2 hours should be something in the range of 10-12 km walking, which with reasonable infrastructure should be more than manageable on either transit or by bike.
Reasonable infrastructure being the key words here
This was a hilariously toxic game by the way, coming from someone who played and enjoyed it as a teen. Seriously, even the developers were completely insane
This is the real explanation. Couple that with a push in the late 90s/early 2000s to roll out high-speed unmetered internet in the form of ADSL and later fiber.