One of Mafia II‘s drawbacks was the extremely long driving times often required by a map that spread mission points very far apart. L.A. Noire will be twice the size – 20sqkm to Empire Bay’s four – and will require 30 minutes to traverse by car.
So let’s hope they place the mission locations closer together, or you’re going to understand the joy of L.A. traffic before there were freeways. A Rockstar developer confirmed the map size a couple months ago in a Rockstar forum; but with the game’s addition to the Social Club community this week, the general public got a small look at the City of Angels’ big map. It is bigger than Grand Theft Auto IV‘s, which was six square miles.
There are five other screenshots at the Social Club, an offer of free DLC (a suit for goin’ shotgunnin’ in) if you sign up, and a full explanation of benefits you get if you play the game through your account. Signing up for that is free.
L.A. Noire [Rockstar Games Social Club; map info via Just Push Start]
thernus
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 10:51 AMhow big was red deads map compared to LA and gta4?
i havent played gta4 that much, didnt really get into it as much as red dead, and i imagine they will have a travel skip feature like read dead had.
McNulty
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 11:59 AMRed dead always felt much bigger than gta4, I’d guess twice as big.
Ad
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 12:23 PMAt a guess, I’d say Red Dead’s map was similar in size to San Andreas’ – however you could fast travel to most locations.
Riavan
Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 9:36 AMRed Dead was like Just Cause 1 though, huge, but with nothing in it.
Azza
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 1:36 PMI hope they didn’t waste resources on building such a huge map. I though LAN was going to be heavily story driven and not really requiring an open world.
doubleDizz
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 11:43 AMI think the biggest different in L.A. Noire is that you’re playing someone with a job.
So although the game appears open-world, I wouldn’t be surprised that if you try and drive around where ever you want, you’ll probably get reprimanded by your commanding officer for not doing your job and possibly fired (game over) if you keep doing it.
Of course if that’s the case, they’ll be cheats to disable that (I hope there’s weekends at least ahaha)
Subject Delta
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 3:52 PMI think they can make Red Dead bigger because of its emptyness.
das k1nd
Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 1:35 AM“…30 minutes to traverse by car.”
What’s your source on this information?
Stephen rushbrook
Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 10:31 AMPfft. Everything pales into insignificance when you concider the sale of the EVE online universe, which is , quite literally, astronomical.
Franz
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 9:00 PM30 mins to traverse by car.
Is this like when they said they flew for 10 minutes in a straight line in san andreas before they came to a town? hah.