Vice City in GTA 6 — Map Location and Official Setting

Vice City is the neon metropolis of the State of Leonida and the single most loaded name in Grand Theft Auto VI. When Rockstar confirmed the setting on December 4, 2023, it was not introducing a place — it was bringing one back. In May 2025 it published an official introduction under the heading “Everything in Excess.”

What Rockstar has published

In Rockstar’s words

The introduction is headed Everything in Excess. “We’re a long way from the ’80s,” it begins, “but Vice City is still the sun and fun capital of America.” The city is summed up as “the glamour, hustle, and greed of America captured in a single city.”

This is the regional introduction. The Explore panel on Rockstar’s Only in Leonida page carries a more detailed description, and is worth reading there.

A city coming back

Vice City is not a new invention. It was the setting of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in 2002, one of the defining releases of the PlayStation 2 era, and it returned in the 2006 prequel Vice City Stories. Both were period pieces, and their identity was built out of the 1980s — pastel architecture, synth-heavy radio, a very particular kind of excess.

The new introduction acknowledges the gap directly. What it does not say is whether any of the 2002 geography survives. Whether this is the old city rebuilt or a new one sharing a name has no official answer.

The Miami question

Miami is the reference every discussion of Vice City reaches for. It is a reasonable reading, not an official statement.

The 2002 game made no secret of its influences, and the same visual language — coastline, causeways, art deco, tropical heat, a city on the line between glamour and crime — carries into the modern version. But Rockstar builds compressed, rearranged versions of real places rather than replicas. Los Santos is not Los Angeles at scale; it is Los Angeles edited for play. Expect the same relationship here, and treat any claim of a one-to-one street mapping as speculation.

Who Rockstar places here

Three of the eight profiled characters are tied to Vice City by their official bios:

• Boobie Ike, “a local Vice City legend” with real estate, a strip club and a recording studio;
• Dre’Quan Priest, who is setting his sights on the Vice City music scene;
• Real Dimez, the rap duo signed to the label the two men run.

Of the protagonists, Jason Duval’s bio places him in the Keys, not the city.

How Vice City fits the rest of the state

Vice City is the urban heart of Leonida, and the other five described regions are its counterweights: the islands of Leonida Keys, the wetlands of Grassrivers, the sugar country of Ambrosia, the faded resort of Port Gellhorn and the high ground of Mount Kalaga.

This is the structural change from 2002. Then, Vice City was the game. Now it is one region of a state.

Not announced yet

• The map. No district layout, no borders, no scale.
• Continuity with 2002. Whether any location or landmark returns has not been said.
• Interiors. How much of the city can be entered has not been detailed.
• Share of the state. Whether Vice City dominates the map or occupies one part of it.
• Radio and music. Station lineups and licensed tracks have not been published.

Where to go next

• State of Leonida: the map overview and all six regions
• Leonida Keys: the island chain
• Boobie Ike: Vice City’s local legend
• GTA 6 release date: November 19, 2026

Sources

• Rockstar: Only in Leonida — places
• Rockstar: Only in Leonida — character profiles