Why is GTA 5’s Los Santos on an island?

Newer GTA 5 players wonder why Los Santos is on an island.

Los Santos is based on Los Angeles, while San Andreas shares some similarities with California. In real life, California is not an island. It has a large body of water on the western side, and several states on the other. In GTA 5, however, San Andreas has no neighboring states.

Hence, some players wonder why Los Santos is on an island. The answer lies in game design. GTA 3 had land up north that the player couldn't naturally access, but every GTA game since then has had islands surrounded by water.

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Why is GTA 5's Los Santos on an Island?

GTA 5's map is similar to previous maps in the series in that it is completely surrounded by water; GTA San Andreas's map for comparison (Image via Rockstar Games)

GTA 5 is a fictional video game. Although it shares many similarities with real-life locations, it's not bound to follow every detail down to a tee. It's much easier for game designers to limit a player from seeing other parts of the world with endless water than adding more land.

It's not realistic, but it also stops players from running into invisible walls. GTA 5 is merely following the precedent set by GTA Vice City, which has become a staple in the series since then.

Vice City is canonly in Florida, yet most of Florida is visibly absent. Hence, it shouldn't be surprising that GTA 5's Los Santos follows a similar example. Both games can reference real-life locations, but it doesn't necessarily make them identical to each other.

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Easier to program

GTA 5 has endless water on the outskirts of the map (Image via Rockstar Games)

Some gamers love to abuse exploits to explore more parts of a video game. If GTA 5 had invisible walls and land that the player couldn't normally explore, then it would inspire some to find a way to transcend those boundaries. That would mean they can discover some things that Rockstar Games wouldn't have intended.

Not to mention, Rockstar Games would have to create and insert an inexplorable landmass. GTA 5 has a large map, so it would likely have to be a large territory that engulfs some part of it.

By comparison, it's significantly easier to add infinite loops of a body of water. Players won't have to worry about crashing into invisible walls. Likewise, it would look better and take up less game development time to implement.

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Fan theories on why Los Santos is on an island

Fan theories offer an alternative look on why GTA 5's Los Santos is on an island (Image via Rockstar Games)

Naturally, some GTA fans have made fan theories on why most GTA locations are islands. One popular idea is that the process is done to satirize how people don't care what's happening beyond their world.

Ultimately, it would mean that GTA 5's inhabitants are isolated from the rest of the world. It's an interesting theory, but only conjecture at the end of the day.

Other minor fan theories entail that flooding and supernatural events blocked off GTA 5's Los Santos from the rest of the world. Like the previous theory, there is little evidence suggesting why GTA 5's Los Santos is isolated on an island.

Rockstar Games doesn't usually comment on fan theories, either, so players can only speculate on what the in-game lore would be for this type of game design.