Whenever Rockstar Games appears somewhere, the people asking where the follow-up to the awesome last-gen open-world cowboy game Red Dead Redemption will be seeing the light of day. And while that question has always been met with silence, people still have hope and the rumor mill has never stopped churning. And now we may have the first tangible indication that Red Dead Redemption 2 is actually coming. Before we get into it, please remember that this is a rumor and should be taken with a massive grain of salt. Got it? Yeah? Then let's see what we have.
A neoGAF user by the name of Mideon posted an image recently of what looks to be the map for the mysterious game, saying that one of his sources sent it to him. Mideon asked if people would be able to compare the supposedly leaked images to the ones from the original game to see if the map wasn't just a copy of the map from the original game. It didn't take very long for the original image to be taken down, but various other websites managed to grab the images before they disappeared from the original post.
Techradar also picked up on the story, and according to them their sources have confirmed that the map is, indeed, genuine. Their sources say that this incarnation of the map design is a "very recent" map made for the unannounced title. These same sources also say that the game will be set before the John Marston's adventure in Red Dead Redemption, which may or may not have something to do with Marston's voice actor no longer being active in the games industry.
As you can see in the image above there are some key differences between the original game's map (left) and the map from the leak. There being no railroad lends some credibility to the assumption that this game takes place before the original one. While railroads might not be in there, the inclusion of rivers on the new map may point to an alternative mode of transport to replace trains.
The article also notes that the inclusion of the settlement New Bordeaux is interesting, since the publisher of the original Red Dead Redemption (Take-Two) is also releasing Mafia 3, which is set in the fictional city of New Bordeaux. Rockstar Games have always had a thing for having all their games be set in the same universe, with all of their games frequently referencing places from their other franchises.
And the kicker? During an analyst conference last year hosted by Take-Two, CEO Straus Zelnick was quoted saying that "Red Dead Redemption is a permanent franchise".
So, what do you think? Does this look like a legit leak to you? Sound off in the comments!