Grand Theft Auto Map Envisions San Andreas In 1907

The original San Andreas takes place about 85 years after ProfessorIshirkov’s mapped version, in 1992. It follows the exploits of Carl “CJ” Johnson, a former gangster, after he returns to San Andreas to attend his mother’s funeral, and is subsequently drawn back into the life he’d left behind. San Andreas went on to become considered one of the best video games ever made, a landmark entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, and one of the most controversial titles of the 90s for its depictions of graphic violence and sexual content. That controversy didn’t stop San Andreas from building an enduring legacy and to this day artists and gamers continue to pay homage to the title, including ProfessorIshirkov.

Rockstar broke away from focusing primarily on Grand Theft Auto in order to work on its second major series, Red Dead Redemption, which utilizes a huge number of GTA’s features and takes them back in time to the late 19th/early 20th century, but with horses instead of cars. The maps between the two series, however, bear a few resemblances despite the difference in time periods, some blatant, some subtle. Both RDR2 and San Andreas have towns named after fruits, there are references to Native American tribes and reservations (which exist outright in the former, and are alluded to in the latter), and in RDR’s case, both have Spanish names for towns and regions. ProfessorIshirkov took note of those similarities when building their map using QGIS, which is used to build, publish, and analyze geospatial data, and then posted the resulting work to Reddit:

The overall effect is pretty striking, and it looks exactly the way anyone would expect San Andreas to look in 1907 when the city was just starting to take shape. Railroads are unfinished, towns are sparsely settled, and the wilderness is still king. The airport serving early on as an island penitentiary is a nice touch, too — it effectively foreshadows the kind of place that San Andreas will become when CJ rolls onto the scene 85 years later. Considering Rockstar has been focusing more on the past than the present, with Red Dead Redemption ostensibly part of the reason for Grand Theft Auto 6‘s delay, the idea of bridging the two franchises together and confirming that they share a universe is an especially intriguing one. Others have already broached the idea of remaking San Andreas, and considering the similarities already discussed between the two series’ maps, it would be a good place to start.

While Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two, on the other hand, has often been less than kind to fan-made content, it’ll likely give the map a pass. Hopefully, it will consider just how intrigued by the idea of a San Andreas remake fans of the original are, and that may be the best approach to a potential remake is to take some inspiration from the past.

Source: Reddit

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