GTA 6 will be significantly larger than GTA 5
Vice City in GTA 6 will be roughly twice the size of Los Santos from GTA 5, but the main difference in the new game won’t just be the size of the central city.
Beyond Vice City, developers have created far more populated and developed areas, so Leonida should feel more like a full-fledged state rather than a single metropolis with empty outskirts.
Vice City is twice the size of Los Santos
Development lead GTA VI and co-lead of Rockstar North Rob Nelson said about the world size during a studio game demonstration. According to him, Vice City alone is approximately twice as large as Los Santos from GTA V.
The difference becomes even more noticeable outside the main city. The scale of small towns and other developed areas around Vice City is approximately 11 times larger than comparable areas in GTA V.
Thus, a significant portion of the GTA 6 map will consist not only of forests, swamps, roads, and other spaces between major locations. Players will encounter numerous small settlements that can be explored separately.
A participant at the closed TGG presentation also relayed additional benchmarks voiced by developers: the entire GTA VI map is approximately twice as large as the GTA V world and roughly three times larger than the playable area of Red Dead Redemption 2.
At the same time, Rockstar has not yet specified the size of Leonida in square kilometers. Therefore, specific map area values appearing online remain unofficial estimates.
Leonida will have several major regions
Rockstar has already unveiled six main territories GTA: Vice City, the Leonida Keys archipelago, the port city of Port Gellhorn, the industrial area of Ambrosia, the swampy region of Grassrivers, and Mount Kalaga National Park.
It is precisely the diversity of regions that should distinguish the new map from GTA V. Instead of Los Santos and the relatively sparsely populated Blaine County, developers are creating several urban and natural zones with noticeably distinct environments.
Nelson explained that Rockstar first studied real-life Miami and Florida, then selected locations and regional features they wanted to bring into the game. Leonida’s geography roughly mirrors the layout of its real-world counterparts, but developers intentionally altered distances and scales. GTA VI does not attempt to replicate Florida at a 1:1 scale.
The game will begin on the islands
In early GTA, the player will be in Leonida Keys. This is where Jason’s home, previously shown by Rockstar, is located.
After the initial segment, the accessible world will expand significantly. According to Nelson, players will then be able to travel to almost any point on the map at any time.
The narrative is deliberately structured to gradually guide Jason and Lucia through various parts of Leonida. Developers first identified key regions on the map, then created characters and story events that would naturally lead the player from islands and small towns to swamps, business districts, and Vice City’s nightlife.
The large map has been brought to life
The size of the territory was not Rockstar’s only challenge. Developers aimed to make exploration an integral part of the game, so many events will not be directly marked with quests or map icons.
During the demonstration, Nelson also confirmed a large number of buildings available for visitors. The world changes even depending on the time of day: for example, journalists drove down the same street twice during the closed screening and encountered significantly denser traffic the second time due to rush hour.
Rockstar aims to build on the approach of Red Dead Redemption 2, where the focus was less on map size and more on the number of events happening around the player. According to Nelson, GTA VI should offer even more ways to interact with the surrounding world.
Grand Theft Auto VI will be released on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The PC version has not yet been officially announced, but it is clear that within a year or two, GTA 6 will also be available there.
