Players are advised to spend their first day in GTA 6 without exploring the whole map – the Saint Denis lesson from Red Dead Redemption 2

The release of GTA 6 is still ahead, but YouTube is already packed with videos along the lines of "10 things to do on day one." Nearly all of them give the same advice: comb the entire Leonida map right away in search of secrets and the best gear.

Some players have pushed back against that approach, and their main argument comes down to one name – Saint Denis from Red Dead Redemption 2.

At the start of chapter 4 in RDR2, Arthur and Dutch ride into the city looking for the kidnapped Jack and gaze at the smoking factory chimneys from a bridge. The scene only works if the player is seeing the industrial metropolis for the first time, since for the gang it is a forced collision with civilization.

Technically, though, players can ride to Saint Denis as early as chapter 2, and many did. One person admitted they already had a $1,500 bounty in the city by the time the story took them there, and another recalled one more absurdity:

Arthur was acting like he'd never been to Rhodes despite spending hours playing Blackjack there.

Judging by the Rockstar marketing, the GTA 6 story is also split into chapters, with the plot gradually moving Jason and Lucia from one part of Leonida to another. Hence the suggestion to live in whatever area the story has brought you to first: fish with Cal, play pool, shop for clothes, and head to Port Gellhorn only when the story calls you there.

One player has already decided that the first thing they will do is stop at a gas station for a slush and watch NPCs fill up their cars, pay, and drive off. It sounds funny, but in a game promising an extremely lively world, it is a perfectly legitimate way to spend an evening.

There is a worry in the opposite direction too. In Cyberpunk 2077, side quests are technically available at any moment, yet it feels odd when V puts off meeting Panam to take yet another gig.

Many hope that side activities in GTA 6 will feel like a natural part of the characters' lives. People also brought up the RDR2 trap, where the ideal spot for free play turned out to be chapter 2, and everything fell apart after that.

The other side has solid arguments as well. GTA 6 has cars and helicopters, and a big city is unlikely to feel as revelatory to a modern protagonist as it did to a cowboy at the start of the 20th century. GTA 5 even handed out a blimp as a pre-order bonus, and plenty of players flew it over all of Los Santos before the first serious missions.

The promised new police system, which many compare to the Los Santos Red mod for GTA 5, practically begs to be tested within the first hours.