 Research for the game took the team to California 's rural regions ; Garbut recalled a visit he took with Houser to Bombay Beach , which inspired them to set Trevor 's initial story against a recreation of the Salton Sea , known as " Sandy Shores " in the game . The team made an open recreation of Southern California which includes vast tracts of countryside around the city proper . They wanted to a create a large world without open , empty spaces . The team focused on condensing the countryside of Southern California into a diverse and detailed playing space . The game world covers 49 square miles ( 130 km2 ) — about an eightieth of Los Angeles County . It is greater in scale than Rockstar 's previous open world games ; Garbut said it is large enough to fit the game maps of San Andreas , Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption ( 2010 ) combined inside . To accommodate the size of the world , the team overhauled the RAGE , allowing the game to render greater draw distances than in previous Grand Theft Auto games . The large , open space necessitated the re @-@ introduction of fixed @-@ wing aircraft , which had been absent in Grand Theft Auto IV because of the relatively small scale of the world . Houser explained , " We wanted somewhere big [ to allow the player to ] fly properly " . The large space demanded populating the open world with wildlife ; lead producer Leslie Benzies felt that " because of the scale of the map and the different kinds of areas involved , a countryside without animals would feel quite hollow " . 
