GTA 6 setting: modern-day Leonida and the return to Vice City

Grand Theft Auto VI is set in modern-day Leonida, Rockstar’s fictional take on Florida, ahead of its November 19, 2026 release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. At its center is Vice City — the series’ Miami-inspired metropolis, and its first trip back there since the PlayStation 2 era. This page collects what Rockstar has actually said about the setting, era, and tone; where it has said nothing, we say so. You can see the whole region on our interactive map.

One sourcing note up front: Rockstar’s own site (rockstargames.com/VI) returns errors to automated archiving, so its area names and taglines are tier-2 in our editorial standard — official wording, index-corroborated across multiple reputable outlets rather than machine-archivable. The November 19, 2026 date is cited to Take-Two’s investor release, which verifies live, and trailer wording is quoted from the official uploads on the @RockstarGames channel.

The state of Leonida

“The state of Leonida” is Rockstar’s own wording — it appears in the official Trailer 2 description. Leonida is the series’ fictional stand-in for Florida, and the game’s story is framed as a criminal conspiracy that stretches across the whole state. The Florida framing is corroborated widely, including by CBS News and local coverage from CBS12.

The return to Vice City

Vice City is the central city of the setting — the series’ Miami-inspired metropolis, reimagined in the present day. GTA VI marks the return to Vice City, and outlets frame it as the first return since the PlayStation 2 era — Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) and Vice City Stories (2006). That “first return since the PS2 era” line is accurate journalistic framing, corroborated across outlets such as ComicBook and CBS News — not a verbatim Rockstar quote. Rockstar’s own framing is simply the return to Vice City.

The six official areas

Rockstar’s May 2025 site update officially named six areas within Leonida. Because the primary source (rockstargames.com/VI) blocks automated fetchers, this six-area list is index-corroborated by multiple reputable outlets — including GTABase, CBS12, and Beebom — which reproduce Rockstar’s own section names and taglines:

Vice City — the Miami-inspired metropolis at the heart of the map.
Leonida Keys — “Gateway to Paradise”, the game’s take on the Florida Keys.
Grassrivers — “Welcome to the Wetlands”, Leonida’s Everglades.
Port Gellhorn — “Live Hard”, Leonida’s forgotten coast, a faded Gulf-side town.
Ambrosia — “Keeping Leonida Sweet”, a sugar-industry community.
Mount Kalaga National Park — “Wild, Wild Country”, open wilderness.

For the full area-by-area breakdown with each official description, see the GTA 6 map, explained. Anything beyond these six names and Rockstar’s short taglines — refinery details, per-region hunting or fishing systems, specific named lakes — is outlet interpretation of trailer footage, not a Rockstar-stated feature list, and we treat it as such.

The tone Rockstar has signaled

The clearest read on tone comes from Rockstar’s own marketing. The official Trailer 2 narration says Jason and Lucia “find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida.” That “darkest side of the sunniest place in America” line is Rockstar’s framing, corroborated by GamingBible and CBS News — a sun-soaked setting with a hard, criminal underside.

A present-day Florida, not the 1980s

Where the prior Vice City games were set in the 1980s, official marketing signals a contemporary, social-media-era Florida: smartphones, online fame, and influencer culture appear throughout the trailers. That present-day read is reported consistently by outlets such as ScreenRant and Wikipedia’s overview. One honesty flag: Rockstar has not stated a specific in-game year. “Modern-day” is the corroborated tone descriptor, not a dated figure — treat any exact year you see as unconfirmed.

The two playable leads tied to this setting, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, are named in Rockstar’s official Trailer 2 description; their story is the conspiracy that grounds the game’s tone and era.

What is and is not confirmed

Confirmed and safe to state:

The setting is the fictional state of Leonida (a stand-in for Florida), and the game returns to Vice City.
Rockstar has officially named six areas: Vice City, Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park.
The tone is “the darkest side of the sunniest place in America” — a present-day, modern Florida.
The game releases November 19, 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S (Take-Two Q2 FY2026 results).

Not stated by Rockstar — do not read these as facts:

A specific in-game year or precise era. Only a modern-day tone has been signaled.
Any map-size figure. Rockstar has published no official size; the “1.5x–2x GTA V” numbers you may have seen are leak-derived community estimates, flagged as unofficial even by the outlets that repeat them.
Detailed per-area lore or gameplay beyond the six names and short taglines. That granular detail is interpretation of trailer footage, not a confirmed feature list.
A Trailer 3. As of July 18, 2026 there is no official third trailer; fake “Trailer 3” uploads circulate, and the tell is always that the channel is not @RockstarGames.
PC, PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch / Switch 2. Only PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are announced.

When Rockstar names or announces something new about the setting — a Newswire post, a site update, or Trailer 3 — this page and the database update the same day.

Changelog

2026-07-18 — Initial version: modern-day Leonida and the return to Vice City, the six official areas, and the tone signaled by official marketing, with in-game year, map size, Trailer 3, and non-console platforms flagged as unconfirmed.