RDR2 | Beta Maps a Complete Analysis 

Van Horn being way out at the edge of the map instead of awkwardly positioned between two very industrialized towns would've been so much better. Like, ''this is the last stop. You're on your own here.''

It's actually kind of sad to think about just how much map in the north got cut / moved south

In general, the early sea entrance from Saint-Denis looks more logical than the final version. The real New Orleans eventually flows into the Caribbean Sea and from the game side it looks strange that Saint-Denis is surrounded by Mexico.

I weep for Cumberland Forest, the true victim of the Grizzlies shuffle

I think the leaked map was just more logical overall and better design-wise than the one we ultimately got because of how VH trading post originally was at the edge of the map which makes more sense given it that should've been a last stop before sea with tracks leading northwards or where ST Denis sea entrance was originally located.

7:55 that actually makes a lot of sense because they probably wanted to add nuevo paraiso to please the fans, but scrapped it half way because of time issues and afraid of another delay, leading it to Mexico being in the game but impossible to get there

I think Lemoyne is too small. It would have been better if it had two other small settlements. In chapter 3 there isn't that much to explore if you ignore Saint-Denis. And the two plantations take up a lot of space. I think it would have improved the immersion if Lemoyne was a bit bigger. After playing the Epilogue I kind of regret that we spend so little time in New Austin. This state is beautiful! And so big! When playing John in New Austin I feel sad that the gang and Arthur never made it to the west. How different things would have been...

The most interesting part of the 2016 map, besides it being better then what we ended up getting are the gang locations. Using the key on the left, it looks like the Van Der Linde Gang was going to camp out at Hanging Dog Ranch. In the actual game, the gang is never even really that close to West Elizabet so it means we possibly had an entirely cut chapter. In Chapter 3, it looks like originally the gang was going to camp out at Dewberry Creek, but I think the devs realized the location didn’t really work, so in the mission where Arthur and Charles head to Dewberry Creek after the shootout in Valentine, they say its way too open and decide Clemens Point is a better spot. In terms of enemy gang hideouts, it looks like there was going to be a few more then what we ended up getting. Cochinay is marked as one, meaning we were possibly going to have to fight hostile Native Americans in West Elizabeth, which was possibly part of the cut content chapter involving Hanging Dog Ranch. Tallulah Jetty also was an enemy hideout. But more interestingly, Dewberry Creek, the Criad Slaughterhouse(i think) , and Lakay were marked as enemy gang hideouts. Dewberry Creek was probably Lemoyne Raiders or O’Driscolls. Lakay could’ve been Lemoyne Raiders or even possibly the Night Folk which makes sense because in the game, Lakay is surrounded with skulls on pikes and other creepy stuff. And the Criad Slaughterhouse might have been a mafia/mob hideout. This is just what I think judging off what I see but who knows

The 2017 build (the Railway map leak) seems like it really was the best map iteration. More expansive Roanoke and Ambarino (and the accursed Tempest Rim), better look of the Lannahachee and how it flowed down to where Guama was located, as well as a better looking and more explorable Guama. A shame. It's my favorite version of the map out of 'em all. Who knows, maybe soon in the future better modding support'll come out and maybe polish up the East Grizzlies to their former glory, maybe even add in those unused building models that Mexico now lacks, make it look less empty. We shall see.

Man I just watched this and you just opened my eyes on what Ambarino could have been, I mean that place so small and insignificant in rdr2, but goddamn looking at the mist map sheesh, makes me want to explore the snowy mountains

i play this game alot and usually with my mother to help her out i have to hold her the whole game since shes bad but im ok with it. at the end of the day when shes dead and i look back at this decaying game afew years from now im going to be visiting parts of the map and remembering we use to hang out in those places when we played. when she passes away one of the areas i will remember for sure is the rhodes area and blackwater and great plains.

I'm a few years late to this, but I truly can't think of a justification on why so much of Cumberland Forest was removed and why they pushed Grizzlies East south. The map arguably would have benefited from keeping the mountains further back, as it's kind of jarring to see the Grizzlies in Rhodes, and not to mention, Saint Denis. On top of that, opening the Lanahachee to the Ocean helps the geography make more sense in that area. What's really strange to me tough is that they intentionally made West Elizabeth even less accurate to it's RDR1 counterpart. Aurora Basin being a good example of this. Can't think of why they did this, maybe to give the impression of the geography changing over the years? However, maybe the original deisgns were duller, or less fun to explore, who knows. They must've had their reasons, but it's certainly interesting.

This is truly stellar content, so much effort put into it I applaud you sir.

with my second playthrough I tried to understand better the map and locations tempest rim was the first location that I found strange and every researchs I made eventually lead me to this video so Huge thanks because it's the best I've seen covering the subject. This game is incredible and it's kind of a shame we didn't have cut content and regions they intend to do nevertheless thank you again

People may give Rockstar a lot of hate but I feel they do take pride in the games they put out and when a leak comes out to the public that takes Rockstar a step back from their progress. Imagine all the GTA VI "leaks" that came out, who knows maybe they were close to be spot on and Rockstar had to take a step back because of it. Also Saint Denis was originally going to be called New Bordeaux.

great work! very interesting and well made

Too bad rockstar scrapped so many of them,maybe hopefully rdr3 map will be really representating the west of mississippi river,new state like the lannahachee state,state in the northern part of roanoke inspired ny northern arkansas and southern missouri and across is tennesse and kentucky,while in the north of ambarino they added new state to the twin dakotas and canada,while to the west of new austin is state inspired by new mexico,southern colorado,arizona and southern california,while they expanded mexico more and added canada

Great video DuPz0r man, as always!!!👌👌

Extensively researched, well-presented, with informative commentary. Very well done! Definitely subbing.

I've been waiting for a video exactly like this for a while now. Very well done. What I would do to play on a beta version of the map though, looks so cool. My favorite time on the map was when I first explored the north trail going from East to West, one of the best areas of the map but with very little to do up there after the first time up there.

I've been lurking on the Discord for a long time since discovering this channel, I love reading about all the discoveries, theories and truths uncovered about my favorite game of all time. Thank you everyone on Basement Gamer Bros! :)

Great video, I’ve rewatched this like 10 times I just find it all so interesting. One small thing, but I would’ve rather the Heartlands keep the amber grass.

It's been a long time since you uploaded a rdr2 related video. And of course, it's golden :]! Cheers.

I hope RDR3’s map will connect to West Elizabeth, Big Valley, Redemption mountains and Grizzled West.

Just going through these videos now, but the saddest part is not that it got scrapped. The saddest part is, THAT IT EXISTED and then they DECIDED that it will be REMOVED. Like we litterally could have those maps if we got a pre-release build of the game. It wasn't just a concept version.

I have a strong feeling that they're going to add the 'Northern Grizzlies' to Ambarino. Ambarino is an official state but we don't see any town with a seat of government. That means that Ambarino isn't fully presented at it's full borders in RDR2. The rest of the state is to the north.

Clicked every ad as this video was amazing

for some reasons this gives me goosebumps i really dont know why bruh, does this only happen to me when i look at rdr1 and rdr2 maps

So much work getting cut out. Just upsetting to see..

Great vid, appreciate the effort

bro i respect u bro,243 videos u did and the content take so much time to make,many failure u go through but the view still low,i hope yt give u the algorythm for u bro,so much effort and so much secret u found. not all ytbers do this kind of videos because they knew its take so much times and fail.but u did it and i hopes in the future the effort u gave now will pays u back,trust me bro. tq for entertain us

Amazing research, I'm impressed by the effort of putting everything known in a single video. RDR2 map development is certainly fascinating and I wish we could have pre-release builds to witness it with our own. Thanks for the video!

Hell yeah thanks for your analysis !

This is incredible, thanks

Fun fact: While wondering through Nuevo Paraiso I began hearing mexican trumpet fanfare, meaning they added a soundtrack for Mexico, either that or they imported it from RDR1

Another thing that doesn’t make since is how new Austin apart from hennagens stead is below sea level, since bayous are located at or very close to sea level.

Awesome work!

Omg! What delicius vídeo!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

They should've kept Van Horn north of Annesburg and had an ocean south of Saint Denis. Based on your Iron Cloud video I wished they kept that in too. By no means am I suggesting the map is too small - I've played for probably a hundred hours and am still finding new secrets and areas - but it could have been bigger with little issue. There are still areas outside the map with rendered details, grasses, trees, etc, even though many wouldn't be viewable without mods or glitches. Tempest Rim is inaccessible without glitches, as is a lot of the area to the northern border of the map, and I see it as a waste.

Love this content, i’ve watched all your RDR2 vids!

wow this video,talking about underrated things

Awesome work again there buddy 👍🏻

I found if you go to nekoti rock with a glitch if you press down direction button to see where are you up say nekoti rock west elizabeth so i really think that nekoti rock was really coming maybe they dont have time or something to finish some parts of the map

Love this content, thanks!

Uhh, just realized you put my name in your description. Thank you, don’t know how I helped tho

Amazing, keep it up!

This video plays like a 9/11 conspiracy video and i love it

Wow, real impressive how u found the similatities between the maps like that

Excellent Video, Interesting to watch. Keep it up👌👌

This is my new favourite channel. I have been playing RDR2 since its release but have avoided videos in case things were spoiled for me (I'm not lying: I still haven't finished the campaign!) but I exhausted all the data mining videos on RDR1. The amount of detail here is incredible and well documented, can't wait to binge all your videos 😂

Great video as always :)

Amazing video man! It's so interesting seeing how the map shifted around, I do think Rockstar might be the only company that would design their open world around the story and not vice versa, Like completely re-doing the grizzlies is such an insane move to accommodate for the story, I do think the map being changed is probably why so many complaints on Rockstar's Glassdoor say there isn't much planning for games, RDR2's Entire map shifted so many times unlike GTA 5 which was planned from the start, I wonder if anything similar will happen to GTA 6

Great vid!

There's no way they started work on NA and NP in 2017. That's too close to the release date. Especially considering that added a whole lotta content to NA and then scrapped it when they decided Arthur wouldn't be able to go to New Austin. I can't imagine all that happening in the course of a year. They probably started work on the RDR part of the map extremely early, then cancelled Mexico for they could create anything on it, kept working on New Austin, cancelled it, then brought it back in a way that Arthur couldn't visit it.

Why is there a river split between Tall Trees and Great Plains? I dont believe there was ever supposed to be a river.

Nice vid you deserve more credit.

I find it cool how saint denis used to be called new bourdeaux

if only they had delayed the game for 6 months now we would have a much bigger map and probably having more time they would not have compacted the rocky mountains to the south and the cumberland forest would be much more beautiful and bigger ... not to mention guarma which would be huge, we would also have the richest and most detailed snow-capped mountains and we would have the nuevo paradiso !! PS red dead redemption is already a masterpiece of its own and I'm not complaining but it makes me angry a little bit because it could have been 40% better than now which in my opinion is the best game in history

I’m so glad they added New Austin, it’s my favorite spot on the map. But I’m pissed they got rid of Nuevo Paraiso

I wish RDR2 got delayed till 2019 ngl after seeing all the cut content.

i always thought the in-game map looked weird.

The original map, with New Austin and Neuvo Paraiso included, would have been perfect. Some much potential lost. I also agree with the other comments regarding how the final map has positioned some of the locations in odd places. Like Van Horn definitely should have remained in its original placement above Annesburg as it makes sense geographically. Same thing with Saint Denis’ original design.

I wonder how much content was lost.

wow.. good job man👌💪👍✌️

Amazing video.

hopefully they add some sort of DLC for RDR2 with lots of content either for john to explore in the epilogue or removing the sniper and keeping the bounty for arthur.

great video 👌

Great video

I wish we had the full map intended in the game. But we can hope along with the states above New Austin we can get Mexico and more ambarino in the next game.

I wish this game took like a year more to develop

I say the 2016 leaked map is legit because it doesn't show New Austin as it was built and added by R* in the very last stages of development

I'm just very confused on the white railway map shown. It looks like the original 2016 leaked map, with the beta Roanoke ridge/Cumberland area, but Grizzlies west resembles the final one? Would that have meant that they expanded Grizzlies west but kept the beta Grizzlies east? Its just kind of difficult to picture.

Am I the only one who noticed that Annesburg and Van Horn had pretty much swapped locations?

aw dude no voice or narration... if you re upload with even text-to-speech or ai voice over: ill check it out.. looks like this was going to be a interesting video too

I feel like the lannahachee river branching off should of been kept there cuz after the Saint Denis bank robbery the gang gets on a boat and then they go into the fog but in the final copy of rdr2 there is only 1 valid way to guama, up the lannahachee river past annsberg out of the map but if the branch off in the river wasn't removed it would make a lot more sense cuz in the cutscene the giant boat goes towards the river back south of Saint Denis so it would make more sense to go down the branch off to get to cuba.

Lol the empty river in the heartlands/lemoyne is visibile in the early RDR2 map. in the actual map is also visible but there is no water in it.

Unfortunately, I play RDR2 on console so I cannot mod it.

Houser's cut when?

Has anyone noticed that the boundary of Ambarino is the same as Tajikistan?

Will you make a journey around the world with a bird ?

Where i can contact you in private? I dont know if you can help me to something about of out the map.

Great video, but why’d you have to use the creepy-ass music.

How can you fly with birds? When I change to one I cant even move.

what's background music name?

3:59 I just noticed that Saint Denis is called New Bourdeaux in this beta map. That's a tip that RDR/RDR 2, and Mafia games universes are all connected!

Hi!, Can you do this in RDR 1 map as wil as RDRevolver? Just try'na make a full map of R*'s from GTA's map + RDR's.

13:50 the image in the bottom right corner, is that area outside or inside the map?

Grab a coffee and enjoy but I hate Coffee 😔 Will Hot Chocolate work 🤔 Lol 😆

You're telling me they started work on this game as early as 2015?

So strange how such a rushed and cut game is still so good...... Rockstars rush and incomplete is any game developers wish

It this make with mods?????????????????????????????????????????

Brokeback? 💀

'Guama' sounds like it's pronounced how a child would say grandma.

Who reads a video? 😅

this is why Rockstar shouldn't rush games, So we can have a better and bigger map

RDR2 could have been way more better