothing to do, might as well be a background. Only Mount Chilliad has something at the top, but most people spent far more time on San Andreas' Mount Chilliad than GTA 5's. And the fact so many missions take you around the map, it becomes a chore and there's really not much out of LS. I remember people hated the mission in San Andreas where you drive out to Angel Pine with Cesar to take pictures as being so far of a drive. But now in GTA V you have your apartment in LS and your heist setup mission makes you drive to Palleto Bay and back like nothing.
@@Arkiasis Exactly! San Andreas was big, though they played smart with making it look bigger, by having far-off countrysides for the player to explore. GTA V didn't work that way, didn't give player those frequent "opportunities" in form of missions. It's no surprise GTA SA is still loved.
I really like this concept. It kinda reminds me of the Sopranos, where the story mostly focuses on events in NJ, events still happen outside of NJ and are explored by the show. It would've been neat to see how the story would transform in that fashion.
@@BigPPwhofckedyourmomWoW RDR2's entire map is actually larger than GTA 5. Arthur cannot explore a huge chunk of it, but as John, you can actually go from end to end and its actually a lot larger.
That'd be pretty dope, but hopefully with a less truncated and more eastward-facing Long Island lol. And I'd like Staten Island too, if only just for the Verrazzano Bridge. Though honestly what I really dream of is a slightly more true to life Liberty City that's the size of GTA V's map, along with a portion of Alderney, with all the bridges, tunnels, ferries, a larger and more complex subway/mass transit system, etc. Basically I wanna see a much larger, more realistic re-imagining of GTA IV's map. I'd certainly prefer it over Vice City for the next game, because for as much as I'd love to see it finally get an HD makeover, I think it would actually feel a bit too similar to what we've currently got with Los Santos (palm trees, constant summery weather, etc.). A newer, larger LC with in-game seasons that change over time would be perfect imho, though I know it's extremely unlikely.
They do have a nice shopping area and minor league baseball stadium just next to the ferry terminal in real life. If they don't include a Yankee-based stadium in the next game set in LC, that one could be a decent stopgap.
I think a lot of it was just technological limitations. Maybe San Andreas could get away with it, but given GTA 4's graphics and somewhat demanding requirements at the time may have put a stop on a massive multi-state, multi-city idea with diverse environments
@@tnemomhurb7679 yep i wanna see them extend into florida. vice city being the main city, while tampa and orlando are the other two major cities you can go to. with a buncha of the smaller cities and towns in between. and an explorable everglades.
@@revolucion5398 idk rockstar has a knack for revolutionizing their games. but the lead director who was responsible for a lot of the gtas and rdr2’s main story left the company so idk 🤷🏽♂️
I first learnt about the initial concept for GTA 4's map from Lemmino (When he was known as Top10Memes). As a fellow geography nerd, it's so exciting to not only learn new info about this, but finally see an actual, official map of it too!
Yeah. I remember Top10Memes. He's now into documentary style videos but I kinda do missed his Top 10s based on pop cultures and interesting stuff. As what he said, Liberty City was supposed to be called Liberty State and it originally featured a countryside where mountains and forests surrounded the area similar to GTA 5.
Then again, this was made in PS3 and Xbox 360, that concept map of GTA 4 alone sounds absurdly ambitious, imagine several cities, and a huge countryside, that's a lot of gigs in that map alone, Look at the map of Just Cause 2, it was huge (like really, really big even aircraft travel takes forever) for a 2010 game, but it only contained small villages, military bases, and one city, and several, several islands with nothing in it.
@@TheyWantMeGone69 That concept map looks way, way more content than GTA V, several villages, the huge wilderness, and 3 cities, that alone has ton of gigs, and that's not even factoring in the gameplay mechanics like physics and the scripts, it's already a testament that GTA 5 can even run in 7th gen consoles (like what they pulled off in SA), but this map would make the already average performance of GTA 4 worse (especially PC).
I agree with Badger Goodger. The answer is simple. GTA IV was going to be the HD game from R*, and they would have wanted to have a quality experience for the players. So no big map. And to develop a game with such a big map and R*'s obsession with quality, it would have taken as much time as GTA VI development is taking after GTA V, without any other distraction for R* fans like RDR2 or Online
HOLY cow THE CATSKILLS? That’s like all of the state of New York! I live near JC and driving to the Catskills took like 4-5 hours (snow & traffic) it’s actually insane to think the Catskills would actually be represented. I personally think they’re so beautiful and would be perfect with the way clouds work in the updated RAGE engine. The clouds would cut through the mountain so nicely like irl.
I feel like if they included rural areas like Connecticut, considered the inclusion of so many Sopranos references in the game, there probably would have been a mission where Niko would have had to travel up north to take out someone in hiding at a family farm house like in the later seasons of the show (I won’t spoil who). Considering the Satriale’s deli is in the game (like the actual literal building), anything is possible.
0:52 In the original GTA IV map since the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas has some countrysides they could at least add some random small towns and fewer other cities to it. You got Buffalo and Syracuse, but why not have a few cities like Rochester, Utica, and Watertown fit in the map and have Danbury in there as well. Long Island would have small towns too.
@@InternetRob They would have to include SI into the final map, they've got a cool shopping area just next to the ferry terminal now, plus a number of fantastic parks!
I really like the countryside and small towns of San Andreas and GTA V, they had a lot of charm, but if you're going to do a massive map, you need to use the space, fill it with missions, side activities and etc.
@@darthpepo1 Of course, Rockstar has to overthink it's game concept. Red Dead 2 has a a great story, but the mission mechanics of going from A to B just because is really outdated. NakeyJakey made a good video about the issue.
This is why I feel like Long Island would not be as big as it's shown to be on this concept if they decided to move ahead with it as the map. It's such a big area with tons of sprawling residential areas, they'd probably downsize it and just keep one suburb and the Hamptons.
@@videodeposu8741 I know this may sound childish but... Roblox. Before you say it's a game for kids... just know that someone payed for college by making a game on roblox. I can say more but if you're already playing roblox it would be weird telling you the stuff
Rockstar picked the straight orientation for the map most likely because it was easier for mappers/level-designers to work with than having everything under the weird angles, leading to more work on stiching the seams in the level meshes and general placement of the props and layout. It would have been a nightmare to work with. Just check out the map layouts from previous entries in the series. 3, Vice, SA all have a layout under the right angles.
GTA 4's map is already amazing enough but man after watching this video I imagine that it would have been even better with all the wooded areas ,smaller towns ,islands and Staten island, maybe they could have made the story longer and add more things to do after finishing the story, like more side quests more strangers to meet etcetera...but maybe modders will add all these or who knows maybe Rockstar if ever makes another GTA set in LC will remake the map from GTA 4 into what they had in mind back then
Staten Islander here. I also always believed Staten Island was going to be included in early concepts of Liberty City. Staten Island has a notorious history of Organized Crime, especially Italian-American Organized Crime. Seeing as how GTA IV has big organized crime plot lines I always thought they would use Staten Island and New Jersey (Alderney) as the focus on those plot lines. Maybe I was biased because as a kid I always thought having my borough was the coolest thing I could imagine in a video game, but finding out that it was just never planned to begin with just crushes my younger self’s hopes and dreams.
I still feel that Staten Island would have been great to have in the game, and it wouldn't even have to be large. Something the size of Bohan but with more houses and parks to give it a more woodsy feel. With the amount of parks there, it could have sort-of been like a "countryside" portion to satisfy the people who still wanted an area that felt more open and less urban in the game. By the way, if I recall, some building textures in Alderney and possibly Dukes were originally taken from pictures of buildings in Staten Island, so they at least had to go there for some reference photography. Strange that they'd only use it for NJ though.
I feel you man. I'm from Queens but I could imagine how much it sucks when you're anticipating you're area to get represented and it never actually is in the final product. Hopefully for a future GTA or map DLC, Rockstar will bring back an expanded Liberty City with their own interpretation of Staten Island. Along with featuring more of Long Island, Upstate, and New Jersey. I'm sure they would be able to do it now with how much technology has progressed. Would be sick!
I know this is a stretch but in my opinion GTA 7 will take place back in Liberty City hopefully by this time they have the technology to expand the map and add all the missing parts such as New York State and ETC it's possible
Don't know if it's just me but, looks like people has just realized what an amazing game GTA 4 was, and now people are going back to it thinking "what a master piece I've lost".
People will do the same with V after VI comes out. It's happened with each entry in the series since San Andreas (not counting LCS, VCS or CTW). Not long after IV released people were incessantly bitching about the lack of things to do and the absence of countryside, constantly singing the praises of "the superior" San Andreas. Then after V came out everyone started waxing poetic about how much "better" the driving, physics, and story were in IV and that continues to this day, only with people praising both IV and SA now. The same thing will happen again because a lot of people get nostalgic for the games they loved when they were younger (especially if they were kids), and because it's impossible to please everyone.
@@LanceVanceDance84 yeah, I agree, buy GTA IV had so many hate that I never imagined this happening, at least I'm the one who loved the game since day one 😅
@@LanceVanceDance84 Shit people have been doing that with New Vegas for a while now, it got to the point where some people are questioning how great New Vegas was
I may be wrong for all of what I would say but I think one of the main reasons why they dropped the idea is because of the lack of space on a DVD Double Layer + a lack of time. GTA 4 was released on Xbox 360 ( format DVD double layer) and PS3 (Bluray format) and the maximum size of a DVD Double layer is 8.5 GB and at the time of the release of GTA 4 only 7.3 GB could be used on DVD double layer and the size of GTA 4 on console is 7 GB so imagine if they want to include a bigger map that is more diversified. It could be possible but with a lower polygon on every asset and lower quality on every texture (with the graphic quality of GTA SA or in between GTA SA and GTA 4 graphics quality)... Maybe some of you would ask why they didn't just release GTA 4 on 2 DVD double layers (1 to install and 1 to play) like they did for GTA 5. But at the time of GTA 4 the Xbox 360 maximum hard drive size was 20 GB (13 GB available) and I think a lot of people didn't have a hard drive at all on their Xbox 360 at the time of the release of GTA 4. Another thing I think for GTA 5 they had the intention to include San Fiero and Las Venturas but it was cut due to a lack of time and maybe for the same reason of the DVD double layer.
I think nowadays the tri-state concept could definitely work and exist, especially with how large and powerful Rockstar is now. I'm certain that, if they really wanted to, they could set the next GTA in Liberty City again, but include all the other stuff they had in mind, like the extra state and forests and airports and whatnot, so we would get basically a small remake of GTA4's map to add something we're familiar with while also giving us tons of new stuff. Edit: Ok, ok, the NEXT next GTA. 6 is gonna be in Vice City so 7 would be their chance.
It would be lovely if group of modders attempted to recreate it from this concept reusing all existing assets, i feel like there is just enough house props and textures to pull it off without doing any other new assets but the terrain roads, rest could be repurposed and edited to fit.
I have to press a big fat X to doubt their reasoning for shrinking down the map. If they went any bigger the consoles probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. Even now, R* can't add much more content to 360 and PS3 versions of GTAV due to limitations.
A map this size would've killed the consoles that were available at the time. I love this era of gaming but the low RAM that the PS3 and 360 had really hurt and limited the scope of open-world games. I believe that's why a lot of story-driven linear games were popular during this time. I mean you had ambitious games like Afrika that literally took about an hour or 2 just to install the damn game, I can only imagine how long something like this would take to install on PS3
In 2008, these consoles were true next gen And not to mention that the PS3 was notorious for being hard to develop games for it. PS3 runs GTA IV on only one core and ignore all SPEs
Nothing to do about that. Doesn't the PS3 and Xbox 360 runs GTA V? RAM doesn't determine how big a open world game is. Is used for temporary storage for textures, assets, audio, etc.
I read somewhere around 2007 that they said they moved away from the sprawling map ideas because they would rather focus on making Liberty City unique. And I read they didn't include Staten Island because they didn't think it would be fun to play in.
Wonder if this sketch is older than the story idea, think about it, what would Niko do in connecticut while having all the stuff going on in the city? i can get behind it being a TLAD exclusive (bikes and drugs) but let's say Luis would be completely out of place there. They pulled off an amazing job on the city, if it was any smaller it wouldn't be so immersive.
funny story, when I was visiting the US I was driving to JFK to catch my flight however I got lost on Stanten island and while I was finding my location on the GPS I noticed how similar Stanten island looked and felt like a scene from GTA 4 so i find it funny that rockstar never considered stanten island as a location but its the most GTA-esque borough in NYC
If it isn't my favorite underrated youtuber guy but seriously i really like your calm and chill videos. Perhaps you should make these kinda videos with other late 2000s- early 2010s games too.
Okay, if Rockstar were to revisit this map concept, I’d totally be down for a future GTA title that includes Liberty City again. An open world that big and diverse probably would’ve competed with San Andreas’ at the time and maybe even blow it out of the water especially with it taking place in the HD Universe.
I feel that rockstar had the choice to either reimplement the old engine from the 3D universe or spend the time and money on building the RAGE engine. While I’ve always wondered what a larger liberty city map would’ve looked like I appreciate the mechanics added with the rage engine. It’s a shame the driving is the way it is but I assume that might’ve had to do with either hardware limitations or with the size of the map.
Yep, we probably could have had the expanded map, but it definitely wouldn't have got to be in the style of how IV is now. I think it would have been more "blocky" like SA, VC, and those 3d era games, and without that new gen physics engine.
My guess is that the tri-state or a big map idea was dropped maybe becuase of two reasons 1. Engine capability limitations. In GTA SA, they had more experience with the RenderWare engine + 2 previous games. GTA 3's map was big, Vice City's additional content might have covered up the capability, then in San Andreas they tried to fit both a big map and content. In GTA 4's case it might be just that they didn't even have a previous GTA or any major title on RAGE engine. The previous installment just being a Table Tennis game. So they were still unsure of the engine's capabilities. 2. the 2nd reason can be Hardware Limitations. Considering GTA IV already runs badly on PC, runs just ok on consoles, it might have resulted in them dropping the ideas of a forest, cause it might just take every last bit of streaming memory. Or maybe they were unsure of such big world in a multiplayer game for a 2008 game. That's just my guess. In GTA 5 sure they expanded it with just 1 giant block of map but a reasonably sized one. GTA IV's was 8 km and GTA V's was an astonishing 48 km. Which is a really good upgrade.
Gta sa: 3 cities los angeles, las vegas, san Francisco Gta 4 pre-alpha or whatever: 3 states new york, new jersey, (cant read that hand writing) Gta 5: 3 nations, USA, UK, Russia Gta 6: 3 continents, North America, South America, Europe Gta 7: 3 planets, Earth, Moon, (some new planet people discovered in future)
Even though this concept wasn’t approved, the final map still felt rushed. Just look at some bridges or roads. They feel too steep, like they had to squish the roadways to fit rather than expand the boroughs to accommodate the roads.
For myself, I would be tempting to have another Liberty City setting (over VC, Vegas, SF, etc), *IF* it meant an extended redition of Liberty City incorporating Poughkeepsie, Westchester, Tarrytown, etc. Also, of all the boroughs in GTA IV, the Bronx was given the poorest treatment. As it was severely abbreviated in that title. In any future GTA titles, hopefully a more faithful version of the Bronx is recreated.
I’m not sure if this is coincidence or not but, Brighton beach being called hove beach could be because in England Brighton’s full name is Brighton-on-hove. Not sure though
Tbh I'm glad they went for a super dense but smaller map, a large one would have been cool but it would have probably ended up way less urban and detailed
IIRC Dan Houser said when they first had the outline of the map up and running on their computers that it was close to the actual size of the entire state of New York. If they had gone down that route the game probably would've ended up with graphics/details similar to San Andreas. I'm VERY glad with what they actually chose to do instead of the "make everything bigger" idea.
I’m actually disappointed in the final version there’s no real wooded area. It’s mainly a city oriented map with a slight suburban area in the West Island.
@@ryanelliott71698 I mean it would have been cool, but thinking about it realistically I'm fine with it. The green spaces like parks in the game are just okay, and that's because more effort got put into the urban areas which take up the majority of the map. With games cut content, you've got to think about the balance. If you add something else, somethings gotta give. So I'm fine with what they did in the final game
I'd LOVE to see an expanded Liberty City! As much as I want to see Vice City and Las Venturas reimagined and expanded, I think Liberty City honestly deserves that treatment as well- especially if it were a historic version of LC, set in the 50s-80s.
i kinda wish they went for this concept, i love the urban/concrete jungle of release GTAIV, but it definetely needed some more green stuff and colors. thing is though, going for a map this big would have probably meant that GTA V, RDR1 and RDR2 would have ended up releasing later, due to GTA IV taking more time to develop still though, it would have been cool as fuck
I think VC would lend itself much better to open areas outside the city better than LC. Miami isn't a big concrete jungle like NYC or LA, and a lot of Miami-Vice-esque storylines tend to focus on the Keys, the swamps, the bridges, etc.
theres already a concept map of the beta version. Someone found the picture of the beta map in a location in the game since the devs forgot to change it
I'm hoping if VC comes back the map will include that as well as areas of Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and parts of the panhandle. With these current gen technologies I want a map that's bigger and more lively than Los Santos
0:11 Ayyy thats me! Now I can die peacefully via driving my Buick headfirst into a telephone pole knowing that my biggest accomplishment to humankind has been achived
Rockstar could always remaster it 10 years from now, considering how large of a file space consoles can hold. I think that was part of the issue with trying to create such a map. That's why PC modding exists but even then, it would have been glorious as an "official" drawn out, playable map.
The area in concept Queens/Dukes which has those lines that look like runways shares a very similar location to the Ravenswood Power Station in real life Queens, judging also because it’s located across the East or Humboldt River from where Roosevelt Island is located which is called Colony Island in the final game. I have a feeling that this could have been power plant similar to Ravenswood because having an airport in that location in the concept and in real life wouldn’t be a very good place to put, since it is located very close to tall buildings in Manhattan, Roosevelt Island and Queens, not to mention the Queensboro Bridge which is located only a block away from Ravenswood, therefore posing dangerous obstacles for would-be planes landing at the airport if it was placed there.
In addition in real life, the area located north of Ravenswood Power Station is taken up by a high-rise luxury apartment complex and housing projects. Therefore, placing an airport in that location would have been a very bad idea.
Kinda sad now that connecticut, rockaway and the hamptons could've been in the game but didn't make the cut I didn't want Rockstar to revisit the Liberty City region before this, but now I do. There's just so much new content we could get! (And NYC is where I'm from irl so ofc I'd prefer to see it than san andreas)
This is the kind of online map expansion or GTA VI map I would like to see. Do an entire east coast map where the whole State of Liberty becomes a map while Vice City and a big chunk of Florida gets included with stuff in between. Like RDR2, they could do 4 or 5 states or regions.
It is noticeable the bigger the map is the less detail on interactions with NPCs are after playing gtaV then going back to gtaIV you can see that interactions with police and peds feel way more realistic low-key like the driving in IV too
LC is a lot richer but I think that's the point. You can walk down a street, catch a taxi or a subway and be immersed. IRL LA isn't like that, and it reflects in the game, I think it's intentional.
i never realized how clever the place names in GTA were, Brighton beach being Hove beach because of Hove being next to brighton in the UK and Jersey being Alderny because of the channel island Jersey being next to the channel island of Alderny
With the removal of planes during development due to "the map being too small", it makes you wonder if more of these concepts were in fact put into the game during early development and later removed. It doesn't make sense that they'd initially include planes, only to remove them again, without changes to the size of the map being a factor.
I would've preferred this map than the one we have now for GTA 4, it seemed more geographically accurate to New York than the final version, and the fact that there was literally going to be entire Woodlands and 3 different states! That would've put GTA 5 to shame.
Maaaan, imagine that full map with episodes from liberty city. louis is centred in algonquin, nikos adventure is mostly broker/dukes, with parts in algonquin and alderney, then Johnys story couldve been jersey and connecticut, long island and the adirondacks area. That wouldve been absolutely amazing. Tlad desperately needed some country side areas. What couldbe been!!!
i absolutely love that they were thinking of including one of the places I grew up in/lived by. The falls in GTA 4 would have been my dream come true I can't believe it was thought of. My life feels complete thanks badger for sharing. I believe the first time I spoke to you in chat I asked what you thought about this exact thing it what do you know it was kinda real this whole time who would of thought thanks again
It's an interesting concept design for the GTA IV map and always cool to see something I've never seen before, my guess is probably an obvious one but I think with how big the map was in the end and how much the framerate dropped due to the size and detail of the vehicles, characters and everything else that was shown on screen I'd guess that's why they didn't bother with making the map slightly bigger and including a 4th island to it and base it more off the regions of NY. Granted this game was unoptimized on PC due to them working on consoles first before porting it over (Or so I've been told) but even if they managed to fit the map into the game I doubt it would have made it any better in terms of framerate and playability. Keep it up Badger and looking forward to the next video :)
Is not the size that matter dipshit But the quality, what inside of the map, density. If you look out at the amount of interiors you would be completely fine about the map we got.
If this was their original concept for what they wanted Liberty to look like I can only imagine what they wanted for Southern San Andreas when starting work on GTA5. Hopefully with today’s technology they can go all out with Vice City and it’s surrounding areas.
You know what's funny, the Catskills are North of Syracuse on this map, despite in Real Life the Catskills are far South of Syracuse, they are closer to Binghamton (The city I live nearby), which could've been what they would've gone with later in development if this map was finalized
Buffalo is also directly south of (or maybe within) the Adirondacks on this map. Had they moved ahead with this concept, you really do have to wonder what changes they'd make. I feel like Long Island would have been downsized.
@@BadgerGoodger Actually no the Adirondacks are closer to Syracuse than Buffalo, though if they want a nearby city to the Adirondacks, that would be Albany, though unlike Binghamton were you can have list of stories about, most of which aren't good, Albany is known for being nice, and the Cadillac brand in these games are named after it
Fun fact that I discovered thru my 750 hours of exploring LC - if you go to the locations of Yankee stadium and Citi field in Bohan and Dukes, there are baseball diamonds. One in Welham park off the grand Boulevard, and the other in Meadows park next to the monoglobe. Check it out
This got me really interested if Rockstar ever goes back to Liberty City. Imagine having a bigger GTA V map size, but with these 3 states, adding so much variety and different atmosphere on top of the famous NYC and Queen vibe we got in GTA IV.
Well the game with more content and bigger map would came with 2 DVDs on Xbox 360 and they have to make the game work without hard drive. There is not way they would have made an open world game like this came on 2 or 3 DVDs on Xbox 360 Plus it would drastically increase loading times on both consoles
I use to live around Buffalo I would of loved to see it in a game especially the GTA series.It would be so awesome to have Niagara Falls in it imagine pushing peds down the falls lol. or doing stunts into it. If Rockstar ever go back to NY hopefully they can make this a reality with future hardware.
GTA IV may be my favorite GTA game, but I'll forever be sad that we didn't get a full Liberty State. Not only is it pretty immersion breaking looking out from Rotterdam Tower and seeing that LC is just floating in the middle of a vast ocean, but I wanna explore the Adirondacks! They could've at least had a small bit of countryside at the west of Alderney connecting everything to the mainland, a la GTA III. I know the reason is that they didn't want you to feel limited because you couldn't fly into the country in a helicopter, but I really wouldn't have minded the game just turning me around automatically or something. And it would've been pretty cool having a few missions where you go out into the woods for a shady deal or to bury a body. Maybe we'll finally get Liberty State whenever the series returns to LC? Though at the rate they're going, I'll probably be battling midlife crisis haha.
If the map were that big, I can't imagine how different the story would've been. I wonder what business Niko would've had in Connecticut or Niagara Falls, LOL
probably why it was removed, or he would flee there instead of Bohan
I imagine that if they had stuck to the original concept then the story more than likely would've been completely different and it would probably still be set within the 3D universe, as the graphics would've been no better than San Andreas if they had indeed gone down that path.
Here's how I see it
Niko would still start in Bohan but after Dimitri runs him out of the city and Niko relocates to Upstate, it would kinda be like when Michael and Trevor have to live in Sandy Shores
In Ballad of Gay Tony I'm sure Connecticut would be great for the kinda socialites Gay Tony hangs out with, Long Island could work for this too
The IAA and FIB would've probably been the main focus, I'd imagine they'd have Niko moving from place to place doing jobs for them.
Maybe he would have thrown Vlad over Niagara Falls?
If Rockstar ever go back to Liberty City then they absolutely need to base the map on these sketches!
I hope next setting is at vice city tbh
Heavily hope they go back to the best GTA location - L.C.
At that point, I only feel like "Well why not include Boston and Massachusetts if you have Connecticut? Why not have Toronto if you have Niagara Falls and Buffalo?" It just keeps getting bigger in my mind and there needs to be a limit.
But honestly, a GTA game set along either the US-Canada or US-Mexico border would be very cool. Lots of opportunity for drug smuggling missions where you need to be sneaky.
@@Arkiasis A Mexican GTA in a city like San Diego would be great
I want them to do las Venturas
Fun fact: the GTA IV name for Brighton Beach being Hove Beach being so called is likely a reference to the Brighton and Hove constituency in the U.K. How creative the R* lot are...
Noticed this as well.
New Jersey and Alderney Isle also.
Well yeah because Brighton Beach in real life is named after Brighton from the UK
Or how the Lincoln Tunnel (named for Abe Lincoln) is the Booth Tunnel in GTA, named for his murderer, John Wilkes Booth.
It helps that Rockstar was based more in the UK back then.
I’ve been waiting for you to cover this buddy
I've been waiting to see this concept ever since they first mentioned it! So has a friend of mine who's super interested in the game's development history, I just got off the phone with him and we spent like an hour talking about it. I'm really glad I could cover this!
Big fan
Me too!
Gypsy why no more complain videos we i liked them
@@BadgerGoodger
I really like your golden voice!! thanks 🙏🏼
This concept would have absolutely been "celebrated", the fact that people still love the way San Andreas go with multicity concept.
I agree. It’s sad that the peak of the series in terms of ambition was a GTA game from 2004.
Yeah... as awesome as GTA IV is, it could’ve been their magnum opus.
Yep, like GTA V is a bigger map, but it doesn't *feel* bigger. GTA SA has more stuff in it, 3 distinct cities, half a dozen towns, desert with Area 51, woods where people sent countless hours looking Bigfoot. I remember the first time in SA getting to the countryside and it really did feel like I was in the middle of nowhere. GTA V is honestly a lot of wasted space. The mountains take up like 1/3 of the map. Area with no roads and nothing to do, might as well be a background. Only Mount Chilliad has something at the top, but most people spent far more time on San Andreas' Mount Chilliad than GTA 5's. And the fact so many missions take you around the map, it becomes a chore and there's really not much out of LS. I remember people hated the mission in San Andreas where you drive out to Angel Pine with Cesar to take pictures as being so far of a drive. But now in GTA V you have your apartment in LS and your heist setup mission makes you drive to Palleto Bay and back like nothing.
@@Arkiasis Exactly! San Andreas was big, though they played smart with making it look bigger, by having far-off countrysides for the player to explore. GTA V didn't work that way, didn't give player those frequent "opportunities" in form of missions. It's no surprise GTA SA is still loved.
@@Ebalosus lies San Andreas was waaay more quantity over quality , so many half baked ideas
If it was set in the Tri-state area. Dr. Doofenshmirtz would be the protagonist.
Lols
@@Aristotel-rq4jh wutಠ_ಠ
y?
Somehow i can see Perry the Platypus fitting into United Liberty Paper's role just fine
@@xPsykho Don’t forget the boat Niko arrived on is called the Platypus
I wish GTA IV had all the surrounding areas of Long Island, New York, and New Jersey.
The graphics would have been 10x worse
10 FPS!!!
@@topsdaily_productions the graphics is already bad. So yeah
Imagine the optimization of that, they would make the graphics akin (not like) to San Andreas just to make it run.
I'm glad they didn't. Having lots of bridges leading to smaller areas constricts the maps. I'd rather they just make one large town
I really like this concept. It kinda reminds me of the Sopranos, where the story mostly focuses on events in NJ, events still happen outside of NJ and are explored by the show. It would've been neat to see how the story would transform in that fashion.
10 years later they actually made a super detailed in depth game with a massive map, RDR2.
rdr2 map isnt as big as gta v or gta san andreas. But it is highly detailed and the horse riding makes the map much bigger.
@@jagath3028 the map is definently bigger than gta v
@@superw4r806 nope
@@BigPPwhofckedyourmomWoW RDR2's entire map is actually larger than GTA 5. Arthur cannot explore a huge chunk of it, but as John, you can actually go from end to end and its actually a lot larger.
@@deutschvanderlinde6900 thats a good game even i play it, u feel it big cuz horses are slow thats why
I hope they use this concept for a future GTA
That'd be pretty dope, but hopefully with a less truncated and more eastward-facing Long Island lol. And I'd like Staten Island too, if only just for the Verrazzano Bridge. Though honestly what I really dream of is a slightly more true to life Liberty City that's the size of GTA V's map, along with a portion of Alderney, with all the bridges, tunnels, ferries, a larger and more complex subway/mass transit system, etc. Basically I wanna see a much larger, more realistic re-imagining of GTA IV's map. I'd certainly prefer it over Vice City for the next game, because for as much as I'd love to see it finally get an HD makeover, I think it would actually feel a bit too similar to what we've currently got with Los Santos (palm trees, constant summery weather, etc.). A newer, larger LC with in-game seasons that change over time would be perfect imho, though I know it's extremely unlikely.
@@LanceVanceDance84 Any GTA map without a countryside area feels boring.
@TenAte108 Sorry?
There's not gonna be another GTA, except DLCs and updates for GTA Online, you can thank to Take Two Interactive.
@@PEN1killer There will be, but after 3-5 years. People’s interest in GTA Online won’t be eternal
I love how you could talk about a picture for 11 minutes and make it interesting. Well done.
It wouldn't be a Badger Goodger's video without mentioning Staten Island :D
They do have a nice shopping area and minor league baseball stadium just next to the ferry terminal in real life. If they don't include a Yankee-based stadium in the next game set in LC, that one could be a decent stopgap.
I think a lot of it was just technological limitations. Maybe San Andreas could get away with it, but given GTA 4's graphics and somewhat demanding requirements at the time may have put a stop on a massive multi-state, multi-city idea with diverse environments
Hopefully GTA 6 is larger the multi state/island idea would be dope
@@tnemomhurb7679 yep i wanna see them extend into florida. vice city being the main city, while tampa and orlando are the other two major cities you can go to. with a buncha of the smaller cities and towns in between. and an explorable everglades.
@@talal3c ima be honest my expectations for 6 are so low. game will probably be unfinished
@@revolucion5398 idk rockstar has a knack for revolutionizing their games. but the lead director who was responsible for a lot of the gtas and rdr2’s main story left the company so idk 🤷🏽♂️
@@talal3coh boy do I have news for you
I first learnt about the initial concept for GTA 4's map from Lemmino (When he was known as Top10Memes). As a fellow geography nerd, it's so exciting to not only learn new info about this, but finally see an actual, official map of it too!
Yeah. I remember Top10Memes. He's now into documentary style videos but I kinda do missed his Top 10s based on pop cultures and interesting stuff.
As what he said, Liberty City was supposed to be called Liberty State and it originally featured a countryside where mountains and forests surrounded the area similar to GTA 5.
NO WAY! a fellow Lemmino fan
Then we got GTA V with one city and a couple small towns. What happened? I hope GTA VI runs with the entire idea
Not to mention the town is smaller and the country side is boring as hell
Then again, this was made in PS3 and Xbox 360, that concept map of GTA 4 alone sounds absurdly ambitious, imagine several cities, and a huge countryside, that's a lot of gigs in that map alone,
Look at the map of Just Cause 2, it was huge (like really, really big even aircraft travel takes forever) for a 2010 game, but it only contained small villages, military bases, and one city, and several, several islands with nothing in it.
@@hatsoff4524 But if this concept map was the same size as San Andreas, the PS3 could've handled it. It would be smaller than GTA V.
@@TheyWantMeGone69 That concept map looks way, way more content than GTA V, several villages, the huge wilderness, and 3 cities, that alone has ton of gigs, and that's not even factoring in the gameplay mechanics like physics and the scripts, it's already a testament that GTA 5 can even run in 7th gen consoles (like what they pulled off in SA), but this map would make the already average performance of GTA 4 worse (especially PC).
@@hatsoff4524 Yeah I see that now. This would've been too ambitious back in 2008, but now? Oh boy it's the wild west of possibilities
"Having 2,000 people run around a map shooting each other, that's just not interesting to me."
How ironic.
Shooting eh? I think they meant Shooting Rockets not bullets.
*proceeds to do this very idea a few years later and get millions off of it*
They love the green.
I agree with Badger Goodger. The answer is simple. GTA IV was going to be the HD game from R*, and they would have wanted to have a quality experience for the players. So no big map. And to develop a game with such a big map and R*'s obsession with quality, it would have taken as much time as GTA VI development is taking after GTA V, without any other distraction for R* fans like RDR2 or Online
It probably would have released in 2013 the Gta 5 release date. If the map was that big and as detailed as the original Gta 4 Liberty City.
HOLY cow THE CATSKILLS? That’s like all of the state of New York! I live near JC and driving to the Catskills took like 4-5 hours (snow & traffic) it’s actually insane to think the Catskills would actually be represented. I personally think they’re so beautiful and would be perfect with the way clouds work in the updated RAGE engine. The clouds would cut through the mountain so nicely like irl.
I feel like if they included rural areas like Connecticut, considered the inclusion of so many Sopranos references in the game, there probably would have been a mission where Niko would have had to travel up north to take out someone in hiding at a family farm house like in the later seasons of the show (I won’t spoil who). Considering the Satriale’s deli is in the game (like the actual literal building), anything is possible.
0:52 In the original GTA IV map since the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas has some countrysides they could at least add some random small towns and fewer other cities to it. You got Buffalo and Syracuse, but why not have a few cities like Rochester, Utica, and Watertown fit in the map and have Danbury in there as well. Long Island would have small towns too.
I guess if R* ever goes back to Liberty City its gonna be a bit more closer to this.
I was thinking that too, I bet they can pull it off now.
@@InternetRob They would have to include SI into the final map, they've got a cool shopping area just next to the ferry terminal now, plus a number of fantastic parks!
Hopefully they can reuse IV's map because it's pretty well made, and then add the other areas on top of it.
@@shanekeenaNYC It will have to be a different universe then GTA V & IV are the same universe
@@pedinhuh16 That's what they will have to do if VI is the same universe as IV and V
I really like the countryside and small towns of San Andreas and GTA V, they had a lot of charm, but if you're going to do a massive map, you need to use the space, fill it with missions, side activities and etc.
Well, with red dead they proved they can make the countryside interesting too
@@darthpepo1 Red Dead is set in a whole different time. The countryside is the city there.
It's where the interesting stuff happens.
@@frizzyrascal1493 yeah, but no reason to not have an interesting countryside with random events and good wildlife like in red dead
@@darthpepo1 Of course, Rockstar has to overthink it's game concept. Red Dead 2 has a a great story, but the mission mechanics of going from A to B just because is really outdated. NakeyJakey made a good video about the issue.
@@frizzyrascal1493 yep, i agree with that video
I never see videogames with a big sprawling neighborhood that can be freely explored, and I don't think I ever will.
This is why I feel like Long Island would not be as big as it's shown to be on this concept if they decided to move ahead with it as the map. It's such a big area with tons of sprawling residential areas, they'd probably downsize it and just keep one suburb and the Hamptons.
There are many games. They aren't shooting games (most of them arent)
@@yasno915 example?
@@videodeposu8741 Watch Dogs 2
@@videodeposu8741 I know this may sound childish but...
Roblox. Before you say it's a game for kids... just know that someone payed for college by making a game on roblox. I can say more but if you're already playing roblox it would be weird telling you the stuff
Rockstar picked the straight orientation for the map most likely because it was easier for mappers/level-designers to work with than having everything under the weird angles, leading to more work on stiching the seams in the level meshes and general placement of the props and layout. It would have been a nightmare to work with. Just check out the map layouts from previous entries in the series. 3, Vice, SA all have a layout under the right angles.
Underrated channel detected
Yes pls share
Where's your buddy Man. ?
GTA 4's map is already amazing enough but man after watching this video I imagine that it would have been even better with all the wooded areas ,smaller towns ,islands and Staten island, maybe they could have made the story longer and add more things to do after finishing the story, like more side quests more strangers to meet etcetera...but maybe modders will add all these or who knows maybe Rockstar if ever makes another GTA set in LC will remake the map from GTA 4 into what they had in mind back then
Staten Island once again living up to it's "forgotten borough" nickname.
Staten Islander here. I also always believed Staten Island was going to be included in early concepts of Liberty City. Staten Island has a notorious history of Organized Crime, especially Italian-American Organized Crime. Seeing as how GTA IV has big organized crime plot lines I always thought they would use Staten Island and New Jersey (Alderney) as the focus on those plot lines. Maybe I was biased because as a kid I always thought having my borough was the coolest thing I could imagine in a video game, but finding out that it was just never planned to begin with just crushes my younger self’s hopes and dreams.
I still feel that Staten Island would have been great to have in the game, and it wouldn't even have to be large. Something the size of Bohan but with more houses and parks to give it a more woodsy feel. With the amount of parks there, it could have sort-of been like a "countryside" portion to satisfy the people who still wanted an area that felt more open and less urban in the game. By the way, if I recall, some building textures in Alderney and possibly Dukes were originally taken from pictures of buildings in Staten Island, so they at least had to go there for some reference photography. Strange that they'd only use it for NJ though.
Don't worry flight simulator has your borough.
I feel you man. I'm from Queens but I could imagine how much it sucks when you're anticipating you're area to get represented and it never actually is in the final product.
Hopefully for a future GTA or map DLC, Rockstar will bring back an expanded Liberty City with their own interpretation of Staten Island. Along with featuring more of Long Island, Upstate, and New Jersey. I'm sure they would be able to do it now with how much technology has progressed. Would be sick!
Oh man i always wanted to see some details about the original gta 4 map. It sounded amazing
The Tri state area. The area that dr doofenshmurtz from phineas and ferb wants to conquer.
The inator
@@Theunfriendlyneighborhoodman He's a semi aquatic, Egg laying mamal of action
@@prateekpanwar646 He's a furry little flatfoot who never flinched from a fra-ee-ay-ee-ay
@Siboniso Buthelezi When the women swoons, whenever they hear him says...
(platypus sound mp3)
Badger uploading is automatically a blessing
Let's hope R* considers a map of this size while making GTA 6
Considering how ginormous the map for RDR2 is, I'd imagine that with the current gen hardware available now, the map is going to be fucking massive.
@@MrFusion surprisingly, rdr2's map is quite a bit smaller than V's
Dan and Sam are gone. Rockstar isn’t worth what it was.
@@taistelulaama9159 true, but considering how much slower horses are compared to cars, it feels much bigger
@@sumoslap1973 Sam isn't gone
I know this is a stretch but in my opinion GTA 7 will take place back in Liberty City hopefully by this time they have the technology to expand the map and add all the missing parts such as New York State and ETC it's possible
Don't know if it's just me but, looks like people has just realized what an amazing game GTA 4 was, and now people are going back to it thinking "what a master piece I've lost".
People will do the same with V after VI comes out. It's happened with each entry in the series since San Andreas (not counting LCS, VCS or CTW). Not long after IV released people were incessantly bitching about the lack of things to do and the absence of countryside, constantly singing the praises of "the superior" San Andreas. Then after V came out everyone started waxing poetic about how much "better" the driving, physics, and story were in IV and that continues to this day, only with people praising both IV and SA now. The same thing will happen again because a lot of people get nostalgic for the games they loved when they were younger (especially if they were kids), and because it's impossible to please everyone.
@@LanceVanceDance84 yeah, I agree, buy GTA IV had so many hate that I never imagined this happening, at least I'm the one who loved the game since day one 😅
@@LanceVanceDance84 I don't think anyone hated on San Andreas the same way people did with IV and V tho.
@@themadtitan7603 wth thanos u r not supposed to be here lazy
@@LanceVanceDance84 Shit people have been doing that with New Vegas for a while now, it got to the point where some people are questioning how great New Vegas was
it's the same as with True Crimy NYC, they also planned to do the same. make it nyc + surrounding areas. but of course rest was cut-
I may be wrong for all of what I would say but I think one of the main reasons why they dropped the idea is because of the lack of space on a DVD Double Layer + a lack of time.
GTA 4 was released on Xbox 360 ( format DVD double layer) and PS3 (Bluray format) and the maximum size of a DVD Double layer is 8.5 GB and at the time of the release of GTA 4 only 7.3 GB could be used on DVD double layer and the size of GTA 4 on console is 7 GB so imagine if they want to include a bigger map that is more diversified.
It could be possible but with a lower polygon on every asset and lower quality on every texture (with the graphic quality of GTA SA or in between GTA SA and GTA 4 graphics quality)...
Maybe some of you would ask why they didn't just release GTA 4 on 2 DVD double layers (1 to install and 1 to play) like they did for GTA 5. But at the time of GTA 4 the Xbox 360 maximum hard drive size was 20 GB (13 GB available) and I think a lot of people didn't have a hard drive at all on their Xbox 360 at the time of the release of GTA 4.
Another thing I think for GTA 5 they had the intention to include San Fiero and Las Venturas but it was cut due to a lack of time and maybe for the same reason of the DVD double layer.
Oh yeah the reason why the skate 1 and 2 map look so low poly is because of the disc size.
I think nowadays the tri-state concept could definitely work and exist, especially with how large and powerful Rockstar is now. I'm certain that, if they really wanted to, they could set the next GTA in Liberty City again, but include all the other stuff they had in mind, like the extra state and forests and airports and whatnot, so we would get basically a small remake of GTA4's map to add something we're familiar with while also giving us tons of new stuff.
Edit: Ok, ok, the NEXT next GTA. 6 is gonna be in Vice City so 7 would be their chance.
It would be lovely if group of modders attempted to recreate it from this concept reusing all existing assets, i feel like there is just enough house props and textures to pull it off without doing any other new assets but the terrain roads, rest could be repurposed and edited to fit.
I have to press a big fat X to doubt their reasoning for shrinking down the map. If they went any bigger the consoles probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. Even now, R* can't add much more content to 360 and PS3 versions of GTAV due to limitations.
A map this size would've killed the consoles that were available at the time. I love this era of gaming but the low RAM that the PS3 and 360 had really hurt and limited the scope of open-world games. I believe that's why a lot of story-driven linear games were popular during this time.
I mean you had ambitious games like Afrika that literally took about an hour or 2 just to install the damn game, I can only imagine how long something like this would take to install on PS3
In 2008, these consoles were true next gen
And not to mention that the PS3 was notorious for being hard to develop games for it.
PS3 runs GTA IV on only one core and ignore all SPEs
Nothing to do about that.
Doesn't the PS3 and Xbox 360 runs GTA V?
RAM doesn't determine how big a open world game is.
Is used for temporary storage for textures, assets, audio, etc.
I read somewhere around 2007 that they said they moved away from the sprawling map ideas because they would rather focus on making Liberty City unique. And I read they didn't include Staten Island because they didn't think it would be fun to play in.
Wonder if this sketch is older than the story idea, think about it, what would Niko do in connecticut while having all the stuff going on in the city? i can get behind it being a TLAD exclusive (bikes and drugs) but let's say Luis would be completely out of place there. They pulled off an amazing job on the city, if it was any smaller it wouldn't be so immersive.
funny story, when I was visiting the US I was driving to JFK to catch my flight however I got lost on Stanten island and while I was finding my location on the GPS I noticed how similar Stanten island looked and felt like a scene from GTA 4 so i find it funny that rockstar never considered stanten island as a location but its the most GTA-esque borough in NYC
Hard to believe GTA4’s development started in 04’. It was ahead of it’s time
Well, now we got a reason to be hyped for GTA VII Too :D
GTA 7 gets released already?
If it isn't my favorite underrated youtuber guy but seriously i really like your calm and chill videos. Perhaps you should make these kinda videos with other late 2000s- early 2010s games too.
I'd love to do more non-GTA topics occasionally! Thanks for watching!
Keep it up !
Okay, if Rockstar were to revisit this map concept, I’d totally be down for a future GTA title that includes Liberty City again. An open world that big and diverse probably would’ve competed with San Andreas’ at the time and maybe even blow it out of the water especially with it taking place in the HD Universe.
I feel that rockstar had the choice to either reimplement the old engine from the 3D universe or spend the time and money on building the RAGE engine. While I’ve always wondered what a larger liberty city map would’ve looked like I appreciate the mechanics added with the rage engine. It’s a shame the driving is the way it is but I assume that might’ve had to do with either hardware limitations or with the size of the map.
Yep, we probably could have had the expanded map, but it definitely wouldn't have got to be in the style of how IV is now. I think it would have been more "blocky" like SA, VC, and those 3d era games, and without that new gen physics engine.
Damn The early Map it's looks more bigger than the final
....because... it is
I’m from Rochester, New York Md would have loved if it was in GTA IV and I also love geography as I love maps.
My guess is that the tri-state or a big map idea was dropped maybe becuase of two reasons
1. Engine capability limitations. In GTA SA, they had more experience with the RenderWare engine + 2 previous games. GTA 3's map was big, Vice City's additional content might have covered up the capability, then in San Andreas they tried to fit both a big map and content. In GTA 4's case it might be just that they didn't even have a previous GTA or any major title on RAGE engine. The previous installment just being a Table Tennis game. So they were still unsure of the engine's capabilities.
2. the 2nd reason can be Hardware Limitations. Considering GTA IV already runs badly on PC, runs just ok on consoles, it might have resulted in them dropping the ideas of a forest, cause it might just take every last bit of streaming memory. Or maybe they were unsure of such big world in a multiplayer game for a 2008 game.
That's just my guess. In GTA 5 sure they expanded it with just 1 giant block of map but a reasonably sized one. GTA IV's was 8 km and GTA V's was an astonishing 48 km. Which is a really good upgrade.
Engine capability has nothing to do, R* bought the devs that MADE the engine, unlike RenderWare.
Gta sa: 3 cities los angeles, las vegas, san Francisco
Gta 4 pre-alpha or whatever: 3 states new york, new jersey, (cant read that hand writing)
Gta 5: 3 nations, USA, UK, Russia
Gta 6: 3 continents, North America, South America, Europe
Gta 7: 3 planets, Earth, Moon, (some new planet people discovered in future)
Even though this concept wasn’t approved, the final map still felt rushed. Just look at some bridges or roads. They feel too steep, like they had to squish the roadways to fit rather than expand the boroughs to accommodate the roads.
For myself, I would be tempting to have another Liberty City setting (over VC, Vegas, SF, etc), *IF* it meant an extended redition of Liberty City incorporating Poughkeepsie, Westchester, Tarrytown, etc. Also, of all the boroughs in GTA IV, the Bronx was given the poorest treatment. As it was severely abbreviated in that title. In any future GTA titles, hopefully a more faithful version of the Bronx is recreated.
I’m not sure if this is coincidence or not but, Brighton beach being called hove beach could be because in England Brighton’s full name is Brighton-on-hove. Not sure though
Tbh I'm glad they went for a super dense but smaller map, a large one would have been cool but it would have probably ended up way less urban and detailed
IIRC Dan Houser said when they first had the outline of the map up and running on their computers that it was close to the actual size of the entire state of New York. If they had gone down that route the game probably would've ended up with graphics/details similar to San Andreas. I'm VERY glad with what they actually chose to do instead of the "make everything bigger" idea.
I’m actually disappointed in the final version there’s no real wooded area. It’s mainly a city oriented map with a slight suburban area in the West Island.
@@LanceVanceDance84 Maybe one day we can have a map that big with the amount of details in Gta 4, if not MORE.
@@ryanelliott71698 I mean it would have been cool, but thinking about it realistically I'm fine with it. The green spaces like parks in the game are just okay, and that's because more effort got put into the urban areas which take up the majority of the map. With games cut content, you've got to think about the balance. If you add something else, somethings gotta give. So I'm fine with what they did in the final game
@@retailradiotv884 like 1 decently sided wooded I would have been fine with.
I'd LOVE to see an expanded Liberty City! As much as I want to see Vice City and Las Venturas reimagined and expanded, I think Liberty City honestly deserves that treatment as well- especially if it were a historic version of LC, set in the 50s-80s.
70s LC is a perfect idea
GTA 4 was that treatment lol
Man, this is heartbreaking more than anything
i kinda wish they went for this concept, i love the urban/concrete jungle of release GTAIV, but it definetely needed some more green stuff and colors.
thing is though, going for a map this big would have probably meant that GTA V, RDR1 and RDR2 would have ended up releasing later, due to GTA IV taking more time to develop
still though, it would have been cool as fuck
the fact they cut the map size down to focus on the details suddenly explains why v isnt nearly as detailed as iv in most regards
Can't believe they cut rockaway, my home, could've gone to my house and everything
This is awesome. Now we need to find concept art of Vice City with the Gator Keys.
I think VC would lend itself much better to open areas outside the city better than LC. Miami isn't a big concrete jungle like NYC or LA, and a lot of Miami-Vice-esque storylines tend to focus on the Keys, the swamps, the bridges, etc.
theres already a concept map of the beta version. Someone found the picture of the beta map in a location in the game since the devs forgot to change it
I'm hoping if VC comes back the map will include that as well as areas of Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and parts of the panhandle. With these current gen technologies I want a map that's bigger and more lively than Los Santos
0:11
Ayyy thats me! Now I can die peacefully via driving my Buick headfirst into a telephone pole knowing that my biggest accomplishment to humankind has been achived
Ayyyy I remember you! How you been doing and stuff? Hope you’re keeping well in these hectic times
Its been while since I have seen you involved in gta stuff...
@@Univer3eTwist3ers Nice commenting on your own damn comment
@@yniekac8851 Literally what tho the guy I was replying to deleted his replies
A fellow Buick owner I see. What model?
Rockstars could of added Carcer City since they were planing on doing the liberty state at first
They achieved both detail and scale in RDR2 & GTA5, so it's not like we missed out entirely.
Rockstar could always remaster it 10 years from now, considering how large of a file space consoles can hold. I think that was part of the issue with trying to create such a map. That's why PC modding exists but even then, it would have been glorious as an "official" drawn out, playable map.
i grew up in the Adirondacks, i would have loved to have seen that and Syracuse referenced in a GTA game.
The area in concept Queens/Dukes which has those lines that look like runways shares a very similar location to the Ravenswood Power Station in real life Queens, judging also because it’s located across the East or Humboldt River from where Roosevelt Island is located which is called Colony Island in the final game. I have a feeling that this could have been power plant similar to Ravenswood because having an airport in that location in the concept and in real life wouldn’t be a very good place to put, since it is located very close to tall buildings in Manhattan, Roosevelt Island and Queens, not to mention the Queensboro Bridge which is located only a block away from Ravenswood, therefore posing dangerous obstacles for would-be planes landing at the airport if it was placed there.
In addition in real life, the area located north of Ravenswood Power Station is taken up by a high-rise luxury apartment complex and housing projects. Therefore, placing an airport in that location would have been a very bad idea.
Kinda sad now that connecticut, rockaway and the hamptons could've been in the game but didn't make the cut
I didn't want Rockstar to revisit the Liberty City region before this, but now I do. There's just so much new content we could get! (And NYC is where I'm from irl so ofc I'd prefer to see it than san andreas)
This is the kind of online map expansion or GTA VI map I would like to see. Do an entire east coast map where the whole State of Liberty becomes a map while Vice City and a big chunk of Florida gets included with stuff in between. Like RDR2, they could do 4 or 5 states or regions.
It is noticeable the bigger the map is the less detail on interactions with NPCs are after playing gtaV then going back to gtaIV you can see that interactions with police and peds feel way more realistic low-key like the driving in IV too
LC is a lot richer but I think that's the point. You can walk down a street, catch a taxi or a subway and be immersed. IRL LA isn't like that, and it reflects in the game, I think it's intentional.
@@JaidenJimenez86 Plus Police Brutality of 5's cops is more realistic to some groups of people, or seen as satire of the police.
i never realized how clever the place names in GTA were, Brighton beach being Hove beach because of Hove being next to brighton in the UK and Jersey being Alderny because of the channel island Jersey being next to the channel island of Alderny
This is why Rockstar is the king of single player.
No doubt. 😌
A winning streak that hopefully continues with the next entry in the series
Was.
Until start keep re-lease gta v and rdr2 to freking ps 69 and xbox series xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My english kinda succ
Fun fact, the real Coney island in NY is named after Coney Island in County Sligo, Ireland.
With the removal of planes during development due to "the map being too small", it makes you wonder if more of these concepts were in fact put into the game during early development and later removed.
It doesn't make sense that they'd initially include planes, only to remove them again, without changes to the size of the map being a factor.
pretty sure they removed planes bc they didnt wanna get cancelled over people recreating 9/11
@@5.9manualzj 😂
@@5.9manualzj Gta 3 included one plane, but no problem
@@5.9manualzj If that was the reason, then the terrorists have won
@@5.9manualzj 🥵🥵🥵
I would've preferred this map than the one we have now for GTA 4, it seemed more geographically accurate to New York than the final version, and the fact that there was literally going to be entire Woodlands and 3 different states! That would've put GTA 5 to shame.
So uhh, GTA IV Expanded & Enhanced when!?😂 GTA IV was quite the game already, but this massive map scale would've been crazy for the time!🤯👍👏
GTA IV truly deserved an expanded and enhanced not GTA 5 which while great, already got a couple of releases up to that point.
Maaaan, imagine that full map with episodes from liberty city. louis is centred in algonquin, nikos adventure is mostly broker/dukes, with parts in algonquin and alderney, then Johnys story couldve been jersey and connecticut, long island and the adirondacks area. That wouldve been absolutely amazing. Tlad desperately needed some country side areas. What couldbe been!!!
i absolutely love that they were thinking of including one of the places I grew up in/lived by. The falls in GTA 4 would have been my dream come true I can't believe it was thought of. My life feels complete thanks badger for sharing. I believe the first time I spoke to you in chat I asked what you thought about this exact thing it what do you know it was kinda real this whole time who would of thought thanks again
It's an interesting concept design for the GTA IV map and always cool to see something I've never seen before, my guess is probably an obvious one but I think with how big the map was in the end and how much the framerate dropped due to the size and detail of the vehicles, characters and everything else that was shown on screen I'd guess that's why they didn't bother with making the map slightly bigger and including a 4th island to it and base it more off the regions of NY. Granted this game was unoptimized on PC due to them working on consoles first before porting it over (Or so I've been told) but even if they managed to fit the map into the game I doubt it would have made it any better in terms of framerate and playability.
Keep it up Badger and looking forward to the next video :)
As a Long Islander its truly sad how it was scrapped. What was even sadder was the fucking shape they designed it in the concept
Is not the size that matter dipshit
But the quality, what inside of the map, density.
If you look out at the amount of interiors you would be completely fine about the map we got.
If this was their original concept for what they wanted Liberty to look like I can only imagine what they wanted for Southern San Andreas when starting work on GTA5. Hopefully with today’s technology they can go all out with Vice City and it’s surrounding areas.
If they decided to focus on the map size, then the quality of the physics could have deteriorated too. I'm glad we got the GTA 4 that we did.
if GTA 6 includes Liberty City as a dlc it has to be made like these sketches
You know what's funny, the Catskills are North of Syracuse on this map, despite in Real Life the Catskills are far South of Syracuse, they are closer to Binghamton (The city I live nearby), which could've been what they would've gone with later in development if this map was finalized
Buffalo is also directly south of (or maybe within) the Adirondacks on this map. Had they moved ahead with this concept, you really do have to wonder what changes they'd make. I feel like Long Island would have been downsized.
@@BadgerGoodger Actually no the Adirondacks are closer to Syracuse than Buffalo, though if they want a nearby city to the Adirondacks, that would be Albany, though unlike Binghamton were you can have list of stories about, most of which aren't good, Albany is known for being nice, and the Cadillac brand in these games are named after it
Fun fact that I discovered thru my 750 hours of exploring LC - if you go to the locations of Yankee stadium and Citi field in Bohan and Dukes, there are baseball diamonds. One in Welham park off the grand Boulevard, and the other in Meadows park next to the monoglobe. Check it out
Man I don't even think I would want to play GTA 6 if it doesn't have any rural areas.
They changed the map into a smaller version probably due to the limited storage from the old consoles since it was using a new engine to run the game.
limited storage from old consoles? then how did they make gta 5 on xbox 360 and ps3?
@@pushhrodd01 Multi-disc on the Xbox 360 and Blu-ray for the PS3. Blu-ray has a higher capacity than a dual layer DVD.
I think it's rather performance, optimization issues than storage limitation. Even the smaller final version is still has poor performance.
This got me really interested if Rockstar ever goes back to Liberty City. Imagine having a bigger GTA V map size, but with these 3 states, adding so much variety and different atmosphere on top of the famous NYC and Queen vibe we got in GTA IV.
This map would've been awesome!! And it makes the final map look tiny in comparison. Oh what could've been...
Well the game with more content and bigger map would came with 2 DVDs on Xbox 360 and they have to make the game work without hard drive.
There is not way they would have made an open world game like this came on 2 or 3 DVDs on Xbox 360
Plus it would drastically increase loading times on both consoles
TIL, a GTA map artists drew Lake Ontario, where I live, in the original renditions of the GTA IV map
What ?
Found the redditor.
@@tylercouture216 And?lol
It was probably meant to be a lot like los santos and blaine county, conceptually. Like, you could leave the city and go to the outskirts.
I use to live around Buffalo I would of loved to see it in a game especially the GTA series.It would be so awesome to have Niagara Falls in it imagine pushing peds down the falls lol. or doing stunts into it. If Rockstar ever go back to NY hopefully they can make this a reality with future hardware.
Literally the most underrated youtuber I know! Dude, you are so great, I just can't wait for the next episode now :) Keep it going Badger!
A GTA IV like that would literally destroy GTA V
Considering Gta IV as released in 2008 already destroys Gta V,
yes you are correct.
@@ASSman864 yeah tbh looking back at GTA V the story was actually terrible compared to IV
@@aceofspades4655 Ironic since the story is what ruined the map
IV destroys V now.
@@ASSman864 uh what? V is the most successful game coming from rockstar
GTA IV may be my favorite GTA game, but I'll forever be sad that we didn't get a full Liberty State. Not only is it pretty immersion breaking looking out from Rotterdam Tower and seeing that LC is just floating in the middle of a vast ocean, but I wanna explore the Adirondacks! They could've at least had a small bit of countryside at the west of Alderney connecting everything to the mainland, a la GTA III. I know the reason is that they didn't want you to feel limited because you couldn't fly into the country in a helicopter, but I really wouldn't have minded the game just turning me around automatically or something. And it would've been pretty cool having a few missions where you go out into the woods for a shady deal or to bury a body.
Maybe we'll finally get Liberty State whenever the series returns to LC? Though at the rate they're going, I'll probably be battling midlife crisis haha.
I love when my obscure home state of CT is mentioned. it's a shame we didn't get in.
God I love when old details/maps from classic GTA games come out. This was a very impressive analysis video Badger!
Being that I'm from Staten island at least you see it exists ,but we'll always be the forgotten borough
About time someone did a video on this and it was actually interesting 👍👍 good to see gta iv still lives on 12 years later.