Rockstar Games has put its cards on the table when it comes to the ambition behind Grand Theft Auto 6. Studio head Rob Nelson described the game’s world as the biggest and most complex the team has ever assembled – and made it clear that the approach grew directly out of what the studio learned on Red Dead Redemption 2.
Leonida, Vice City and the world around them
The game is set in the state of Leonida, a region inspired by Florida, which frames the Miami-inspired Vice City. Vice City is not a literal one-to-one copy of Miami, but the recreation Rockstar is building leans heavily on that real-world flavor – including the “Florida Man” culture fans have been expecting the game to play with.
Not everyone has been on board with the crossover between the fiction and the real city. Miami Police pushed back against a marketing partnership between the city of Miami and GTA 6, though that partnership appears to be moving forward regardless.
What Rob Nelson actually said
According to Nelson, Red Dead Redemption 2 was the point where the studio finally had the team, the technology and the time to push the idea of a fully realized, consistent-feeling world further than it ever had before. The team spent as long as it needed to squeeze that generation of hardware for everything it could give, both in the open world itself and in the core design and gameplay around it.
GTA 6, in his words, is a continuation of that direction: the studio is “doing everything we possibly can to create the largest, deepest, most densely populated, and complex world we have ever built for people to get lost in.”
A sequel to Red Dead 2 as much as to GTA 5
From a design standpoint, that makes GTA 6 a follow-up to both of Rockstar’s recent giants. Jason’s Dead Eye ability and the game’s take on “creature collecting” are lifted straight out of the Red Dead 2 toolbox and expanded inside a Vice City context.
The key difference is density. Rockstar specifically calls out population as an area it has worked to improve, and the goal is explicitly not a huge map made mostly of empty space. Vice City’s beaches, in other words, should feel genuinely crowded, and simply driving or walking across the map should regularly turn up something worth stopping for.
How big is the map, actually?
Rockstar has not published a concrete number for the size of the GTA 6 map. What has been said is that it should be roughly twice the size of GTA 5 and three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2. Beyond that, the studio is talking about direction rather than measurements: bigger, more detailed, and above all more alive.
You can find the game’s official page on the Rockstar website, along with its listings on PlayStation Store and the Xbox Store.
Where to go next
If you want to keep up with the rest of the release calendar while you wait, we’ve covered plenty more – including Wo Long 2 and the delayed Rayman Legends Retold. Everything else lives in our gaming articles section.
FAQ
In the state of Leonida, a Florida-inspired region that surrounds the Miami-inspired Vice City.
Rockstar has not given an exact figure. The map has been said to be about twice the size of GTA 5 and three times the size of Red Dead Redemption 2.
The Rockstar studio head said the team is doing everything it can to build the largest, deepest, most densely populated and most complex world it has ever made, continuing the direction set by Red Dead Redemption 2.
Among other things, Jason’s Dead Eye ability and the game’s approach to “creature collecting,” both reworked for the Vice City setting.
Miami Police tried to resist a marketing partnership between the city of Miami and GTA 6, but it appears to be going ahead anyway.