The leak of 90 video clips from Grand Theft Auto 6 on confirms what players, writers, and fans of the game have long suspected: the forthcoming installment in the GTA franchise will once again be set in Vice City. The hacker – who also claims responsibility for the recent data breach of the rideshare company Uber – released 50 minutes of footage from the early development of the next GTA game, which included animation and gameplay tests, giving watchers a brief glimpse into what GTA developers intend for the new game. Though most of the footage was quickly taken down from the various sites on which it appeared, the GTA 6 leaks (confirmed by Rockstar Games as valid shortly after their release) themselves confirm some theories about Grand Theft Auto 6 while contradicting others, leaving fans, writers, and players of the game to speculate about what they actually saw in the brief reveal.
Grand Theft Auto 6 – the unconfirmed title of a game whose actual release date is also unconfirmed – has been rumored to be in development since 2018. GTA 5 was released in 2013, and while Rockstar went on to produce the hugely popular Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018, there has yet to be a successor to GTA 5, which remains one of the industry’s top-selling games. The unauthorized leak was so sensational precisely because of the series’ popularity: the leaks confirmed reliable GTA 6 rumors that have long surrounded the game, its production process, and the details of its content.
Until the recent leak, few specifics have been known of Grand Theft Auto 6. Whether that game is to be a sequel to GTA 5, a throwback to an earlier game in the series, or a wholly new endeavor has long been debated by those outside the inner circle of Rockstar Games. The answer to that question, though, may have been revealed in the leaked videos, which appear to show that GTA 6, at least in part, will once again be set in Vice City, the locale for the 2002 GTA title.
GTA 6 Will Be Set In Vice City – Or At Least Part Of It Will Be
There are several clues in the 90 leaked videos of Rockstar’s GTA 6 that reveal the game’s south Florida location. Some of these are readily apparent, explicit reveals of the Vice City location. The initials “VCPD” can be seen on the rear ends of police cars involved in a shootout with Lucia, one of the game’s new playable characters, and on the side of a metro car that Jason, another playable character, prepares to board. In another brief scene taken from the game, Lucia is shown hiding in the backseat of a car parked in front of a large civic building with the name “Vice City Neighborhood Enhancement Center.”
Other indicators of the Vice City setting are less obvious and require some interpretation. Two of the longer clips released in the leak show Jason and Lucia (the first substantial playable female protagonists in a Grand Theft Auto game) walking through a dimly lit strip club that closely resemble the famous Malibu Club from GTA: Vice City. A hotel that might be the Ocean View – starting point for the action in the original game – can be seen on the side of a wide, palm-lined, beachfront avenue. Elsewhere, a Vice City neighborhood called Little Haiti also appears to serve as a background to some of the clips released.
While Vice City certainly appears to be the main setting for gameplay in the as-yet untitled Grand Theft Auto 6, that doesn’t mean it is the only setting. From the leaked videos it would appear that other towns or suburbs in the south Florida region also appear, supplementing the urban grit of GTA 6‘s Vice City. One of these is a previously unvisited locale named Port Gellhorn, whose name appears on the sides of the police cars in another confrontation involving Lucia and Jason. Port Gellhorn (possibly named for noted author Martha Gellhorn, who was also writer Ernest Hemingway’s third wife) looks to be a quieter place than tall, bustling Vice City though still tropical in character, suggesting it is an outlying location to the larger urban hub of the game. There has also been speculation that GTA 6 is part of a larger Project Americas, which would set portions of the game outside of Vice City, including in parts of Latin America.
Grand Theft Auto 6’s Vice City Is Clearly Miami
Even where the leaked videos don’t explicitly mention Vice City, there are enough contextual clues to suggest that GTA 6’s setting includes several Florida locations, including a place very much like Miami, the model on which the original Vice City was based. This includes more than just the palm trees, wide streets, and sunny skies evident in the excerpted scenes, but specific landmarks and other indicators that point to a Miami-style location. These clues, in a roundabout way, serve to confirm that Vice City is the principal setting for GTA 6.
Many of these observations stem from Miami-based fans and players who have noticed elements of their local city and culture in the leaked videos, though their original postings and the videos to which they link have mostly been removed by administrators. For example, one clip shows Jason sneaking around and jumping over seats in an empty outdoor arena, which looks an awful lot like Miami’s Bayfront Park Solar Amphitheatre. Other observers have noted that the police firing on the female protagonist in GTA 6′s Miami setting wear uniforms that match those of police officers in the Miami-Dade region, and that the highway under construction in one scene clearly resembles Miami’s Palmetto Expressway. Even the official historian of the Florida Marlins baseball team (MarlinsHistory) got involved, noting that the fictional Vice City Mambas (whose logo appears in one brief video still) use the same unappealing teal color as the actual Marlins team.
All of these clues add up. From the more explicit mentions of Vice City on the police cars, civic buildings, and even the local baseball team, to the subtler references to iconic locations from GTA: Vice City, to the more contextual clues that point to a location modeled on Miami, the leaked videos provide an abundance of evidence. Though Vice City will not be the only setting of the action in Grand Theft Auto 6, it will certainly be the prime location for next game in the series, whenever it finally appears.
Source: MarlinsHistory/Twitter