GTA 5 has a pretty big map. It ain't the biggest, but it sure is big, and filled to the brim with content. We could go off on a tangent and speak about how wonderfully crafted this open world is and how vibrant/technically impressive/realistic/etc it is. We could speak about all the various art projects and experiments being conducted within GTA's world — but we did all that already, so we won't.
What we want to speak about today is the part of the map that is most often ignored. Sure, there are a few collectibles tossed down there in single-player, and a few wrecks were littered in it just so it isn't completely and utterly bland when one in a bloody million players goes there just once, but overall, it's like it doesn't exist.
We are, of course, speaking of the ocean. You know, that big blue thing surrounding the map which you only ever see when Piracy Prevention is on. Yeah, that ocean. Beyond giving a place for yachts to park, there is pretty much no reason for it to exist from a gameplay standpoint, and the yachts were only introduced in Executives and Other Criminals.
Now, we've discussed before how the constant stream of new content via updates is bloating GTA Online to the point where the otherwise large map is starting to be just too small. Sure, the obvious answer to this issue is the addition of new cities, something that is not only highly anticipated, but is (or was, at least) part of Rockstar's official plan, and has recently been rumored to be coming soon.
But where's the logic in tacking another city, which will have its own island and therefore its own under-appreciated body of water, on the game when there are square kilometers of unused sea at your disposal? Making a whole new city, or just updating one of the old ones, would cost a lot of resources. Sure, it would make a pretty big splash too, but done right, so can sea-based DLC.
