Modern Vice City is definitely Miami's South Beach in GTA VI. Oh, and you can find so many alligators.
For those that don‘t know, the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer leaked early. Instead of trying to keep everything secret, they dropped the entire trailer on YouTube early. However, there is a lot packed into the minute and a half trailer. So, let’s break it down… from a Floridian point of view.
The trailer opens up on Lucia, who we can assume may be our protagonist this time around. Most GTA games tend to have a male playable character (or three in the previous installment). She's generally with an unnamed man, who is likely also playable in the game's story.
In any case, her name is Lucia and she appears to be in some sort of correctional facility at the beginning. The music drops in and we’re immediately treated to the waters of the Vice City beaches, modeled after the beautiful South Beach in Miami.
But, we’re not looking at Tommy Vercetti’s 1970s era Vice City anymore. This is modern day Vice City, based on Miami, Florida as it looks and feels right now.
Looking at various shots, I can’t help but be impressed with how good this looks. I’m from Florida and this is just… accurate.
But, what caught my attention early on was the airboat on what looked like a swampier Everglades-esque water. In the real world, the Everglades is a little less than an hour from South Beach, due west. So, this map is likely to be pretty big.
In the original Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the map was limited to just the main part of the city. But, there is every possibility that we’ll be seeing more Floridian landmarks parodied.
You get a handful of shots of the beaches, as well as some speedboats that may or may not be part of a race or a chase. And, as you can imagine, there are tons of looks at the Miami, I mean Vice City, nightlife.
Plenty of clubs, hangouts, restaurants, and traffic. This is Vice City. There will be a lot of traffic if they want this to be accurate to Miami, however.
You get a shot of a big sign that says “Vice”, which feels like a callback to the Vinewood sign in GTA5. And then, just to set the record straight of when this takes place, the GTA VI parody of Instagram starts showing various videos.
You get a shot of a dad bod on a boat, the “OfficialPOACH” account showing an alligator being pulled out of a backyard pool, and a dumptruck on a driving car.
I’m sure that the alligator walking into a convenience store may feel like something out of some parody Florida Man article, but let me be the first to assure you that that part is incredibly accurate and alligators will absolutely do that.
You get some other Florida Man-like shots, such as a man watering his plants in nothing but a T-back thong and a poker dealer's hat. As a Floridian, I wish I could say this was fake, but I’d be lying.
In addition, you see mudders from the Thrillbilly Mud Club, a woman in a nightgown wielding two hammers, and plenty of police chases. There seems to be some commotion about thugs on dirt bikes that are “terrorizing” Vice City. Ah, Florida.
Throughout the trailer are various shots of Lucia, often with a bandana around her face, alongside an unnamed man. It’s unclear if these shots are before or after her time in the correctional facility.
While it's not apparent how big this game will be, seeing the Everglades gives me hope that they'll show off a big chunk of Florida. If they aren't given some sort of appearance in the main game, in the future, I'd love to see DLC or updates based on Tampa Bay, the Florida Keys, or Orlando.
I can already mentally picture an argument about where Cuban sandwiches were originated in my head (They're originally from Ybor City near Tampa, not Miami or Cuba as many assume).
In any case, this game is going to be wild. Check out the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer on Rockstar Games’ official YouTube.