GTA 6 Isn’t All Neon: What Rockstar’s New Images Show
Independent fan coverage and commentary — this site is not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.
Independent fan coverage and commentary. This site is not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive. If Rockstar says something different from what is here, its word counts, not ours. Cover image: Rockstar Games.
Ask anyone to picture GTA 6 and you get Vice City after dark: pink light on wet asphalt, a skyline that never sleeps. Then Rockstar’s new images for Edge, out October 29, include a motorcycle gang riding through a small town with no skyscrapers and no neon, according to Notebookcheck. I read that line three times. It describes a corner of Leonida I did not know I missed.
The images are official, but the scenes below are as Notebookcheck, Game Rant and GTA Boom describe them, and I name any outlet that stands alone. Rockstar has not said where these places are, so we will not guess. Lines from Edge’s feature, which I read on GamesRadar+, are marked as Edge’s. Launch is still November 19, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
A Small Town With No Skyline
Notebookcheck describes the gang as riding through a small town, apparently in rural Leonida, and says fans received the shot warmly. GTA Boom’s image notes put the riders on a two-lane street past a tavern and a supermarket, plus trailer homes and dirt roads in another frame. Game Rant lists small-town streets, trailer parks and industrial outskirts, and the industrial part is Game Rant’s alone.
Most of us know a road like that: a gas station, a row of trailers behind the pines, a town you cross with the windows down. Few games linger on those places. Edge offers only a hypothetical about how Rockstar’s satire gets written: a town that might be unusually patriotic, home to a biker gang that loves the police, in the middle of a mayoral race. That is Edge’s example, not this image.
An Airboat in the Grassrivers
Notebookcheck says another image shows two armed men crossing the Grassrivers on an airboat, a sign that alligators will not be the only threat. It calls the region a swamp inspired by Florida’s Everglades. GTA Boom describes an airboat gliding down a sunlit channel under hanging moss. The armed men and the alligators are Notebookcheck’s alone.
In my reading, Edge helps explain why there could be a swamp here. A small group led by Rob Nelson visited Miami in 2015, and Florida was chosen quickly: dense cities, swamps and varied landscapes offered obvious possibilities. Rockstar has not explained how Grassrivers plays, so the image is a mood, not a rulebook. I like the mood. Our hurricane piece covers the reported weather that may go with it.
Per Game Rant, 12 of the 14 images Rockstar gave Edge are new. Our reading: several sit far from Vice City.
Read next: Is Vice City Leaking Into the Real World?, What Jason and Lucia Reportedly Want (It’s Not a Fortune) and Will Your GTA V Getaway Habits Survive GTA 6?
A Hammerhead Where the Coral Narrows
Game Rant says one image goes underwater, showing a hammerhead shark swimming through a coral-lined passage, and Notebookcheck and GTA Boom describe the same shark. GTA Boom adds a school of fish above it in a narrow, rocky channel. Game Rant notes that Rockstar confirmed diving but has shown few looks below the surface. Notebookcheck calls the hammerhead one of the more dangerous creatures players could meet.
Notebookcheck also expects whales, rays, sea turtles and jellyfish, which reads as the outlet’s guess, not a Rockstar list. Rockstar has not said where this water is, and we will not invent a spot. What I like is the quiet of it: a shark in a narrow channel, going about its day, caring nothing about us. A world that feels busy without you in it is rare.
How Big Is Leonida, by Rockstar’s Own Claim?
Edge supplies the size claim that matters. It reports that Rockstar says Leonida’s total landmass, Vice City and surroundings included, is nearly as large as the playable maps of GTA IV, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined. Two cautions: that compares total land with playable maps, and Edge prints no area figure. Edge also states, without attribution, that the map is roughly twice GTA V’s, then calls acreage a blunt measure.
Most of the other images, Notebookcheck says, focus on Jason and Lucia. We added two approximate pins to our interactive map, the Hammerhead Shark Reef and Leonida Beyond Vice City. Both are our placeholders, not Rockstar locations, flagged as approximate, and each dot sits where we could fit it, not where a scene happens. Open the map and keep November 19 in mind.
If the road never touched neon, which corner of Leonida would you drive to first?
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