It feels almost surreal to be typing these words, but the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer has finally released after a literal decade of waiting for even the tiniest scrap of news on what might just be the most anticipated game ever. The trailer leaves fans with more questions than it answers, however, and chief among them is the matter of where exactly the game is set.
The trailer, which dropped on Dec. 4, shows off more than a few jaw-dropping vistas and details scattered throughout the roughly minute-and-a-half-long video to help keen-eyed viewers snag a few key details of the game’s setting. It looks like GTA 6 is going to bring longtime players back to a place they may already know intimately.
GTA 6’s Florida-like Vice City map, explained
The recent trailer, released in response to a leak, officially confirmed rumors and more leaks indicating Grand Theft Auto 6 would be set in Vice City. This in itself isn’t all that surprising, as GTA has only ever taken place in one of three locations (not including the weird London spinoffs; we don’t talk about those). After GTA 4 tackled GTA 3‘s Liberty City and GTA 5 massively expanded GTA: San Andreas‘ Los Santos, it was only right Vice City should once again get its day in the hazy, neon-tinted sun.
The city, based on Miami, Florida, hasn’t been seen since 2002’s aptly-named Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and its mobile followup Vice City Stories. In those games, Vice City was constrained by the hardware of the time; kept restricted to a single strip of beach and hotels and a scattering of city streets. Just as GTA 5 revolutionized Los Santos, however, it’s obvious from the very first frame of the trailer that this isn’t the Vice City you grew up with.
With only ninety seconds of footage, there’s not much to analyze here. All the same, there’s an impressively diverse and stunning range of environments on display. The beach is packed with locals and tourists mutually annoying each other, nature is constantly chafing against the city limits—one memorable moment from the trailer shows an alligator wandering into a convenience store—and both the city itself and the surrounding swamp have been fleshed out with the level of detail that Rockstar Games is famous for. Florida-inspired wilderness seems like a perfect justification for reusing some of Red Dead Redemption 2‘s robust wildlife systems, and the possibility of wandering into a gator attack or disturbing a flock of flamingos will doubtlessly add some depth to a world where your greatest threat is no longer the police.
Also impressive are the pedestrians—despite the crowds shown off in the trailer, I couldn’t spot the same model twice, and all of them carry that manic, sweaty Florida Man energy that fits perfectly within GTA‘s exaggerated version of the United States. In other words, everyone looks hot, sticky and miserable, and I want to be there now.
It’s also worth noting GTA 6 will be the first time Vice City has been depicted in the modern day, as the two previous games that featured it took place in the 80s, and it shows. The Hawaiian shirts and white linen suits have been swapped out for smartphones and hoop earrings, with what looks to be the return of GTA 5’s in-depth social media system taking up a good chunk of the trailer to show off the many perspectives Vice City’s inhabitants have on their home.
Interestingly, and in contrast to previous games where it was explicitly identified as such, Vice City is no longer located in the real-world state of Florida. In keeping with the GTA tradition of inventing fake American states for its cities to reside in, it has been retconned to the fictional state of Leonida, as indicated by in-universe iconography and a Leonida Department of Corrections jumpsuit one of the two protagonists wears.
With two decades since its last appearance, it’s bound to have a few tweaked details like that—but for the most part, it looks to be the Vice City players know and love, just bigger, which is all anyone could ever ask for. There’s doubtlessly far more to GTA 6‘s map than could possibly be shown off in a simple teaser trailer, however, so we’ll simply have to wait for more trailers—or that nebulous 2025 release window—to delve into more of Vice City’s secrets.
