Vice City 2002 vs GTA 6

Vice City is back after twenty years away. Here is how Rockstar's new version compares with the one Tommy Vercetti fought his way to the top of.

Updated September 28, 2026

Four visits to Vice City

GTA 6 is not Vice City's first appearance, or even its second. The city has turned up in four Grand Theft Auto games:

1. Grand Theft Auto (1997): a top-down Vice City, one of three cities in the original game.
2. GTA Vice City (2002): the 3D classic set in 1986, starring Tommy Vercetti.
3. GTA Vice City Stories (2006): a prequel set in 1984, starring Victor Vance.
4. GTA 6 (2026): a modern-day Vice City inside the wider state of Leonida.

The 2002 game is the one most players remember, and it is the version GTA 6 will inevitably be compared with.

The biggest difference: the decade

The 2002 game was a love letter to the 1980s. Its Vice City drew heavily on the TV series Miami Vice and the film Scarface: pastel suits, cocaine cowboys, synth-pop on the radio and neon over every door. Miami Vice star Philip Michael Thomas even voiced Lance Vance.

GTA 6 moves the city to the present day. The trailers swap the 1980s for smartphones, livestreams, viral videos and social-media stars, and Rockstar's satire now aims at influencer culture and online outrage rather than cocaine-era excess. Some things never change, though: beaches, nightclubs, fast cars and money that nobody asks too many questions about.

The map: from two islands to a whole state

The 2002 Vice City was built around two large islands separated by water, with smaller islands in between. The eastern island was the beach side, with Ocean Beach, Washington Beach and Vice Point. The western mainland held Downtown, Little Havana, Little Haiti, the docks of Viceport and Escobar International Airport. Starfish Island, Prawn Island and the Leaf Links golf course sat in the bay between them.

In GTA 6, Vice City is just one region of Leonida. Beyond the city limits there are islands, swamps, farm towns and forests, so Vice City becomes the big-city hub of a much larger world rather than the whole game.

Side by side

Old landmarks fans hope to see again

Rockstar hasn't said which old locations return, but these are the ones fans talk about most:

• The Vercetti mansion on Starfish Island, Tommy's headquarters.
• The Malibu Club, the nightclub at the center of the 2002 story.
• The Ocean View Hotel, the first safehouse.
• Escobar International Airport, whose name was a nod to Pablo Escobar.
• Vice Point and the beachfront hotels, which map closely onto real Miami Beach.

After twenty years of real-world change in Miami, a straight copy of the old map is very unlikely. Nods and easter eggs are far more likely than exact rebuilds.

Rockstar hasn't released an official map of Leonida. A map image from an older development build leaked in August 2026; we don't use it here. Everything on this page comes from Rockstar's own trailers, screenshots and region descriptions, and it will be updated after launch on November 19.

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