GTA 6’s Vice City is a present day city inside a whole state, while the 2002 original was a single city set in the 1980s. Rockstar’s Rob Nelson has said the new Vice City alone is twice the size of GTA 5’s Los Santos, according to Kotaku, and Rockstar has brought back a handful of names that fans of the original will know.
The original: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Rockstar said in 2012, as Kotaku reported, that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City first came out in October 2002 on PlayStation 2, and that it paired open world play with nostalgia for the 1980s. GameSpot’s review puts the story in 1986: Tommy Vercetti has just been released from prison after a 15 year stretch for the mob.
Tommy was voiced by the actor Ray Liotta, Kotaku noted. Kotaku’s review of the game pointed out that you could fly helicopters and ride motorcycles. By the end of the story Tommy takes control of a big mansion, and Kotaku identifies the Vercetti Estate named in GTA 6’s Ultimate Edition as that mansion.
The new Vice City in GTA 6
Rockstar’s tagline for the city is Everything in Excess. It says we are a long way from the 1980s, but Vice City is still the sun and fun capital of America. This time it is the main city of Leonida, a state with five more regions around it, from the Leonida Keys to Mount Kalaga.
Rockstar has named four neighbourhoods so far: Ocean Beach with its pastel art deco hotels, Little Cuba with its bakeries, the Tisha-Wocka flea market and VC Port, the cruise ship capital of the world. Edition text adds Southside Vice City, Stockyard, Washington Beach and Shore Drive.
Side by side
| Vice City (2002) | GTA 6 Vice City | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | The 1980s (1986, per GameSpot) | Present day |
| Where it sits | A standalone city | The main city of the state of Leonida |
| Lead characters | Tommy Vercetti | Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos |
| First platform | PlayStation 2 | PS5 and Xbox Series X|S |
| Size | Not compared officially | Twice the size of Los Santos (Rob Nelson, via Kotaku) |
What returns from the original
Rockstar has used several nods to the 2002 game in GTA 6’s marketing:
- Flash FM. Rockstar calls the pop station a “Vice City institution”, and Kotaku notes it first appeared in the original game.
- The Vercetti Estate. The Ultimate Edition’s Hawk & Little Morgan revolvers have classic Vice City styling, sourced from the Vercetti Estate.
- Tommy’s shirt. The preorder Vintage Vice City Pack gives most guns a tropical pattern inspired by Tommy Vercetti’s palm tree shirt.
- A classic Sentinel. GamesRadar spotted a classic Sentinel convertible in An Extended Look and called it a callback to Vice City.
Our easter eggs list collects these and other references to older games.
The real Miami
Outlets read GTA 6’s Vice City as a take on Miami, but Rockstar has not named the real city. Writing about the first GTA 6 trailer, Kotaku’s Alyssa Mercante linked its art deco shots to South Beach and its mural covered streets to Wynwood.
What we don’t know yet
- Whether Tommy Vercetti or any other character from 2002 appears.
- Which other 2002 neighbourhoods and landmarks return, and how closely they match.
- Whether GTA 6 says anything about what happened in Vice City since the 1980s.
Related pages
- Vice City in GTA 6
- All GTA games in order
- GTA Vice City cheats
- Where to play older GTA games today
- GTA 6 map size
