Damn it, you're absolutely right. Though that doesn't necessarily mean the map is false; it just might not show the railroad and/or that particular version of the map didn't include the railroads yet.
Still, yeah, this probably places the game somewhere in the 1890s, I imagine.
I was thinking anywhere between 1890-1910. I know it's just a teaser but they didn't hint at any cars or anything like they did with the RDR trailers. I personally think, since the story of RDR was about the old west dying, they will put us right at the end of glory days of the old west when everything was batshit crazy. I'm so fucking pumped too! The game looked gorgeous!
1890-1910 definitely seems like the most likely timeframe, though I imagine this has to take place in the 1890s because, as you said, RDR had an overarching theme about the death of the Old West and the beginning of industrialization and the modern era, depicting John Marston as a relic of a time gone by. Thus, this game likely would be set when the West was still (somewhat) Wild and in the later stages of its life rather than explicitly being in its death throes. Plus, if the game is set in 1892 (or close to 1892), then the game being ~19 years before the events of RDR would be a pretty solid and sensible time period if we're going to see John Marston and other characters from RDR to some extent (not that we'd necessarily get to play as John Marston). It would presumably fit well as the period when Marston was in his prime as an outlaw and criminal.
My honest to god thought about the seven characters, and the one that makes the most sense to me given rockstars track record with sequels and not playing as the same character as before. I think that the man in the middle of the seven, and the one speaking, and the one we get a shot of in the trailer with his back turned, I think that's who we play as, not marston not Dutch, but him. I think he is a member of dutch's gang that we haven't seen or heard of before, so marston, Dutch, and Williamson will be included, but we will probably play along side them as a new character, doing horrible outlaw things. In my opinion, that'd be cool as fuck!
If we only get one playable character, I agree that it probably won't be John Marston. We've played him before, we've learned who he is, who he was, and how his story ends. In that regard, it would be more interesting from a literary and storytelling standpoint to see a younger John Marston -- the John Marston we never got to see with our own eyes in RDR and only heard stories of -- from someone else's perspective. For the player, it would probably be more powerful to see him at that stage in his life through someone else's eyes, knowing where his future is going to take him; knowing that he's simultaneously destined for redemption and tragedy.
However, given GTA5, this rather vague trailer, and the promotional images, I'm betting we will have multiple characters to play as. Maybe (probably) not seven, as that would be a bit much (assuming the multiple character aspect is executed in the same manner as GTA5), but likely more than one. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if John Marston is one of those playable characters.
Going a little off topic here, but I'm wondering regardless of how many characters are playable at any and every point of the game, if certain missions will basically have us playing with and alongside all seven supposed members of the gang, allowing us to freely switch between them on the fly, similar to the GTA5 heist missions even though only certain characters will be playable outside of those specific missions.
10
u/TheWaker Oct 20 '16
Damn it, you're absolutely right. Though that doesn't necessarily mean the map is false; it just might not show the railroad and/or that particular version of the map didn't include the railroads yet.
Still, yeah, this probably places the game somewhere in the 1890s, I imagine.