Red Dead Redemption 2 players, here is what to expect from GTA 6's back country, and what Rockstar has not shown yet

Same rule as always. If Rockstar showed it, I say so. If it's me guessin', I say that too.

I know a lot of y'all came to GTA 6 the long way round. You skipped half of GTA Online, but you put two hundred hours into Red Dead 2 fishin' Flat Iron Lake and gettin' drowned by gators in Bayou Nwa. You want to know one thing: is there anything out there for us, or is it all neon and nightclubs?

Good news. There's more back country in Leonida than any Grand Theft Auto has had before. Let me walk you through it.

Bayou Nwa, meet the Grassrivers

Confirmed. The Grassrivers is Leonida's Everglades: sawgrass marsh to the horizon, gators in the water, and airboats the only sensible way across. It's in both trailers and a stack of Rockstar's screenshots. Wading birds like roseate spoonbills, cranes and wood storks are there too.

What Red Dead taught us. Lemoyne's bayou was the best-lookin' place in that game and the one that killed you most. If Rockstar built the Grassrivers with the same hand, expect it to be beautiful, slow and mean. I covered everything out there that can kill you already.

My guess. In Red Dead you crossed the bayou on a horse and regretted it. In Leonida you've got an airboat. That changes everything. The swamp stops bein' somewhere you go round and becomes somewhere you go through, fast and loud.

Ambrosia: Rhodes with a refinery

Confirmed. Rockstar calls Ambrosia the heart of Leonida. It's an industrial town built round the Allied Crystal sugar refinery, set in flat cane country, and a local biker gang supplies "much of everything else."

What Red Dead taught us. Every small town in Red Dead had one business and one family that ran it. Rhodes had the Grays and the Braithwaites. Ambrosia's got a refinery and a motorcycle club.

My guess. That's where the trouble is. Small towns in Rockstar games are never as quiet as they look.

Mount Kalaga: the closest thing to Ambarino

Confirmed. At the north end of the state the land goes up into forest and a national park. Rockstar lists hunting, fishing and off-road trails as things people go there to do. It mentions cabins and people livin' off the grid. Game Informer, writing with Rockstar's help, reported more than 170 animal species in Leonida, some of them rare, "discoverable" and "legendary," with tracking for some. That's Red Dead language. I went through every animal shown so far.

What Rockstar has not shown. A rifle raised at a deer. A rod bein' cast. A pelt bein' sold. Not one second of it. So I'm not gonna tell you hunting plays like Red Dead, because nobody knows yet.

My guess. You don't build a fur system for animal pelts and a "legendary" tier and then not let people go after 'em. I think hunting is in, and I think it's simpler than Red Dead's. Arthur carried perfect pelts on his horse. I'd guess Jason throws 'em in the back of whatever he's drivin'.

The Keys: Guarma, but somebody lives there

Confirmed. A chain of islands connected by bridges, off the bottom of the state. It's smuggling country, and it's where Jason lives. Rockstar's screenshots show iguanas on the rocks, pelicans, dolphins, and a sea turtle swimmin' past scuba divers.

My guess. Guarma was the shortest chapter in Red Dead, and the one everybody wanted more of. The Keys look like Rockstar took that idea and built a whole region out of it.

What you'll miss from Red Dead

Bein' honest. Leonida's a modern place. No horse, no camp, no Pearson cookin' stew. The back country comes with gas stations and phones. And GTA has never asked you to slow down the way Red Dead did. Whether GTA 6 lets you spend an evenin' sittin' on a dock with a line in the water is the biggest question I've got. Rockstar hasn't answered it.

But the ground's all there: a swamp, a mill town, a national park and the islands. That's more country than this series has ever given us. Come November 19, I know where I'm drivin' first, and it ain't the club.