I know all these years later we know that the map isn't THAT huge as it appears as the fog or whatever was used to make everything appear larger but still. 3 whole cities, and a plethora of side activities and rpg attributes. They really outdid themselves (as they always do i know) but SA set the benchmark in a lot of ways that certain games and devs still haven't caught up to imo. They like tripled down on everything. Of course all games have their flaws and SA is no different, but just the leap from just an empty city with brainless NPCs to three cities with hundreds of NPCs you can actually interact with, as well as dozens of interiors, plus countryside/desert areas. Such a remarkable achievement in game design. All of this is obvious I know but was watching a retrospective. I guess it's so impressive because it was made on the same hardware, just two years after we got Vice City. And of course is cool, but don't know how anyone can say its better than SA lol. I hope GTA vi is the new SA spiritually if that makes sense. 5 wasn't for me.

All in the same gen of consoles too

3 was an engine test, VC was a proper game on the engine, SA pushed the console gen to its limits

San Andreas to this day is still my favorite open world sandbox map. I still can get lost in the country side

The jump from GTA San Andreas to Gears of War just 2 years later is crazier to me. GTA not really the highest standard for graphics but we went from blocky faces being acceptable to HD detailed faces with wrinkles and scars and s***

Don’t tell him about gta 2 to gta 3

we're in the space of diminishing returns but I'm very interested to see the RDR2-GTA6 leap

gta V to RDR2 was wild for me

the NPCs having actual realistic body types and a wide range of them is genuinely incredible to me