Even as a lifelong resident of South Florida, I often struggle to describe my home state's culture to the uninitiated, especially those who only know us through the internet's lens as the craziest state in the U.S. To many who don't live here, Florida is where you're likely to be devoured by an alligator the moment you cross our border (they adore the taste of tourists). It's the place you'll be accosted by colorful and potentially inebriated residents who rep their Disney World annual passholder status as smugly as their guns of choice. You may even have to wrestle a 20-foot Burmese python during a hurricane to earn the right to taste our famed Key lime pie. In their defense, these stereotypes are not entirely inaccurate. Key lime pie is indeed very good.
Florida is a state of contradictions. Despite being the southernmost state in the continental US, our culture feels less stereotypically "southern" the further south you travel. We value nature, partly due to our deep Native American history and natural sights such as the ecological wonderland of the Everglades; at the same time, we frequently destroy that beauty to make way for yet another elaborate golf course, gated community, or obscenely expensive vacation resort. Sleepy "snowbird" retirees flock here by the thousands each year to thaw their frigid bodies from the winters of their northern homes and spend their golden years relaxing in our perpetual summer. It gives my home state the impression of being a boring, glorified retirement home. Meanwhile, countless celebrities from A to Z call us home, bolstering our image as a vibrant epicenter of youth, style, and cool.
It reassures me when Rockstar Games' head of development/co-studio head Aaron Garbut aptly describes Florida as "America dialed up to 11" when I ask what makes it such an attractive playground for a Grand Theft Auto game in a discussion with members of the Rockstar Games team. I can't think of a better, more succinct description of the often-strange-but-rarely-boring state I call home. America's best and worst traits are condensed in this tropical peninsula, so it's little surprise that Rockstar is returning to its beloved interpretation of Miami, Vice City, one more time in Grand Theft Auto VI. But for a publisher and developer unwilling to do anything less than 200 percent, reimagining a single city once again isn't enough. This time, Rockstar is giving players the chance to embrace the "Florida Man" fantasy, letting them roam the many culturally and environmentally diverse regions that make up the Sunshine State.
Setting the Table
"With Grand Theft Auto VI, we had just come from Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, so we understood high expectations, but the level for this game is frankly unprecedented and we don't take that lightly," Garbut says. The soul of a Grand Theft Auto game begins with its setting, and the studio could have placed its much-anticipated sixth mainline entry anywhere. So why return to Vice City and, by extension, Leonida, the GTA universe's version of Florida? "We needed a way to exceed those expectations, to deliver something that resonated both with ourselves and the players – and this location was the natural choice."
Garbut describes Miami and Florida as a whole as "a place of beauty and contrast," combining the highs of excess and glamour with the lows of hardship and grittiness befitting its latest crime drama. The Vice City location also holds a special place in Rockstar's hearts. "Grand Theft Auto III's Liberty City was where we figured out a lot of what GTA was or could be, and how to build these worlds moving forward – Vice City was where we had fun with it," he says.
Although Vice City has already appeared in three previous games – the very first 1997 GTA, Vice City (2002), and Vice City Stories (2006) – Rockstar spent the last several years taking multiple trips to Miami and South Florida for reference material and first-hand experience, explains senior vice president of narrative Rupert Humphries. "We go and try to experience everything… from riding around areas at night with ex-cops, to going to strip clubs and nightclubs, spending time on the beach, in the Everglades, down in the Keys, and beyond."
Love at First Heist
GTAVI's story centers on Jason and Lucia's partnership. You can't break them up, but you can influence whether they remain friends or bloom into a romantic couple. If you want to feel the love, you're going to have to put in the work. Outside of performing missions together, smaller interactions such as holding hands, opening doors for each other, calling them and answering calls/texts promptly and regularly, and accepting invitations to embark on activities together increase Jason and Lucia's romantic bond.
Rockstar has emphasized that players are not required to engage with these systems. There are no gameplay benefits to being friends versus being a couple, so it's largely a role-playing option for those interested. However, Rockstar has stated that certain elements of the story will be affected by Jason and Lucia's bond.
It wasn't enough to only capture reference photos for level and environmental designers, though. Rockstar needed to understand what makes Florida so appealing to so many people despite its sometimes misunderstood reputation. To that end, Rockstar seemingly left no stone unturned in its boots-on-the-ground research. Designers spoke with residents to learn personal insights about the culture, crime, and law enforcement. Writers immersed themselves in Florida's local dialects, both in Miami and in rural areas, to create its most diverse and expressive NPCs to date. Artists visited particular areas and interior spaces for aesthetic research and stylistic inspiration.
"We are asking people to spend so much time in the world we are building so we really need to understand what is great about it and then bake that into every aspect of the game," Humphries says.
The effort results in a Leonida and Vice City that, based on the footage shown so far, appear staggeringly accurate to their real-world Florida and Miami counterparts. Watching footage of Jason and Lucia navigate the often-heavy traffic of Vice City's narrow streets and twisting suspended freeways evokes the frequent annoyance and mild anxiety I often feel driving through Miami. The distinct seashell-white high-rises, glitzy downtown area, and culturally diverse neighborhoods appear present and well-replicated. For the first time, Vice City feels genuinely familiar. I didn't grow up in the pink neon-soaked early '80s era of Miami that GTA: Vice City paid homage to, but I took many trips to the city during my high school and college years in the 2000s/2010s. Impressively, Rockstar isn't content with only doing its flagship Floridian city justice.
The Many Sights of Leonida
Players will experience this contemporary take on Vice City through the eyes of dual protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos. Jason is an army vet working in the Leonida Keys (the game's take on Florida's Keys) for local drug runners; Lucia, who originally hails from Liberty City, is a recently released convict trained to fight by her father. Like GTAV, players can switch between these characters at almost any time, but since the pair work as a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque robbery team, the other is often right by your side during missions. More than this, Jason and Lucia are a couple; the extent of this relationship, whether it remains platonic or becomes romantic, will be up to the player via story and optional choices (read the sidebar to learn more), but they will always have each other's backs either way. When "an easy score goes wrong," as Rockstar puts it, the pair must unravel a larger criminal conspiracy across Vice City and Leonida.
Although Vice City is GTAVI's centerpiece location and has been completely rebuilt, expanded, and set in the modern day instead of the 1980s, Humphries states this adventure is really about the entire state of Leonida. "Part of the job of the game's story is to bring the player around the map in a way that feels authentic and interesting," Humphries explains. "We don't have time to take you everywhere, but we want you to be able to explore and get a feel for most of the places, cultures, and vibes…This game and its stories really thrive in an environment where you have rich people and poor people right next door to each other. And crime and corruption is the thread that pulls everyone together."
Leonida is the biggest map Rockstar has ever created "by some degree", Garbut says. He describes it as twice as large as GTAV, and it's more dense, detailed, and interactive. "This new world is different," Garbut says. "We obsessed about every part – the rooftops, the alleys, the internals and everything in between to the point we hit a critical mass with the numbers of our interiors, and you start to feel the buildings are more real inside and out. This world is a cohesive whole with the density of content and a hand-crafted quality to every bit."
The state's six primary regions are Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park. Vice City boasts the glamour and hustle of Miami, including deco architecture, often congested roadways (making police car chases a bigger challenge for players), scenic beaches, and a bustling cruise ship port. Grassrivers is the game's equivalent of the Everglades: an expansive, biodiverse wetland filled with reptilian predators and questionably friendly, probably armed outdoorsmen. If Grassrivers is anything like its inspiration, it hopefully shares an underlying sense of danger due to the Everglades' well-documented past as a drug-running hotbed.
The seedy Port Gellhorn represents Florida's many smaller and, in some cases, struggling tourist trap areas, as the region is littered with abandoned attractions, cheap motels, and derelict strip malls.
Rockstar describes Ambrosia as the heart of Leonida – a symbol of American industry defined by various factories and refineries as well as a local biker gang calling the shots.
Lastly, Mount Kalaga is a national park situated on Leonida's northern border. In addition to teeming with wildlife and natural wonders, Mount Kalaga represents the culture of the Florida-Georgia line – or, to use GTAVI's in-universe titles, the Leonida-Gloriana line.
In fact, this northern region of Florida is often overlooked in the wider pop-culture zeitgeist. I asked Rockstar how it specifically approached capturing this area's distinct culture, as it is arguably the most traditionally country-feeling part of Florida. Rockstar's senior vice president of environment art, Paul MacPherson, tells me the team examined cities such as Panama City, Jacksonville, Ocala, and smaller rural towns in between for inspiration. He cites the area's lumber industry and deforesting zones as "visually striking spaces and fun gameplay opportunities." The team also found the region's gated communities centered around private jet ownership (complete with personal landing strips) and economically struggling west coast towns fit the game's narrative for that particular part of Leonida.
Carjacking Evolved
Rockstar has previously shared that committing the series' namesake crime is more involved in GTAVI. Depending on the vehicle type, you may be able to steal it the old‑fashioned way or require specialized tools. Expensive cars may have sophisticated security systems and even trackers, and scanning them using a new phone app called WAiNK reveals these features. Additionally, WAiNK displays the cost of registering it as your personal vehicle and the estimated value should you decide to sell it to a fence.
"In between all the northern towns of the map we've made vast countryside expanses for ATV trails, a drunken mud park party for every kind of two and four-wheel offering you can imagine, destruction derby chaos races on floodlight-bleached oval tracks at night, mountain bike trails cutting through dense tree lined paths, livestock and agriculture farms, high-end ranches, a luxury private golf course, walk along a blackrock and boneyard inspired set of beaches, jump on a MX bike to rip around some coastal sand dunes, or go bass fishing in a Spanish moss draped live oak and cypress forested lake," MacPherson explains.
One significant area of Florida we haven't seen in GTAVI yet is its central region, home to Orlando and its many theme parks (such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld) and the eastern "Space Coast," the site of Cape Canaveral's Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center. When asked if and how these specific areas will be represented, MacPherson says, "We have to constantly evaluate the diversity of landscapes, towns, structures, landmarks, vistas, plant species, rock formations and everything else before we work with design and narrative to distill a list down that best works with and serves the game's needs. So, while we may not have those exact locations, everything we have is geared to getting that full Florida experience!"
An improved map that resembles satellite imagery will help players navigate the massive world. Fast travel options such as a new ride-share app called RydeMe will let you reach destinations quickly (and you can even chat with passengers if you're sharing a ride). Of course, if you choose to take your own road trips, the radio stations boast new licensed songs and plenty of amusing ads. And if you really want art to imitate life, you can live as many do and ignore all of Leonida's beauty by doomscrolling on your in-game phone. Jason and Lucia won't post their own content since they're wanted criminals, but they can lurk across social media sites, such as the returning Instagram parody, Snapmatic.
Eye of the Storm
Florida earns its nickname the Sunshine State because of its near-constant sunny (read: very hot and often humid) weather. But any resident will tell you Florida is drenched by thunderstorms just as frequently, including more severe tropical storms and the occasional seasonal hurricane. To my intrigue and excitement, Owen Shepherd, vice president of art for lighting and rendering at Rockstar, shares that the team aims to replicate Florida's more violent weather phenomena while expanding GTA's weather system overall.
"We have re-engineered our weather system to make everything much more localized and persistent, and really wanted the world to feel dynamically solid and achieve a sense of scale we haven't felt before," Shepherd says. "The world features new fully dynamic cloudscapes that roll across the map, these give us a broad spectrum of weather from the clear blue skies of a Miami winter to the vertiginous cumulonimbus clouds with sporadic lightning that you see most afternoons in the Floridian summer and autumn."
To this end, Leonida will experience localized rain showers; this means you can occupy a gorgeously sunny zone on the map while watching a storm batter another nearby area. Speaking from a lifetime of experience, it's extremely common in Florida to sweat under a hot sun while witnessing a curtain of rain drench people barely a block away, so I'm curious to see how Rockstar replicates this distinct weather quirk. Shepherd also shares that GTAVI's rain creates realistic rainbows under the right lighting conditions, and that recently showered areas will remain wet on the ground and create persistent puddles once the storm passes. That means you could enter an area and realize it had just rained by simply looking around you.
An updated wind system includes "offshore breezes after sunset, convectional updrafts, and occlusion from buildings," according to Shepherd. "Hair and debris will swirl around on roof-tops; gusts of wind will blow ripples over the water surface and bend the grass in swamps."
And yes, Leonida will indeed experience tropical storms and hurricanes. Although Shepherd doesn't share how often these major storms occur and how gameplay or the story will be impacted, he paints a picture of how they will be depicted, saying that "heavy clouds, strong winds, dense atmospherics, and a lot of rain combine so that everything is dripping wet, water is gushing off roof edges and lampposts, thunder rumbles and flashes of lightning light up the clouds dramatically."
Born to be Wild
Florida is sometimes jokingly called the Australia of the U.S. due to its diverse, exotic, and, in several cases, invasive wildlife. Visit Broward County, home of Fort Lauderdale, and the Miami-Dade area, and you'll spot green iguanas – as in the big lizards often kept as pets – lounging as commonly as squirrels and pigeons, thanks to irresponsible pet owners decades prior. The very rare Florida panther, the state's native cougar species, coexists alongside black bears (yes, Florida has bears), deer, wild boar, and turkeys. Florida is a reptile/amphibian-lover's dream thanks to our famous and abundant alligators, as well as a staggering number of lizards, snakes, turtles, and frogs. Our marine life, both fresh and saltwater, is probably even more diverse and includes Florida mascots such as the manatee.
Rockstar isn't skimping on this important element of Florida's ecosystem. GTAVI features over 170 animal species across the map, which include Leonida-native species that have never appeared in a Rockstar game. This includes over 60 bird types, more than 30 land mammals, plus various fish, reptiles, and more. Rockstar vice president of dynamic art, Michael Kane, specifically confirms the inclusion of manatees, flamingos, pelicans, and, as previously shown, alligators.
"Florida has a diverse animal ecosystem that we wanted to faithfully include across the different biomes in Leonida – urban and rural environs, aquatic life both inland and ocean, and the wetland habitats like the swamps and Everglades," Kane explains. "The animal art and population teams are incredibly passionate about delivering animals that are accurately researched and look visually correct in every respect, alongside the supporting movement and animation to bring them to life."
In addition to native Florida species, GTAVI will feature many invasive animals that have since become a problematic part of the state's ecological patchwork. On top of the aforementioned green iguana, GTAVI includes the feral cat, cane toad, nine-banded armadillo, and the rhesus macaque monkey (yes, Florida has several non-native monkey species. It's weird here).
We've seen in previous trailers that scuba diving is one of the many recreational activities available to players (read the sidebar to learn about other diversions), so this naturally means plenty of marine life will be present. Kane confirms players will encounter different shark species, whales, rays, turtles, and jellyfish, which all have distinct movement behaviors. Leveraging Rockstar's work on the Red Dead Redemption series, animals will even display iridescence, bioluminescence, translucency, and feather types, plus new hair and fur systems for coats and pelts. Furthermore, fur is fully simulated and set up for "human-to-animal interaction with dirt matting and clumping in environmental contexts, including getting wet, as well as color and coat variations," Kane explains.
Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, GTAVI will similarly feature many animals for players to track, categorized as Rare, Discoverable, and Legendary. Rockstar is keeping the identities of these specific animals under wraps, as it wants them to surprise players as they explore. Here's hoping the Skunk Ape, Florida's resident Bigfoot-esque cryptid, makes the cut.
Leonida's Activities
GTAVI features plenty of activities for Jason and Lucia to get into when they're not committing robberies. In some cases, it lets them blow off steam; in others, it may build and improve their relationship.
Here are some of the confirmed activities the game offers:
Base jumping
Billiards
Gyms
Kayaking
Mini golf
Scuba diving
Street and off-road racing
Zoos
Air boating
Jet skiing
People Pleasers
The sights, wildlife, and weather are not the only elements that bring Leonida to life. The most important element is its often bizarre residents. As previously mentioned, GTAVI features the most diverse and well-realized NPCs in series history, both in their physical appearances and ambient dialogue. Rockstar has a team in LA dedicated solely to writing NPC chatter.
Kane emphasizes how seriously Rockstar takes reference gathering for its world-building, stating that GTAVI was a "huge artist-driven effort, working to make that authentic and representative in service to both the story requirements and so that the entire Leonida map feels visually diverse and believable."
Kane adds that, "As the map developed and the story/world developed, we constantly checked ourselves to make sure we were in sync." Thanks to advancements in art technology and workflow, Rockstar crafted Leonida's citizens with an unprecedented level of detail and nuance. NPCs now vary in height and have different body types with specific differences in areas such as musculature, local weight gain in chests/busts, stomachs, and, yes, butts. Different skin types are also represented, with details such as freckles, moles, and tanning now evident. Kane adds that Rockstar also "paid a crazy amount of attention" to making culturally correct tattoo styles that fit Leonida's diverse communities and regions. Hair and body grooming will also have better visual representation featuring far more ethnic styles.
NPC fashion also varies greatly between areas, reflecting the local culture and style of the region. "We've been able to really go hard on that with creating the biggest range of garments and accessories we've ever made – supported with rich, realistic materials," Kane says. "That surfacing includes color, patterns and branding that are both area-appropriate, but also tied to context (states of dirt/weathering and fitment) for the characters themselves and their social situation and how they inhabit Leonida. Shoes, sneakers, and colorways that we know carry cultural weight as items – likewise watches, sunglasses, or hats."
A Brief Guide to Robberies
As robbers, Jason and Lucia spend much of GTAVI executing heists and evading the law. That's because raising money matters more than ever, as certain missions only become available based on your current income. You can rob places alone or as a duo (the latter grows their relationship), and robberies can be executed loud and fast, or quiet and thorough. The degree you choose to escalate a situation determines if and how the police respond.
In addition to the returning six-star Wanted Levels, a new Heat system means cops will gather information from reported incidents based on players' appearance and whereabouts at crime scenes. Changing your hairstyle and clothing (purchased from one of many distinct retail stores and salons), as well as ditching the vehicle you escaped in, will help Jason and Lucia escape a potentially comprehensive and lethal police response. Splitting up can also divide police attention if they know they're chasing a pair, though getting arrested results in a "Busted" screen even if the other protagonist escapes.
Leonida's three As: Alligators, Airboats, and Armed outdoorsmen
Expectations vs. Realities
It's neither hyperbole nor premature to declare that Grand Theft Auto VI will probably be the biggest video game ever released in terms of sales and pop culture domination. Some fans have shaped their entire identities, personalities, and even livelihoods around this game's release. Numerous businesses will probably see an uptick in employees calling out of work sick due to a rapidly spreading case of I-Need-To-Play-GTA-VI-itis. We'll soon be living in a world where the collective gaming consciousness isn't waiting for this one game. It's an unbelievable degree of anticipation for any piece of media.
Rockstar is coping with the sky-high expectations the only way it knows how: by attempting to build a game that hopefully meets and, perhaps in some instances, exceeds players' wildest imaginations. "As the pressure for us on this project is huge, we dealt with that by doing our best to overdeliver," Garbut says. "Normally you compromise scale for detail or detail for interaction, but with this project we went the other way – everything is dialed up – detail, scope, breadth, scale, interaction and density. I don't think we have ever created anything close to this before."
As incredible as that sounds, what excites me most about GTAVI is that it's Rockstar's next game after Red Dead Redemption 2. The saga of Arthur Morgan is, in my opinion, Rockstar's strongest writing and storytelling effort. While I don't doubt GTAVI is chock-full of the series' signature lampooning of American and Floridian culture (good luck outdoing the internet on the latter, though), I want Jason and Lucia's tale to pack a similarly emotional wallop to Rockstar's 2018 Western. The studio has been largely tight-lipped about GTAVI's narrative; it has shared out-of-context clips of campaign missions and said the game features player decisions big and small that significantly impact the story's direction to the point of encouraging multiple playthroughs. We also know it has been designed to reward players for spending time immersed in Leonida, much like Red Dead's emergent interactions that blur the line between main missions and side quests like never before. Among the laundry list of gameplay and technical bells and whistles, I hope more than anything that GTAVI simply delivers a great story.
Grand Theft Auto's primary appeal is its ability to make players believe that anything is possible – more specifically, that we're capable of any wild feat our imaginations concoct. The series has earned that expectation by routinely raising the bar on the open-world sandbox genre with every new release. But as much as the long wait has frustrated some fans, it's worth appreciating we'll never again get to experience this pre-launch period when GTAVI feels like a game with infinite possibilities, especially in these remaining weeks before November 19. Once the game is in our hands and we've combed every inch of Leonida ourselves, we'll see how close it comes to touching a bar firmly situated somewhere between the Moon and planet Jupiter.
In this way, GTAVI feels most like the state that it mimics. Florida's strange reputation means it's mired in wild assumptions and expectations from those looking in from the outside. A few of these perceptions are spot-on, others are semi-overblown, and many are completely fabricated (but in some respects, we residents embrace them anyway). I don't know if or how often an alligator will wander into an Ammu-Nation as I purchase a new weapon, or if I'll flee the cops during a hurricane while a half-naked citizen inexplicably waves an American flag in the rain-battered streets (that's real, look it up). But it sure feels like these things could happen, which is what makes a new Rockstar game – an infrequent event – such an exciting prospect worth getting hyped about.
Even as a lifelong resident of South Florida, I often struggle to describe my home state's culture to the uninitiated, especially those who only know us through the internet's lens as the craziest state in the U.S. To many who don't live here, Florida is where you're likely to be devoured by an alligator the moment you cross our border (they adore the taste of tourists). It's the place you'll be accosted by colorful and potentially inebriated residents who rep their Disney World annual passholder status as smugly as their guns of choice. You may even have to wrestle a 20-foot Burmese python during a hurricane to earn the right to taste our famed Key lime pie. In their defense, these stereotypes are not entirely inaccurate. Key lime pie is indeed very good.
Florida is a state of contradictions. Despite being the southernmost state in the continental US, our culture feels less stereotypically "southern" the further south you travel. We value nature, partly due to our deep Native American history and natural sights such as the ecological wonderland of the Everglades; at the same time, we frequently destroy that beauty to make way for yet another elaborate golf course, gated community, or obscenely expensive vacation resort. Sleepy "snowbird" retirees flock here by the thousands each year to thaw their frigid bodies from the winters of their northern homes and spend their golden years relaxing in our perpetual summer. It gives my home state the impression of being a boring, glorified retirement home. Meanwhile, countless celebrities from A to Z call us home, bolstering our image as a vibrant epicenter of youth, style, and cool.
GTAVI's NPCs feature more diverse body types and distinct physical features
It reassures me when Rockstar Games' head of development/co-studio head Aaron Garbut aptly describes Florida as "America dialed up to 11" when I ask what makes it such an attractive playground for a Grand Theft Auto game in a discussion with members of the Rockstar Games team. I can't think of a better, more succinct description of the often-strange-but-rarely-boring state I call home. America's best and worst traits are condensed in this tropical peninsula, so it's little surprise that Rockstar is returning to its beloved interpretation of Miami, Vice City, one more time in Grand Theft Auto VI. But for a publisher and developer unwilling to do anything less than 200 percent, reimagining a single city once again isn't enough. This time, Rockstar is giving players the chance to embrace the "Florida Man" fantasy, letting them roam the many culturally and environmentally diverse regions that make up the Sunshine State.
Setting the Table
"With Grand Theft Auto VI, we had just come from Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, so we understood high expectations, but the level for this game is frankly unprecedented and we don't take that lightly," Garbut says. The soul of a Grand Theft Auto game begins with its setting, and the studio could have placed its much-anticipated sixth mainline entry anywhere. So why return to Vice City and, by extension, Leonida, the GTA universe's version of Florida? "We needed a way to exceed those expectations, to deliver something that resonated both with ourselves and the players – and this location was the natural choice."
Garbut describes Miami and Florida as a whole as "a place of beauty and contrast," combining the highs of excess and glamour with the lows of hardship and grittiness befitting its latest crime drama. The Vice City location also holds a special place in Rockstar's hearts. "Grand Theft Auto III's Liberty City was where we figured out a lot of what GTA was or could be, and how to build these worlds moving forward – Vice City was where we had fun with it," he says.
Although Vice City has already appeared in three previous games – the very first 1997 GTA, Vice City (2002), and Vice City Stories (2006) – Rockstar spent the last several years taking multiple trips to Miami and South Florida for reference material and first-hand experience, explains senior vice president of narrative Rupert Humphries. "We go and try to experience everything… from riding around areas at night with ex-cops, to going to strip clubs and nightclubs, spending time on the beach, in the Everglades, down in the Keys, and beyond."
Love at First Heist
GTAVI's story centers on Jason and Lucia's partnership. You can't break them up, but you can influence whether they remain friends or bloom into a romantic couple. If you want to feel the love, you're going to have to put in the work. Outside of performing missions together, smaller interactions such as holding hands, opening doors for each other, calling them and answering calls/texts promptly and regularly, and accepting invitations to embark on activities together increase Jason and Lucia's romantic bond.
Rockstar has emphasized that players are not required to engage with these systems. There are no gameplay benefits to being friends versus being a couple, so it's largely a role-playing option for those interested. However, Rockstar has stated that certain elements of the story will be affected by Jason and Lucia's bond.
It wasn't enough to only capture reference photos for level and environmental designers, though. Rockstar needed to understand what makes Florida so appealing to so many people despite its sometimes misunderstood reputation. To that end, Rockstar seemingly left no stone unturned in its boots-on-the-ground research. Designers spoke with residents to learn personal insights about the culture, crime, and law enforcement. Writers immersed themselves in Florida's local dialects, both in Miami and in rural areas, to create its most diverse and expressive NPCs to date. Artists visited particular areas and interior spaces for aesthetic research and stylistic inspiration.
"We are asking people to spend so much time in the world we are building so we really need to understand what is great about it and then bake that into every aspect of the game," Humphries says.
The effort results in a Leonida and Vice City that, based on the footage shown so far, appear staggeringly accurate to their real-world Florida and Miami counterparts. Watching footage of Jason and Lucia navigate the often-heavy traffic of Vice City's narrow streets and twisting suspended freeways evokes the frequent annoyance and mild anxiety I often feel driving through Miami. The distinct seashell-white high-rises, glitzy downtown area, and culturally diverse neighborhoods appear present and well-replicated. For the first time, Vice City feels genuinely familiar. I didn't grow up in the pink neon-soaked early '80s era of Miami that GTA: Vice City paid homage to, but I took many trips to the city during my high school and college years in the 2000s/2010s. Impressively, Rockstar isn't content with only doing its flagship Floridian city justice.
The Many Sights of Leonida
Players will experience this contemporary take on Vice City through the eyes of dual protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos. Jason is an army vet working in the Leonida Keys (the game's take on Florida's Keys) for local drug runners; Lucia, who originally hails from Liberty City, is a recently released convict trained to fight by her father. Like GTAV, players can switch between these characters at almost any time, but since the pair work as a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque robbery team, the other is often right by your side during missions. More than this, Jason and Lucia are a couple; the extent of this relationship, whether it remains platonic or becomes romantic, will be up to the player via story and optional choices (read the sidebar to learn more), but they will always have each other's backs either way. When "an easy score goes wrong," as Rockstar puts it, the pair must unravel a larger criminal conspiracy across Vice City and Leonida.
Although Vice City is GTAVI's centerpiece location and has been completely rebuilt, expanded, and set in the modern day instead of the 1980s, Humphries states this adventure is really about the entire state of Leonida. "Part of the job of the game's story is to bring the player around the map in a way that feels authentic and interesting," Humphries explains. "We don't have time to take you everywhere, but we want you to be able to explore and get a feel for most of the places, cultures, and vibes…This game and its stories really thrive in an environment where you have rich people and poor people right next door to each other. And crime and corruption is the thread that pulls everyone together."
Leonida is the biggest map Rockstar has ever created "by some degree", Garbut says. He describes it as twice as large as GTAV, and it's more dense, detailed, and interactive. "This new world is different," Garbut says. "We obsessed about every part – the rooftops, the alleys, the internals and everything in between to the point we hit a critical mass with the numbers of our interiors, and you start to feel the buildings are more real inside and out. This world is a cohesive whole with the density of content and a hand-crafted quality to every bit."
The state's six primary regions are Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park. Vice City boasts the glamour and hustle of Miami, including deco architecture, often congested roadways (making police car chases a bigger challenge for players), scenic beaches, and a bustling cruise ship port. Grassrivers is the game's equivalent of the Everglades: an expansive, biodiverse wetland filled with reptilian predators and questionably friendly, probably armed outdoorsmen. If Grassrivers is anything like its inspiration, it hopefully shares an underlying sense of danger due to the Everglades' well-documented past as a drug-running hotbed.
The seedy Port Gellhorn represents Florida's many smaller and, in some cases, struggling tourist trap areas, as the region is littered with abandoned attractions, cheap motels, and derelict strip malls.
Rockstar describes Ambrosia as the heart of Leonida – a symbol of American industry defined by various factories and refineries as well as a local biker gang calling the shots.
Lastly, Mount Kalaga is a national park situated on Leonida's northern border. In addition to teeming with wildlife and natural wonders, Mount Kalaga represents the culture of the Florida-Georgia line – or, to use GTAVI's in-universe titles, the Leonida-Gloriana line.
In fact, this northern region of Florida is often overlooked in the wider pop-culture zeitgeist. I asked Rockstar how it specifically approached capturing this area's distinct culture, as it is arguably the most traditionally country-feeling part of Florida. Rockstar's senior vice president of environment art, Paul MacPherson, tells me the team examined cities such as Panama City, Jacksonville, Ocala, and smaller rural towns in between for inspiration. He cites the area's lumber industry and deforesting zones as "visually striking spaces and fun gameplay opportunities." The team also found the region's gated communities centered around private jet ownership (complete with personal landing strips) and economically struggling west coast towns fit the game's narrative for that particular part of Leonida.
Carjacking Evolved
Rockstar has previously shared that committing the series' namesake crime is more involved in GTAVI. Depending on the vehicle type, you may be able to steal it the old‑fashioned way or require specialized tools. Expensive cars may have sophisticated security systems and even trackers, and scanning them using a new phone app called WAiNK reveals these features. Additionally, WAiNK displays the cost of registering it as your personal vehicle and the estimated value should you decide to sell it to a fence.
"In between all the northern towns of the map we've made vast countryside expanses for ATV trails, a drunken mud park party for every kind of two and four-wheel offering you can imagine, destruction derby chaos races on floodlight-bleached oval tracks at night, mountain bike trails cutting through dense tree lined paths, livestock and agriculture farms, high-end ranches, a luxury private golf course, walk along a blackrock and boneyard inspired set of beaches, jump on a MX bike to rip around some coastal sand dunes, or go bass fishing in a Spanish moss draped live oak and cypress forested lake," MacPherson explains.
One significant area of Florida we haven't seen in GTAVI yet is its central region, home to Orlando and its many theme parks (such as Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld) and the eastern "Space Coast," the site of Cape Canaveral's Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center. When asked if and how these specific areas will be represented, MacPherson says, "We have to constantly evaluate the diversity of landscapes, towns, structures, landmarks, vistas, plant species, rock formations and everything else before we work with design and narrative to distill a list down that best works with and serves the game's needs. So, while we may not have those exact locations, everything we have is geared to getting that full Florida experience!"
An improved map that resembles satellite imagery will help players navigate the massive world. Fast travel options such as a new ride-share app called RydeMe will let you reach destinations quickly (and you can even chat with passengers if you're sharing a ride). Of course, if you choose to take your own road trips, the radio stations boast new licensed songs and plenty of amusing ads. And if you really want art to imitate life, you can live as many do and ignore all of Leonida's beauty by doomscrolling on your in-game phone. Jason and Lucia won't post their own content since they're wanted criminals, but they can lurk across social media sites, such as the returning Instagram parody, Snapmatic.
Distant storms aren't just for show; it's actually raining over there
Eye of the Storm
Florida earns its nickname the Sunshine State because of its near-constant sunny (read: very hot and often humid) weather. But any resident will tell you Florida is drenched by thunderstorms just as frequently, including more severe tropical storms and the occasional seasonal hurricane. To my intrigue and excitement, Owen Shepherd, vice president of art for lighting and rendering at Rockstar, shares that the team aims to replicate Florida's more violent weather phenomena while expanding GTA's weather system overall.
"We have re-engineered our weather system to make everything much more localized and persistent, and really wanted the world to feel dynamically solid and achieve a sense of scale we haven't felt before," Shepherd says. "The world features new fully dynamic cloudscapes that roll across the map, these give us a broad spectrum of weather from the clear blue skies of a Miami winter to the vertiginous cumulonimbus clouds with sporadic lightning that you see most afternoons in the Floridian summer and autumn."
To this end, Leonida will experience localized rain showers; this means you can occupy a gorgeously sunny zone on the map while watching a storm batter another nearby area. Speaking from a lifetime of experience, it's extremely common in Florida to sweat under a hot sun while witnessing a curtain of rain drench people barely a block away, so I'm curious to see how Rockstar replicates this distinct weather quirk. Shepherd also shares that GTAVI's rain creates realistic rainbows under the right lighting conditions, and that recently showered areas will remain wet on the ground and create persistent puddles once the storm passes. That means you could enter an area and realize it had just rained by simply looking around you.
An updated wind system includes "offshore breezes after sunset, convectional updrafts, and occlusion from buildings," according to Shepherd. "Hair and debris will swirl around on roof-tops; gusts of wind will blow ripples over the water surface and bend the grass in swamps."
And yes, Leonida will indeed experience tropical storms and hurricanes. Although Shepherd doesn't share how often these major storms occur and how gameplay or the story will be impacted, he paints a picture of how they will be depicted, saying that "heavy clouds, strong winds, dense atmospherics, and a lot of rain combine so that everything is dripping wet, water is gushing off roof edges and lampposts, thunder rumbles and flashes of lightning light up the clouds dramatically."
Like the real Everglades, Grassrivers features rich, exotic wildlife
Born to be Wild
Florida is sometimes jokingly called the Australia of the U.S. due to its diverse, exotic, and, in several cases, invasive wildlife. Visit Broward County, home of Fort Lauderdale, and the Miami-Dade area, and you'll spot green iguanas – as in the big lizards often kept as pets – lounging as commonly as squirrels and pigeons, thanks to irresponsible pet owners decades prior. The very rare Florida panther, the state's native cougar species, coexists alongside black bears (yes, Florida has bears), deer, wild boar, and turkeys. Florida is a reptile/amphibian-lover's dream thanks to our famous and abundant alligators, as well as a staggering number of lizards, snakes, turtles, and frogs. Our marine life, both fresh and saltwater, is probably even more diverse and includes Florida mascots such as the manatee.
Rockstar isn't skimping on this important element of Florida's ecosystem. GTAVI features over 170 animal species across the map, which include Leonida-native species that have never appeared in a Rockstar game. This includes over 60 bird types, more than 30 land mammals, plus various fish, reptiles, and more. Rockstar vice president of dynamic art, Michael Kane, specifically confirms the inclusion of manatees, flamingos, pelicans, and, as previously shown, alligators.
"Florida has a diverse animal ecosystem that we wanted to faithfully include across the different biomes in Leonida – urban and rural environs, aquatic life both inland and ocean, and the wetland habitats like the swamps and Everglades," Kane explains. "The animal art and population teams are incredibly passionate about delivering animals that are accurately researched and look visually correct in every respect, alongside the supporting movement and animation to bring them to life."
In addition to native Florida species, GTAVI will feature many invasive animals that have since become a problematic part of the state's ecological patchwork. On top of the aforementioned green iguana, GTAVI includes the feral cat, cane toad, nine-banded armadillo, and the rhesus macaque monkey (yes, Florida has several non-native monkey species. It's weird here).
We've seen in previous trailers that scuba diving is one of the many recreational activities available to players (read the sidebar to learn about other diversions), so this naturally means plenty of marine life will be present. Kane confirms players will encounter different shark species, whales, rays, turtles, and jellyfish, which all have distinct movement behaviors. Leveraging Rockstar's work on the Red Dead Redemption series, animals will even display iridescence, bioluminescence, translucency, and feather types, plus new hair and fur systems for coats and pelts. Furthermore, fur is fully simulated and set up for "human-to-animal interaction with dirt matting and clumping in environmental contexts, including getting wet, as well as color and coat variations," Kane explains.
Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, GTAVI will similarly feature many animals for players to track, categorized as Rare, Discoverable, and Legendary. Rockstar is keeping the identities of these specific animals under wraps, as it wants them to surprise players as they explore. Here's hoping the Skunk Ape, Florida's resident Bigfoot-esque cryptid, makes the cut.
Leonida's Activities
GTAVI features plenty of activities for Jason and Lucia to get into when they're not committing robberies. In some cases, it lets them blow off steam; in others, it may build and improve their relationship.
Here are some of the confirmed activities the game offers:
Base jumping
Billiards
Gyms
Kayaking
Mini golf
Scuba diving
Street and off-road racing
Zoos
Air boating
Jet skiing
People Pleasers
The sights, wildlife, and weather are not the only elements that bring Leonida to life. The most important element is its often bizarre residents. As previously mentioned, GTAVI features the most diverse and well-realized NPCs in series history, both in their physical appearances and ambient dialogue. Rockstar has a team in LA dedicated solely to writing NPC chatter.
Kane emphasizes how seriously Rockstar takes reference gathering for its world-building, stating that GTAVI was a "huge artist-driven effort, working to make that authentic and representative in service to both the story requirements and so that the entire Leonida map feels visually diverse and believable."
Kane adds that, "As the map developed and the story/world developed, we constantly checked ourselves to make sure we were in sync." Thanks to advancements in art technology and workflow, Rockstar crafted Leonida's citizens with an unprecedented level of detail and nuance. NPCs now vary in height and have different body types with specific differences in areas such as musculature, local weight gain in chests/busts, stomachs, and, yes, butts. Different skin types are also represented, with details such as freckles, moles, and tanning now evident. Kane adds that Rockstar also "paid a crazy amount of attention" to making culturally correct tattoo styles that fit Leonida's diverse communities and regions. Hair and body grooming will also have better visual representation featuring far more ethnic styles.
NPC fashion also varies greatly between areas, reflecting the local culture and style of the region. "We've been able to really go hard on that with creating the biggest range of garments and accessories we've ever made – supported with rich, realistic materials," Kane says. "That surfacing includes color, patterns and branding that are both area-appropriate, but also tied to context (states of dirt/weathering and fitment) for the characters themselves and their social situation and how they inhabit Leonida. Shoes, sneakers, and colorways that we know carry cultural weight as items – likewise watches, sunglasses, or hats."
A Brief Guide to Robberies
As robbers, Jason and Lucia spend much of GTAVI executing heists and evading the law. That's because raising money matters more than ever, as certain missions only become available based on your current income. You can rob places alone or as a duo (the latter grows their relationship), and robberies can be executed loud and fast, or quiet and thorough. The degree you choose to escalate a situation determines if and how the police respond.
In addition to the returning six-star Wanted Levels, a new Heat system means cops will gather information from reported incidents based on players' appearance and whereabouts at crime scenes. Changing your hairstyle and clothing (purchased from one of many distinct retail stores and salons), as well as ditching the vehicle you escaped in, will help Jason and Lucia escape a potentially comprehensive and lethal police response. Splitting up can also divide police attention if they know they're chasing a pair, though getting arrested results in a "Busted" screen even if the other protagonist escapes.
Leonida's three As: Alligators, Airboats, and Armed outdoorsmen
Expectations vs. Realities
It's neither hyperbole nor premature to declare that Grand Theft Auto VI will probably be the biggest video game ever released in terms of sales and pop culture domination. Some fans have shaped their entire identities, personalities, and even livelihoods around this game's release. Numerous businesses will probably see an uptick in employees calling out of work sick due to a rapidly spreading case of I-Need-To-Play-GTA-VI-itis. We'll soon be living in a world where the collective gaming consciousness isn't waiting for this one game. It's an unbelievable degree of anticipation for any piece of media.
Rockstar is coping with the sky-high expectations the only way it knows how: by attempting to build a game that hopefully meets and, perhaps in some instances, exceeds players' wildest imaginations. "As the pressure for us on this project is huge, we dealt with that by doing our best to overdeliver," Garbut says. "Normally you compromise scale for detail or detail for interaction, but with this project we went the other way – everything is dialed up – detail, scope, breadth, scale, interaction and density. I don't think we have ever created anything close to this before."
As incredible as that sounds, what excites me most about GTAVI is that it's Rockstar's next game after Red Dead Redemption 2. The saga of Arthur Morgan is, in my opinion, Rockstar's strongest writing and storytelling effort. While I don't doubt GTAVI is chock-full of the series' signature lampooning of American and Floridian culture (good luck outdoing the internet on the latter, though), I want Jason and Lucia's tale to pack a similarly emotional wallop to Rockstar's 2018 Western. The studio has been largely tight-lipped about GTAVI's narrative; it has shared out-of-context clips of campaign missions and said the game features player decisions big and small that significantly impact the story's direction to the point of encouraging multiple playthroughs. We also know it has been designed to reward players for spending time immersed in Leonida, much like Red Dead's emergent interactions that blur the line between main missions and side quests like never before. Among the laundry list of gameplay and technical bells and whistles, I hope more than anything that GTAVI simply delivers a great story.
Grand Theft Auto's primary appeal is its ability to make players believe that anything is possible – more specifically, that we're capable of any wild feat our imaginations concoct. The series has earned that expectation by routinely raising the bar on the open-world sandbox genre with every new release. But as much as the long wait has frustrated some fans, it's worth appreciating we'll never again get to experience this pre-launch period when GTAVI feels like a game with infinite possibilities, especially in these remaining weeks before November 19. Once the game is in our hands and we've combed every inch of Leonida ourselves, we'll see how close it comes to touching a bar firmly situated somewhere between the Moon and planet Jupiter.
In this way, GTAVI feels most like the state that it mimics. Florida's strange reputation means it's mired in wild assumptions and expectations from those looking in from the outside. A few of these perceptions are spot-on, others are semi-overblown, and many are completely fabricated (but in some respects, we residents embrace them anyway). I don't know if or how often an alligator will wander into an Ammu-Nation as I purchase a new weapon, or if I'll flee the cops during a hurricane while a half-naked citizen inexplicably waves an American flag in the rain-battered streets (that's real, look it up). But it sure feels like these things could happen, which is what makes a new Rockstar game – an infrequent event – such an exciting prospect worth getting hyped about.
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O sea, que el embargo de información, no sólo era en GameInformer, sino que más prensa tenía info, y ya puede sacarla ![[+risas]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani3.gif "más risas")
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) que es relativamente más fiable pero en general prefiero info de personas confiables.
Lo que va a mover este juego no está escrito. ![[boing]](/images/smilies/nuevos/pelota_ani1.gif "pelota")
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. Tipo minijuego de hacer yoga de Michael y su esposa del V. ![[bad]](/images/smilies/nuevos/malo_ani1.gif "malo")
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