GTA 6 Map vs GTA 4 Map: How Do They Compare?

Introduction

When GTA 4 launched in 2008, Liberty City set a new benchmark for open-world design. Its tightly packed streets, gritty atmosphere, and meticulous detail captured the essence of a living, breathing metropolis.

Now, with GTA 6 on the horizon, Rockstar is set to redefine that standard once again—this time with a sprawling recreation of Vice City and its surrounding regions.

While the two games are set in entirely different locations, comparing their maps offers a fascinating look at how Rockstar’s approach to world-building has evolved.

From sheer landmass to environmental variety and technological advancements, the leap between GTA 4’s Liberty City and GTA 6’s Leonida state is not just about scale—it’s about how players will experience the game world itself.

Overview of GTA 4’s Map – Liberty City

Setting & Structure

GTA 4 transports players to a reimagined Liberty City, inspired by New York City’s boroughs: Broker (Brooklyn), Dukes (Queens), Bohan (Bronx), Algonquin (Manhattan), and the neighboring state of Alderney (New Jersey). Every area is crafted with unique districts, architectural nods, and landmarks that reflect their real-world counterparts.

Map Size

The combined land and water area of Liberty City in GTA IV is approximately 16.14 square kilometers. Some community measurements suggest a total area of roughly 6 square miles, with around 3 square miles being usable land.

Layout & Landmarks

The map extends across several islands separated by waterways, connected via bridges and tunnels, giving players access to each borough only as the story progresses.

Despite its smaller physical size relative to sprawling entries like San Andreas, GTA 4’s design emphasizes urban density over expansiveness—making every corner feel alive and detailed.

Player Experience

Rockstar’s design choice in GTA 4 intentionally favors vertical, dense environments. This focused layout delivers a gritty, bustling city atmosphere, encouraging meaningful exploration rather than rambling across vast empty spaces.

Overview of GTA 6’s Map (Confirmed & Expected)

Setting & Scope

GTA 6 takes place in the fictional state of Leonida, drawing heavy inspiration from Florida and its iconic destinations. The map includes six officially confirmed regions, each presenting unique landscapes and gameplay opportunities: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga.

Detailed Breakdown of Regions

Vice City: A high-density urban metropolis inspired by Miami, full of neon nightlife, coastlines, and diverse neighborhoods.
Leonida Keys: A tropical archipelago south of Vice City, ideal for waterfront exploration and coastal thrills.
Grassrivers: Modeled after the Everglades, this swampy wilderness promises danger, wildlife, and exploration via airboat.
Port Gellhorn: A gritty, rundown coastal town reminiscent of Panama City—marked by abandonment, crime, and a raw, reflective aesthetic.
Ambrosia: An industrial rural area around sugar cane refineries and biker gangs. Inspired by Clewiston, it brings a darker, backroad-heavy environment.
Mount Kalaga: A mountainous national park at Leonida’s northern edge—offering off-road trails, hunting, and remote locales.

Size & World Design

While Rockstar hasn’t revealed exact dimensions, the map is widely regarded as the largest in Grand Theft Auto history, potentially large enough to encompass both GTA 5’s and GTA 4’s maps together. Some speculative estimates suggest a footprint significantly larger (up to 70–100%) than GTA 5’s ~29 sq mi, though these figures remain unconfirmed.

Gameplay Potential

The combination of urban centers, coastal areas, swamps, rural towns, and mountains opens the door to unmatched variety in mission types, traversal styles, and environmental interaction. From nightlife-driven storylines in Vice City to adrenaline-fueled escapes through murky swamps or steep forested trails—GTA 6 promises to offer an immersive and diverse world.

Map Size Comparison

GTA IV vs GTA VI: Numbers at a Glance

GTA IV (Liberty City):
- Approximately 16.14 km² in total area.
- Some estimates break it down to roughly 3.2 km × 4.8 km, equating to around 15.36 km².
GTA VI (Leonida/Vice City area):
- Estimates vary, yet most point to a vastly larger world.
- One widely cited figure pegs the map at about 125 km², roughly 2.5 times the size of GTA V (~75.8 km²).
- Another source lists an even larger figure of around 210 km², making it roughly 13 times the size of GTA IV.

What This Means in Perspective

GTA VI’s map isn’t just larger—it's potentially a magnitude larger. If we go by the conservative estimate of 125 km², we're looking at a world nearly 8 times bigger than Liberty City. Under the more ambitious estimate of 210 km², that ratio expands to around 13x the area of GTA IV.

Environment & Diversity

Varied Locations, Rich Atmospheres

GTA IV presents Liberty City as a tightly packed, urban-only environment. Inspired by New York and New Jersey, the map focuses on a gritty, lived-in feel with dense boroughs—Broker, Dukes, Bohan, Algonquin—and the suburban-influenced Alderney.

The world is full of verticality and architectural detail, but offers little in terms of natural variety.

In contrast, GTA VI's Leonida is expected to be a playground of environmental diversity:

Vice City – a neon-lit metropolis reminiscent of Miami’s urban sprawl.
Leonida Keys – tropical, sun-soaked archipelago ideal for exploration.
Grassrivers – a swampy Everglades-style wilderness, rife with wildlife.
Port Gellhorn – a weathered, coastal town with a darker aesthetic.
Ambrosia – rural, industrial sugar-cane country with outlaw vibes.
Mount Kalaga – mountainous wilderness offering off-road and hunting opportunities.

Gameplay and Narrative Implications

Mission design & variety: From high-speed chases in glitzy urban areas to stealthy navigation through mangroves and high-altitude escapes in the forested mountains—GTA VI opens up unheard-of mission opportunities.
Traversal tools: Expect a world tailored to diverse movement—speedboats, all-terrain vehicles, flying machines, and barefoot exploration, adapting naturally to the environments.
Aesthetic contrast: Each region feels alive and distinct—from crowded street neon to humid marshlands and breezy plains—enhancing immersion and pacing.

How This Shapes the Player Experience

Immersion through contrast: The switch from Liberty City’s relentless urban tightness to Leonida’s sprawling diversity will likely feel transformative—almost akin to combining multiple GTA maps into one cohesive world.
Replayability factor: Knowing that each area is so differently structured means players can choose where to explore first based on moods or story arcs.
Narrative scope: The regions suggest not just diversity in location, but in storytelling—urban crime, rural syndicates, environmental survival—each promising unique narrative threads.

Technology & Level of Detail

Game Engine Evolution: RAGE’s Next Gen Leap

GTA IV ran on the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE), a platform that brought realistic physics, detailed environments, and tight urban realism to the franchise in 2008.
GTA VI also continues to build upon RAGE, but as an evolved version optimized for current-gen hardware and much more demanding world design.

Graphical Fidelity & Environmental Immersion

Trailer comparisons have spotlighted GTA VI’s stunning visual fidelity. Fans have even replicated scenes in Cyberpunk 2077 to showcase the depth, lighting, and composition—with results that outshine many existing AAA titles.
The level of environmental detail—from swamplands to neon-lit cityscapes—is a stark leap over GTA IV’s urban-centric design, promising richer atmospheres and more believable settings.

Performance & Rendering Enhancements

New hardware tech may significantly amplify GTA VI’s visual performance. A major PS5 Pro update slated for May 2026 will introduce Project Amethyst's upgraded Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) with FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 support—potentially enabling 60 FPS at high image quality, a drastic improvement over prior Rockstar games which capped at 30 FPS.
GTA VI is expected to make full use of these advancements, delivering smoother frame rates, crisper visuals, and next-level rendering for its expansive world.

Interior Complexity & Environmental Variety

GTA VI is said to feature over 700 enterable stores and fully functional malls—suggesting an unmatched level of interactivity and interior variety compared to any prior GTA entry. In constrast, GTA 4 had only a handful of enterable buildings.

This sheer volume of accessible interiors represents not just technological progress, but a qualitative leap in how environments are experienced and interacted with.

Which Map Feels Bigger in Gameplay?

Subjective Scale vs Reality

Even when a map is physically smaller, clever design can make it feel expansive. GTA IV’s Liberty City leverages dense, layered urban environments to create a sense of scale disproportionate to its actual size.

GTA VI Expectations: Vast But Impactful?

GTA VI’s map is expected to be much larger—some estimates suggest it might be up to three times the size of GTA V’s 75.84 km². But size isn’t everything: how varied environments are used could shape the player’s perception of scale. A diverse, well-populated world might feel more engaging than empty expanses.

Community Perceptions and Speculation

Many fans have noted that older maps, while smaller, “felt” larger due to their density and complexity:

"GTA IV & San Andreas... may be far smaller but they feel so much larger."

Meanwhile, on Reddit, comparisons highlight that GTA VI might not feel massively bigger in practice:

"It really isn't that big; it just looks that big... VI’s is only like, 10–20% larger than V’s. But the airports also probably do need to be... slightly larger."

What This Means for Gameplay Feeling

Traversal Perception: Dense urban areas with verticality often enhance the perception of size more than open structures do.
Environmental Variety: Regions like swamps, mountains, and beaches in GTA VI could offer novel sensations of space, even if distances are large.
Dynamic World Design: Weather, NPC density, interior access, and varied terrain can make vast landscapes feel alive instead of overwhelming or empty.

Conclusion

GTA 6’s map is shaping up to be the most ambitious and expansive world Rockstar has ever crafted. While GTA IV’s Liberty City offered a compact, urban masterpiece rich in vertical detail, GTA 6’s Leonida is on track to eclipse it by a magnitude—possibly spanning up to 210 km², compared to Liberty City’s 16.14 km².

Set across six distinct regions—Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga—GTA 6 promises unparalleled environmental diversity and depth.

The world isn’t just larger—it’s more varied, alive, and tech‑rich, with advancements in rendering, interactivity, and scale that outstrip GTA IV’s careful, detail-driven metropolitan realism.

Ultimately, GTA IV remains a benchmark for urban immersion. Yet GTA 6 appears poised to redefine open-world gameplay by blending scale, diversity, and sophistication into a single, cohesive experience that’s both wide-ranging and deeply atmospheric.

FAQ

Q1: Is GTA 6’s map officially larger than GTA IV’s?

Yes. Liberty City in GTA IV spans about 16.14 km², while early estimates place GTA 6’s Leonida map at 125 km², with some claims suggesting it could be even larger.

Q2: What regions are confirmed in GTA 6’s map?

Rockstar has officially confirmed six regions: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga.

Q3: How does the feel of each map compare in gameplay?

GTA IV’s Liberty City feels expansive despite its small size, thanks to dense urban design and vertical complexity. GTA 6’s Leonida, while much larger, may feel just as immersive through its varied landscapes—swamps, mountains, and coastal areas that offer new ways to experience world scale.

Q4: What technological advancements does GTA 6 bring over GTA IV?

GTA 6 leverages an evolved RAGE engine and next-gen hardware to deliver richer lighting, deeper draw distances, dynamic interiors, and diverse biomes. It's a major generational leap from GTA IV’s technology-driven but visually limited world.

Q5: Where can I stay updated on the map before launch?

The GTA community is actively dissecting trailers and official content to reconstruct the world via fan maps. Resources like PC Gamer’s mapping analyses and forum threads provide detailed, collaborative speculation.