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In July 2012, Rockstar released this screenshot:To most of us, this image conveys a single, very precise piece of information. It says that Grand Theft Auto 5 has helicopters. At the time, this wasn't even a particularly exciting tidbit. Grand Theft Auto 4 had helicopters, after all. We wanted to know about blimps, about harrier jets, about the fun stuff. But to a very particular group of GTA fans, this image was the breakthrough they'd been waiting for; the missing piece of a hugely ambitious puzzle.
"Almost all of the western part of the city came from that screen" says Thomas Rondeau, a geography graduate better known by his username on gtaforums.com, Fido_le_muet. Rondeau is a dedicated member of a band of Grand Theft Auto zealots who had set themselves a massive cartographical challenge. They were going to map the entirety of Los Santos, from airport to harbour, from golden sands to highest peaks, before the game was released.
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