GTA 6 Map vs Vice City: Size, Similarities, and Key Differences

Introduction

Vice City has always held a special place in the Grand Theft Auto series. First introduced in 2002’s GTA: Vice City, the neon-soaked Miami-inspired city became an instant classic. Now, with GTA 6 set to return to the same setting under the name Leonida, fans are eager to see how the map compares.

In this article, we’ll break down the confirmed similarities, highlight areas that may return based on speculation, and take a closer look at how the map size of GTA 6 stacks up against the original Vice City.

Vice City’s Legacy

When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City launched in 2002, its map instantly stood out from anything players had seen before. Inspired heavily by 1980s Miami, the city was filled with pastel-colored hotels, neon-soaked nightlife, and wide beachfront avenues that captured the cultural energy of the era.

Despite its relatively small size by today’s standards, the Vice City map left a lasting impression because of its atmosphere and storytelling. Each district had a unique personality—Ocean Beach with its neon strip, Little Haiti with its cultural influences, and Starfish Island with its luxury mansions.

For many fans, Vice City wasn’t just a backdrop—it was a character of its own. This enduring legacy is one of the reasons why GTA 6’s return to the same setting, now called Leonida, is generating so much excitement. Players want to see how Rockstar Games will reimagine the iconic locations of Vice City in a modern, more realistic world.

Confirmed Similarities

Despite GTA 6 being set in a larger, more diverse state of Leonida, it officially features a modern version of Vice City—a direct spiritual and geological successor to the 2002 classic, GTA: Vice City.

Rockstar's trailer confirmations show clear parallels:

• Vice City / Vice Beach Mainland still exists—with neighborhoods like:
  • Ocean Beach (replacing the original boardwalk district)
  • Little Haiti (proving resilient across decades)
  • Little Havana (featuring panaderías and nightlife)
  • Ocean Drive / Art‑Deco corridor
  • Venetian Islands, South Beach, and Stockyard (Wynwood)
    These areas are all listed under Vice-Dale County in Rockstar's latest “confirmed locations” list.
• Iconic landmarks from the original include:
  • Ocean View Hotel / Ocean Drive Yacht marina
  • Vice City Port / Port Vice City (PortMiami analogue)
  • Vice City International Airport
  • The upgraded beachfront skyline, now made denser and more detailed.
• Visual and cultural tones remain strongly inspired by Miami:
  • Neon-lit nightlife and palmetto-lined streets are still center stage.
  • Modern footage adds skyscrapers and tourist crowds that echo—but vastly upscale—Vice City’s original vibe.
• Geographical continuity: Story dialogue, street signs, and flashbacks reference the same road layouts and landmarks you knew as Tommy Vercetti—even if everything is more realistic and to scale. Trailer cuts show familiar outlines from bridges, causeways, and neighborhoods in their updated forms.

Why it matters for players and nostalgia

By rebuilding Vice City within a modern ecosystem, Rockstar honours the 80s Miami origin of GTA while launching a new era in series geography. The city remains synonymous with cinematic excess and flamboyant crime stories—but now it's larger, more open-ended, and seamlessly connected to surrounding regions like wetlands, islands, and suburbs.

Speculations About Returning Areas (Still Unconfirmed)

While Rockstar has only confirmed the core Vice City neighborhoods and landmarks, fans and data miners have turned to trailer footage and unpublished material to fill in the gaps. Here’s a breakdown of the most-discussed rumored returns—each with its own “leak or shout-in” origin.

Starfish Island (Real‑world Miami’s Star Island analogue)

Trailer 1 includes aerial views of small, upscale islands that strongly resemble Starfish Island, home of the Vercetti Mansion in GTA: Vice City and Vice City Stories. These visuals match locations mooted by mapping communities as possible inclusions in GTA 6. While Rockstar hasn’t confirmed it, the layouts in fan renditions align closely.

Leaf Links Golf Course

Originally introduced as a diagonally‑crossed golf course on Side‑Island (Ladybug Island), Leaf Links has resurfaced in GTA VI leaks. In developer debug menus circulated in 2022, “Leaf Links” appears as a location event, suggesting it's at least recognized internally as a zone—even if it didn’t show up in any trailer footage.

Malibu Club Nightclub

Photos from early development builds and trailer 2 fan breakdowns hint that the iconic Malibu Club, a staple of Vice City nightlife, may reappear under a new brand. On the subreddit r/GTA6, a consensus has emerged:

“It was confirmed in the leaks that it returns.”

Although not yet confirmed by Rockstar, this matches precedent: returning classics may appear with minor name changes but familiar layouts.

Little Haiti

A fleeting glimpse of the Haitian flag in a nightclub scene in Trailer 1 triggered speculation that Little Haiti could be preserved intuitively in GTA VI’s Vice City. Though Rockstar lists “Little Haiti” among the officially confirmed neighborhoods, its detailed inclusion still remains speculative.

Why Allegations Differ from Official Guarantees

• Rockstar’s confirmed list (via websites and trailer summary materials) names Ocean Beach, Vice City Port, Ocean Drive, Little Haiti, and Little Havana, but does not specify locations like Starfish or Malibu Club yet.
• Leak-led claims are based on unverified test builds or reversed debug dumps (e.g., Leaf Links, Malibu). Rockstar has not validated them, and for good reason—the final location roster may diverge by release.
• Fan mapping communities have created provisional renditions of the map, and while these include hidden areas matching speculation, they should still be considered indicative, not canonical until Rockstar releases the map.

Map Size Comparison: Vice City → GTA V → GTA 6

Although Rockstar Games hasn't released any official landmass figures for GTA 6, a look at the series' map growth provides insight into what's likely coming.

Vice City (2002)

The original Vice City map was compact by today’s standards—about 9.11 km² (3.5 mi²) total. Nearly half of that was coastline and water, and a thick coastal fog masked map edges during gameplay. The playable space felt rich, but limited in scale compared to later entries.

By contrast, GTA V significantly expanded the GTA universe with a map covering 75.84 km² (29.3 mi²)—over 8 times larger than Vice City’s playable landmass.

GTA 6 (Estimated by Mapping Communities)

Community-driven reconstruction of trailers, leaked RAGE engine data, and official teasers suggest GTA 6's Leonida state could range from 125 km² (~48 mi²) up to 210 km² (~81 mi²):

• A community mapping post featured the comment:

“the new map has a landmass of 125 square kilometers, or 2.55 times the size of GTA V”

• Meanwhile, media coverage summarizing user-estimates places the maximum fan-projected size closer to 210 km², or 3× larger than Los Santos.

Even at the lower bound (125 km²), GTA 6 suggests:

• Roughly 1.6× larger than GTA V’s map
• Around 14× the size of the original Vice City
• If the upper bound (210 km²) holds true, it would be 2.7× GTA V and 23× Vice City

(Note: GTA 6 figures are based on fan reconstructions, leaker mappings, and trailer overlays, with no official map size data yet from Rockstar.)

Why These Differences Matter

• Scale tells a story: Moving from a single island to an entire state allows for vastly more environmental variety—from beaches and neon districts, to swamps, countryside, and inland settlements.
• Immersion gets deeper: Expectations point to a seamless world where exploration spans cities, small towns, wetlands, and multiple islands.
• Design ambition is clear: Rockstar’s trajectory shows generational leaps—not just in graphical fidelity, but in world-building scope.

Visual Style & Geography

Vice City (2002): Sun‑soaked neon nostalgia

• Vice City was designed around a two-island layout with water in almost every direction, flat terrain, and sparse foliage. Outdoor areas were limited to palm-lined streets, sandy beaches, and a few blocks of low skylines. Interiors were rare and often disconnected from the street map. Vehicles and pedestrians were loosely simulated due to hardware limits, while Romero‑vodka color grading and fog were used to mask the world’s simple boundaries.
• Its visual identity was built on pastel art deco architecture, neon signage, and 80s style visuals. Ocean Drive and Hotel Victor alone defined a saturated visual theme—bright turquoises, erotic pinks, chrome shadows—supported by synthesizer-heavy tracks and sunset tones.

GTA 6 (2026): Six biomes, one seamless ecosystem

In contrast, GTA VI leverages the fictional state of Leonida to deliver six fully realised biomes, each with distinct ecological and visual character: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers wetlands, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia industrial zone, and Mount Kalaga forests.

Players will traverse everything from high‑rise cityscapes with neon reflections to gator‑infested swamps, rusting seaside harbors, dry industrial towns, and lush pines and mountains—a massive leap from the sterile, flat Vice City of 2002.

Key Visual & Geographic Differences

Urban density and architecture

• GTA VI doesn’t just reference locations; it meticulously recreates them: 500 Brickell towers, Venetian Causeway, and Wynwood graffiti murals appear in the game with uncanny accuracy. The trailer nailed signs such as “Hotel Dixon” (modeled on the real Hotel Victor) with neon lighting and pastel hues, suggesting that Rockstar collaborated with preservation experts for visual accuracy.
• Interiors and street-level details are now fully integrated, from glossy lobby floors to dense traffic and NPC crowds—an immersive contrast to Vice City’s largely exterior world.

Terrain and verticality

• Vice City was almost entirely flat, with a handful of low bridges connecting islands. In GTA VI, terrain includes rocky rivers, rolling hills, and a national park (Mount Kalaga) where players can hike, hunt, or kayak. Year-round effects like driving through mud or crossing wetlands will now punish speed and sense direction.
• Swampcraft and “airboat” gameplay in Grassrivers hint at vertical mechanics (like headroom and water physics), which were absent in Vice City.

Weather, light, and engine

• GTA VI benefits from modern lighting that includes ray-traced reflections, dynamic shadows, global illumination, and possibly HDR bloom at nighttime. These deliver immersive city scenes where neon skirts reality and even puddles glimmer with reflections.
• Rockstar veteran Obbe Vermeij emphasised a “trade‑off” between framerate and fidelity. At 30 fps, the engine can display twice as many rendered polygons; all those art deco facades, fields of grass, and NPCs wouldn’t be possible in Vice City’s engine.

NPC density and AI

• GTA VI’s RAGE engine improvements (building on Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V remasters) allow for tighter NPC pathfinding, automated crowd behaviour, and varied regional architecture, from Cuban restaurants in Little Cuba to decrepit shantytowns in Port Gellhorn.
• Vice City’s limited background traffic and repetitive character models feel static in comparison to the dynamic world of Leonida.

Why Geography and Visual Style Matter

• Scale enhances immersion: As you drive from Vice City’s limestone boardwalk to the murky Grassrivers swamps, Rockstar expects the geography—and its visual systems—to feel tangible.
• Icons reborn: Fan-favourite locations like Ocean View Hotel and the Pole Position Club will now breathe with lighting, crowds, and updated interiors.
• Visual contrast = meaning: Neon luxury, industrial decline, natural wilderness—they’re all part of the story now. By contrast, Vice City was one tone: sunset‑pastel crime.

Landmarks & Cultural References

Grand Theft Auto VI is reintroducing classic Vice City landmarks with updated realism and faithfully modernized style. At the same time, it blends real-world Miami architecture and culture into the fictional Vice City / Vice-Dale County, creating a virtual world that is richly nostalgic and visually authentic.

Ocean Drive & Art Deco Hotels

Ocean Drive, the iconic beachfront strip featured heavily in Vice City (2002), returns in GTA VI with its neon restaurants, art-deco façades, and patterned pastel columns.

Trailers show hotel signs along the promenade—Hotel Dixon (inspired by Miami’s Hotel Victor, architect Lawrence Murray Dixon)—bathed in moody night-time lighting and retro neon glow. The layout, including outdoor dining decks and pavement shadows, parallels the real Ocean Drive nearly pixel-for-pixel.

Trailer footage also displays Hotel Boardwalk and Hotel Neptune, likely representing other Miami staples such as the Loews and Hilton McAlpin hotels, as identified by fans.

Ocean View Hotel & Pole Position Club

Tommy Vercetti’s original Ocean View Hotel (Vice City, 2002) and the offensive Pole Position Club are both referenced in the new cityscape:

• The Ocean View Hotel is visible in dusk-lit shots, perched along the art-deco strip with a modern neon twist.
• Although not officially confirmed, fan mapping and leaked materials strongly suggest a modernized Pole Position Club or similar sports-themed strip club exists in the Ocean Beach district.

These telltale landmarks signal Rockstar’s intent to preserve Vice City’s criminal glamor in Vice-Dale County.

Little Havana & Little Cuba

In GTA VI, Little Havana returns as a bustling cultural neighborhood full of street-side cafés, Cuban flags, and neon-tinted drive-by scenes—carrying over the dynamic energy of the 2002 original.
Early footage also hints at a counterpart district called Little Cuba, representing a modern spin on the area—presumably focused around Cuban-American heritage, latinx street art, and live music.

Both zones serve as narrative counterpoints to the tourist-heavy "Vice Beach" area—anchoring GTA VI's multicultural Miami roots.

Port & Airport: Port Vice City

Vice City International Airport (also known as “VCI Airport” on highway signage) and Port Vice City appear to be updated in GTA VI’s modern infrastructure grid. Trailer shots show road signs labeling “VCI Airport” and portside cargo routes in Vice-Dale County, indicating port access reminiscent of PortMiami.

While the modern name (often referred to as Port Gellhorn by mapping communities) hasn’t been officially confirmed, leaked data suggests it anchors the industrial waterfront and serves as a mission hub in the expanded GTA world.

Real Miami Architecture (In‑Game Homages)

Rockstar Games has immersed real South Florida architecture into Vice City’s design DNA, including:

• 500 Brickell Condos: Their signature cut-out façade and high-rise glow are visible in GTA VI's skyline.
• Wynwood-style street art: Graffiti murals reminiscent of Miami’s Wynwood Walls appear in alleys and club exteriors.
• Towered South Beach hotels, the Venetian Causeway, and Jade Ocean–style condos make cameo appearances in broader cityscape shots, often digitally renamed to bypass copyright (e.g., Hotel Dixon vs Hotel Victor).

These settings add believability and local flavor, even when given fictional identities.

Cultural Easter Eggs & Satirical Flourishes

GTA VI’s world is filled with Miami-inspired satire:

• In-club banners referencing NINE 1 NINE echo Miami’s E11EVEN nightclub, complete with airborne advertisement planes in trailer footage.

• Visual motifs—such as Cuban café marquees, pastel lifeguard huts, inflatable flamingos—appear across Vice Beach, often during fast transitions in the trailer’s edit.
• The Clevelander Hotel courtyard shot in Trailer 2 drew overwhelmingly accurate comparisons to the real‑world venue—a striking example of Rockstar's attention to local authenticity.

Why These Landmarks Matter

• Emotional continuity: Returning structures (e.g. Ocean View Hotel and Pole Position) evoke the story beats and nostalgia of Vice City (2002) while fitting into the modern city narrative.
• World-building authenticity: Whether or not the name stays the same, fans recognize these visual cues as Vice City landmarks, giving GTA VI immediate cultural grounding.
• Real-world immersion: Including artifacts of Miami’s skyline, art, and nightlife gives a tangible sense of place—while Rockstar uses satire to critique them.

Map Evolution Across Generations

Liberty City: GTA III → GTA IV

When GTA III debuted in 2001, Liberty City was a three‑island layout loosely based on Manhattan, Chicago, and New Jersey, very much a product of sixth‑gen limitations. In contrast, GTA IV rebuilt the map from scratch—to evoke the "feeling" of New York without reusing assets or geography. Rockstar’s designers wanted to preserve the “general feel” of the city, but nothing else.

• The result spans roughly six square miles of dense urban space, about three times the client‑side size of GTA III’s city.
• Rockstar originally explored building out the entire state of New York, including suburban and rural areas; but ultimately focused on a Manhattan‑centric design with surrounding boroughs, balancing scale with vertical gameplay density.
• Dan Houser called Liberty City itself “the biggest character” in the story, reflecting a shift toward creating maps that reinforce narrative rather than simply serving as playgrounds.

In short: GTA IV represented a refinement of Liberty City, delivering greater detail, verticality, and mission cohesion without explicitly reusing the III version.

Vice City: GTA Vice City (2002) → GTA VI (2025)

Rockstar appears to be taking a similar approach with Vice City. The 2002 city featured two playable islands and tourist areas like Ocean View and Little Haiti, but was still a compact, game‑optimized map.

• GTA VI is expected to include both “Vice City proper” and surrounding rural West Coast regions, modeled after the Miami‑Fort Lauderdale metro area but significantly expanded.
• Estimates from both dataminers and media suggest GTA VI’s map may be roughly 1.8× to 2× the size of GTA V, which itself was much larger than previous 3D‑era cities.
• Despite the size, Rockstar aims for that high-density, cinematic feel: spokespeople and datamined map layouts show tight urban corridors, dense interiors, and iconic landmarks—similar level‑of‑detail as GTA IV, but layered over a larger geography.

Though still technically unconfirmed, the design pattern is clear: the city core builds on Vice City nostalgia, while rural areas set the stage for modern GTA-style gameplay loops like bike chases, kart races, and wilderness infiltrations.

What We’re Seeing: A Consistent Pattern from GTA III Onward

1. Greater area, sharper scale control — Rockstar grows the map size with each generation, but also selectively compresses or expands vertical and dense district regions to maximize gameplay engagement.
2. Selective reuse, not duplication — We may see Vice City names and landmarks, but Rockstar emphasizes reimagining (not remastering) old maps for better interactivity. Developers often say something like: “We don’t remake it; we re‑create the vibe.”
3. Design for story, not just exploration — As with GTA IV, the layout is driven by narrative pacing and mission flow rather than geographic fidelity. Urban sprawl is segmented and choreographed around story beats.

So Who Wins the Evolution Game?

If GTA VI follows the same design ethic as GTA IV or V:

• The Vice City core will be instantly recognizable to fans of the 2002 city, but redesigned with updated materials, building interiors, and areas accessible to the player.
• The expanded West Coast region allows for new terrain-driven gameplay, like smuggling tunnels, drug dens hidden in the Everglades, and tourism circuits that tie into the main story.
• Size isn’t just about scale; it’s about layered content: city, suburbs, swamps—and all optimized to avoid the “dead zones” seen in earlier Rockstar maps.

Sam Houser once said, “It’s not the full city – it’s an approximation thereof. We make a city that feels like the real thing, but is perfectly tuned for gameplay in the broadest sense”.

This principle has become Rockstar’s guiding philosophy—and GTA VI appears poised to follow it while blending both legacy and modern open-world design.

Fan Speculation & Community Theories

While Rockstar Games has confirmed key regions like Vice City proper, Leonida Keys, Port Gellhorn, and the Grassrivers wetlands, fan speculation continues to run wild. Here’s a look at the top community theories (based on trailer frame-mapping, leaked coordinates, dev debug menus, and lore Easter egg searches)—broken down by plausibility.

The Mapping Community: Legends in the Making

A coordinated effort led by the GTA mapping Discord (headed by DuPz0r) has produced layered maps of what might constitute the full state of Leonida. Their early renders highlight Vice Dale, Ambrosia, Leonida Keys, Mount Kalaga, and larger counties—plus a possible shadow map labelled “Gloriana”, perhaps a Georgia analogue. These community maps combine Reddit-led triangulation of screenshots with leaked coordinate files.

Yet as one Redditor warned:

“90% of the map shape is still just an assumption, hence the orange lines.”

Despite the uncertainty, what began as blurry overlays is now treated like a fan-based tobacco blueprint in anticipation of Rockstar’s final reveal.

Hidden Islands & the Ruins of Starfish

Starfish Island — Tommy Vercetti’s old mansion enclave — is visible in early trailer footage or at least strongly suggested by architecture and topography. Fans believe it may return, albeit as an abandoned ruin or mission-specific zone rather than the same luxe estate. One popular Reddit thread adds:

“I think the Vercetti Estate won't actually reappear, but there probably will be a mission that involves the similar location.”

Starfish Island continues to capture the imagination as a symbolic “return site” even if society has stripped it of glamour.

Gator Keys, The Panhandle & Skunk Ape Hunt

Mapping visuals strongly echo Florida geography—many believe the northern part of Leonida includes a “panhandle” stretch above Kelly County. Another Redditor notes:

“Grassrivers alone will probably have a ton because of the Everglades besides the skunk ape.”

The theory is supported by trapped angles in trailer shots: open highways through swamp, a giant radio mast overhead, and remote service roads clustering near a vignette-labeled “Leonard County”. Further trailers show narrative hints (e.g. “LDC correctional facility”) pinned to that same northwestern territory.

Gambling on “Gloriana State” & Expansive Interstate Mysteries

One of the more ambitious theories posits a second state—Gloriana, possibly inspired by Georgia. Fan-made documents use images of Rosa Perdido County and a blurred interstate sign to hypothesize GTA VI includes cross-state exploration, unlocking highways connecting Leonida and Gloriana.

Some fans even hope for a haunted highway crossover, akin to Florida’s real ghost-road I‑4: a side quest could unravel a supernatural mystery tied to Jason or Lucia’s background.

Easter Eggs, Urban Legends & Movie Tie‑Ins

Beyond geography, speculation explores Rockstar’s penchant for meta-nods. Some people expect run-down outfits, cameo nods to the 3D-era Vice City—like Rogue VHS tapes or old mob-run limo adverts—furtively hidden in buildings or mission logs.

Other theories dream big: skunk ape cryptid hunts, commercial ATM mini-games, subway graffiti messages, photorealistic neon clubs, even phil references ("NINE 1 NINE") pointing to Miami’s EDM scene.

Though these are unconfirmed, they echo Rockstar’s past Easter egg style—layered, playful, and lore-ambitious.

What to Keep in Mind

• Nothing here is official. Until Rockstar releases additional trailers or the game itself, everything remains speculative.
• Fan maps are evolving continually. As one Reddit user quipped:

“The black outline is the one we actually are sure of, the orange is speculative.”

• Community consensus often changes. Map shapes, water coverage, and legends shift as more footage and model angles get backed into triangulation.

Conclusion: A Return to Vice City — Bigger, Bolder, and Richer Than Before

As we've explored, GTA VI bridges the iconic past of Vice City with the ambition of a modern sandbox, reimagining the neon‑lit streets of Miami while expanding them into the full fictional state of Leonida. Rockstar themselves describe it as the “biggest, most immersive evolution of Grand Theft Auto yet,” rooted in the neon‑soaked Vice City and its surrounding counties.

What makes this new design particularly exciting is that Vice City is no longer an isolated island — it’s part of a sprawling map that fans estimate to be almost twice the size of GTA V’s. Early trailers and leaked footage hint at environments far beyond the pastel beachscape: sprawling wetlands, mountainous national parks, and tropical Keys that were once merely radio chatter in the PS2 era.

Confirmed Similarities

• Art‑deco pastel architecture, Ocean Beach, and retro‑80s styling offer a recognisable aesthetic that both nostalgic players and newcomers will immediately recognise.
• Vice City’s transport and nightlife scene — cruise ports, nightclubs, neon signage — all appear reimagined with modern fidelity.
• Satirical takes on modern Florida culture remain central, including tropical tourism, drug trade, influencer culture, and shady politics.

Speculative Differences

• Maps pieced together by fans suggest regional expansions: Grassrivers, Leonida Keys, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park.
• While Vice City may retain its coastal centre, much of the drama may shift to rural and industrial zones — expanding gameplay beyond beachfront hotels to river delta gangs and swamp‑hunting expeditions.
• Some fans believe the map may grow post‑launch, adding new counties or cities—possibly even a recreation of Gloriana, a state tipped to border Leonida

Looking Ahead

While Rockstar has confirmed GTA VI is set in modern Vice City — now part of the wider state of Leonida — the company has yet to release an official full map. Until then, the balance between confirmed elements and community‑driven reconstructions gives us plenty to dissect and speculate over.