Opinion: GTA 6 could hand Red Dead players a slice of Red Dead Redemption 3, and here is what that slice looks like

Same rule as always. If Rockstar showed it, I say so. If it's me guessin', I say that too. And this one's mostly guessin', so pour a coffee.

Here's the thing nobody at Rockstar is gonna say out loud. There ain't a Red Dead Redemption 3 comin' any time soon. GTA 6 lands November 19, the online side of it is gonna eat the studio for years, and Red Dead 2 only came out eight years ago. If you're waitin' on Arthur's world with better graphics, you're gonna be waitin' a while.

So I've been lookin' at Leonida a different way. Not as the next GTA. As the closest thing to Red Dead 3 we're gonna get this decade. And the more I line up what Rockstar has confirmed against what Red Dead taught us, the more I think a slice of that game is already in there.

The ground: Bayou Nwa, meet the Grassrivers

Confirmed. Rockstar says Leonida's map is about three times the size of Red Dead 2's. Inside it there's the Grassrivers, a sawgrass marsh with gators and airboats; Mount Kalaga National Park up north, where Rockstar lists hunting, fishing and off-road trails and mentions cabins and folks livin' off the grid; Ambrosia, a sugar-mill town run by a refinery and a biker gang; and the Keys, a chain of smugglers' islands where Jason lives.

What Red Dead taught us. Lemoyne's bayou was the best place in RDR2 and the one that killed you most. Ambarino was where you went to be alone. Rhodes was one family and one grudge. Read that list again. Rockstar built the same four kinds of country and gave 'em Florida names. I walked through each region last week, so I won't repeat it.

My guess. The swamp's the tell. You do not build a marsh with 170 animal species if the plan is for players to drive past it on the way to a nightclub. Somebody at Rockstar wanted a bayou in a GTA, and they got one.

The animals: Rockstar's already talkin' Red Dead

Confirmed. More than 170 species, per Game Informer's cover story written with Rockstar, with some sorted as rare, discoverable or legendary, and tracking for some. Rockstar's own words for Mount Kalaga are hunting and fishing. Fishing also turns up in the Extended Look's list of things to do, alongside kayaks, airboats and scuba. I went through every animal shown so far and everything out there that can kill you.

What Rockstar has not shown. A rifle raised at a deer. A perfect pelt. A legendary animal on the map. Not one frame of hunting as play.

My guess. "Legendary" is Red Dead's word, and Rockstar don't borrow its own words by accident. I'd bet on a short list of legendary animals, a compendium of some kind, and sellin' what you shoot. I'd also bet it's simpler than Arthur's version, because Jason's got a truck bed instead of a saddle.

The conscience meter

Confirmed. The Extended Look showed a Criminal Profile: a rating that tracks how you commit crimes, clean or needlessly violent. Unlike the wanted stars, it don't reset. Pettin' a dog nudges it one way. A little devil flashed up during a brutal act. Six covered how it works.

What Red Dead taught us. Honor was the quiet engine of RDR2. It changed shop prices, what strangers said to you, and which endin' you got. Half the people who loved that game loved it because the world remembered what they did.

My guess. This is honor with a rap sheet. If it changes how Leonida talks to you, that's the most Red Dead thing in the game, and it's already confirmed.

Now the pure guessin'. Horses

Nobody's shown a horse. Not ridden, not standin' in a field, nothin' official. So this is me, not Rockstar.

But look at the country. Ambrosia's cane fields. Mount Kalaga's trails. Cabins off the grid. Florida's one of the biggest horse states in the country, with real cattle ranches and rodeo. Rockstar has the best horse code ever written sittin' on a shelf from 2018. I can't believe they built a national park with off-road trails and never once thought about puttin' a horse on 'em.

My guess: rideable horses are in, somewhere small. A ranch, a trail ride, maybe a stolen police horse at a parade. Not a horse you bond with and brush. If I'm wrong, I'll say so on November 19.

A real prison

Confirmed. Lucia starts the story fresh out of Leonida Penitentiary. The prison's real in the story.

My guess. In Red Dead 2 you got locked up in Sisika and had to break out. In GTA V the prison was a building on a hill you drove past. I think Leonida Penitentiary is a place, on the map, with a yard and a fence line, and I think at least one of Jason and Lucia goes back inside it before the credits. A game that opens with a woman walkin' out of prison is tellin' you prison matters.

Bar fights

Confirmed. The Extended Look had Lucia puttin' a heel through a man's eye and a backyard wrestlin' ring. Melee's in and it's rough.

What Red Dead taught us. The Valentine saloon brawl was the first time most of us understood what Red Dead 2 was: slow, heavy, every punch landin' like a sack of feed.

My guess. Every town in Leonida has a bar. Port Gellhorn's got the kind that fights back. If the wrestlin' ring exists, the fist system exists, and I'd bet there's a dive somewhere in the Grassrivers where lookin' at the wrong man starts somethin'.

Homesteadin', sort of

Confirmed. Rockstar mentions cabins in Mount Kalaga and people livin' off the grid. Jason and Lucia have an apartment they decorate. The Ultimate Edition comes with a safehouse and vehicles. That's all we've got.

What Red Dead taught us. Beecher's Hope. Buildin' a house beam by beam with John, then bein' handed the chores. Folks who hated the epilogue loved that part.

My guess. Property buyin' has been in GTA since Vice City, so I'd expect it back. What I'm hopin' for, and this is a hope more than a guess, is one cabin up north you can own, with a dock and a truck and nothin' on the radio but gators. Give me that and I'll never see the city.

A few more I'd put a dollar on

• Weather that means it. Florida has hurricanes. Red Dead 2 had the best rain in gaming. Rockstar hasn't shown a storm. I'd bet on one.
• A campfire. Not a gang camp. Just a fire on a beach in the Keys you can sit at. Red Dead 2 let you stop. I want GTA 6 to let me stop.
• Bounties, the other way round. Arthur hunted bounties. In Leonida, with a Criminal Profile that don't reset, I think bounty hunters hunt you.
• Cards. Poker was in Red Dead 2 and dominoes before that. Florida's got a casino culture. A back-room game in Port Gellhorn would fit.
• Dead Eye's cousin. The Extended Look already showed a slow-motion kill cam that highlights weak points. That's Dead Eye with a new name.

What it ain't

Bein' fair. There's no horse confirmed, no camp, no Pearson, no journal, and a cowboy hat in Vice City gets you laughed at. GTA has never asked you to slow down the way Red Dead did, and it probably won't start now. If you want the whole Red Dead experience, RDR2 is still right there, and the first game finally runs on everything.

But a slice? A swamp with gators, a park with legendary animals, a conscience the world remembers, a prison that matters and fists that hurt. That's a slice of Red Dead 3, served in Florida, and I'll take it. November 19. I know where I'm drivin' first, and it still ain't the club.

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