From the Everglades to Miami Beach, the real-world places and culture shaping GTA 6’s version of Florida.
Every Grand Theft Auto game has been a love letter (and a roast) of real places. San Andreas was California. The original Vice City was unmistakably Miami. GTA 6’s Leonida appears to be the most detailed and geographically ambitious version of Florida ever put into a game.
The second trailer featured extensive swamp footage — alligators, airboats, and dense wilderness that feels genuinely threatening. This is clearly inspired by the real Everglades, but Rockstar has taken creative liberties.
The fictional Glades area shown in the trailer combines elements of the real Everglades with the rural, unincorporated parts of South Florida that exist outside the tourist imagination.
Vice City has always been Miami with the serial numbers filed off. The new version appears to draw from multiple eras and neighborhoods:
Florida’s unique mix of cultures — Cuban, Haitian, Jamaican, Southern American, Latin American, and the bizarre subculture of wealthy retirees — has always been part of what makes Vice City work. The new game appears to be leaning into this more explicitly than ever before.
The second trailer included multiple scenes of street life, music, and characters that suggest a much more culturally textured world than previous entries.
A living, breathing Florida requires more than just palm trees and beaches. It requires understanding the tension between the Florida of postcards and the Florida of lived experience — the gap between what tourists see and what locals know.
Early signs suggest Rockstar is interested in that gap. That’s what makes the setting exciting beyond the obvious visual appeal.