Everything in Leonida that can kill you and ain't a person: gators, panthers, sharks, and what Red Dead taught Rockstar

Y'all know the rule by now. If Rockstar showed it, I say so. If it's me guessin', I say that too. And this one has a good bit of me guessin', because Rockstar has shown us a whole lot of animals and not one of 'em biting anybody. Yet.

Here's the thing I keep comin' back to. Every GTA before this one, the most dangerous thing on the map was a person. A cop, a gang, a guy with a rocket launcher on a bridge. The animals were set dressing. GTA V had about 28 of 'em, and the only one anybody remembers is the mountain lion that killed Trevor on a hike, which was funny exactly once. Leonida is a different kind of place. It is Florida with the serial numbers filed off, and Florida is the one state in the union where the land itself is tryin' to eat you.

The gator, confirmed about five times over

Rockstar did not hide this. Confirmed: an American alligator walks into a convenience store in Trailer 1 like it has a loyalty card. Confirmed: one is layin' in a backyard pool in the same trailer. Confirmed: one is stretched out on an airboat deck in the Grassrivers screenshots, at the feet of two men who do not look worried, which tells you plenty about those two men. Confirmed: in the airboat chase screenshot, with a helicopter overhead, there's a gator in the water a few feet off watchin' the whole thing. And it's on the cover art, comin' out of the water with its mouth open.

That is five appearances for one animal before the game is out. Rockstar does not put a thing in a trailer five times by accident. The gator is a character. Now, whether it is a character that bites is the part nobody has shown. Every gator we've seen is either restin' or spectatin'. Not one of 'em has gone for a leg.

I grew up near enough to these animals to tell you what Rockstar would need to get right. A gator does not chase you across a parking lot, whatever the internet says. It waits. It is patient in a way that makes it the most video-game-ready predator alive, because the danger ain't speed, it's the edge of the water, and it's your own dumb decision to go near it. If Leonida's gators are a thing you learn to respect at the bank of every canal, Rockstar has done it right. If they're a thing you learn to run from, they've made a crocodile movie.

The cat at the watering hole

Confirmed: there's a big cat in the Mount Kalaga screenshot, walkin' past white-tailed deer at a watering hole, and the deer ain't movin', which is either very calm deer or a cat that already ate. Rockstar has not named it. It looks like a Florida panther, and it ought to be, because that's the only big cat that belongs in the state, and there's fewer than a couple hundred of the real ones left.

Which is why I'd bet money the panther is one of the "legendary" animals. Game Informer's cover story, reported with Rockstar's cooperation, says Leonida has more than 170 species and that some of 'em are sorted into rare, discoverable and legendary tiers you can track. That's reported, not confirmed, but it is word for word the language of Red Dead, and that brings me to the part I actually want to talk about.

What Red Dead 2 taught 'em

This is me now, not Rockstar.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the only Rockstar game where an animal was ever a real threat, and it was a threat because of four things the studio figured out. Cougars that you heard before you saw. Bears that did not care how many bullets you had. Wolves that worked as a pack so one of 'em was always behind you. And the Bayou gators in Lemoyne, which is the closest thing to Grassrivers Rockstar has ever built, where the swamp was dangerous because you could not see what was under the boat. The legendary bull gator in that swamp is still the best animal fight the company has ever made, and it happened in a game about horses.

Same studio. Eight years later. A fur system for pelts, animals in tiers, and a swamp with gators in every third screenshot. I don't need Rockstar to tell me what they're plannin'. They already told me in 2018.

What I want from it is simple. I want Grassrivers to be dangerous the way the Bayou was: slow, quiet, and mostly your own fault. I want the panther to be somethin' you hear once in the pines and don't see for ten hours. I want the deer to run from me, because in the watering hole shot they ain't runnin' from the cat, and if they won't run from a panther they sure won't run from Jason.

The ones Rockstar hasn't shown

Sharks. Not confirmed. Rockstar has shown dolphins, a sea turtle, and scuba divin' on a reef in the Keys, and no shark. GTA V had sharks, and they would kill you, so it'd be a strange choice to put you underwater in Leonida and make it safe. I'd keep my ankles out of the deep channel till somebody proves otherwise.

Pythons. Not confirmed, and this is the one that bugs me. Rockstar named three invasive species for Leonida: cane toads, feral cats, and rhesus macaque monkeys, which yes, Florida really has. The one invader the real Everglades is famous for is the Burmese python, twenty feet of somebody's pet that got loose in the '90s and ate the raccoons. If the snakes ain't in the game, that's a swing and a miss on the one Florida animal that's actually a news story. If they are, Rockstar is keepin' it quiet for a reason, and I'd guess the reason is "legendary".

Bears. Not confirmed, but the real state has black bears in the north woods, and Mount Kalaga is the north woods. Rockstar has built bears before. I'd be surprised.

Monkeys. Confirmed by name, not pictured. There is a real colony of rhesus macaques in a Florida state park, and some of 'em carry a virus you do not want. I have no idea what Rockstar does with that, but I want to be there when I find out.

What I don't want

I don't want the gator to be a gun. GTA has a long habit of turnin' every interesting thing into a weapon or a vehicle, and the moment somebody at Rockstar North says "what if you could throw the gator", we've lost. The gator in the gas station is funny because the gator is just doin' gator things in the wrong place. Keep it that way. Let the swamp be the swamp.

And I don't want the animals to be a checklist. 170 species is a big number, and a big number on the back of a box is exactly how you end up with 140 animals that are a pigeon with a different hat. I'd take 40 that act right over 170 that stand around. Red Dead had 200, and I remember maybe 15 of 'em, and every one of those 15 did somethin' I did not expect.

The bottom line

Confirmed: gators in the store, the pool, the airboat and the chase; a big cat and deer in Mount Kalaga; iguanas, dolphins, a turtle, and the wading birds; monkeys, toads and feral cats by name. Reported: 170-plus species, pelts, and tiers up to legendary. Unknown: whether a single one of 'em will bite you, and whether there's a snake in that sawgrass.

A month from now I'm takin' an airboat into Grassrivers with the lights off, and I'm gonna find out. If I'm right about the swamp, you'll hear from me. If I'm wrong, the Dead Gator Bar & Grill will have one more customer, and y'all can laugh at me there.