One invented state, one Miami, one year nobody has confirmed
Where and when GTA 6 is set
GTA 6 takes place in Leonida, a fictional American state that stands in for Florida, and its biggest city is Vice City, Rockstar's version of Miami. The time is the present day. That last part is where most pages start guessing, because Rockstar has described the setting as modern without ever naming a year. This page separates what Rockstar has actually said from what the internet has filled in around it.
The short answer
Two questions get asked as one. Where, and when. They have very different amounts of official material behind them.
as of August 28, 2026
The place. A fictional US state called Leonida, built as Rockstar's Florida. Its dominant city is Vice City, built as Rockstar's Miami.
The time. Present day. Rockstar's own description of Vice City opens by putting distance between the game and the 1980s, and the world is full of smartphones and working social feeds.
The year. Never stated. No dated newspaper, no calendar, no press release. Every specific year you read online is somebody's inference.
The old game. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City from 2002 was set in 1986. GTA 6 shares the city name and the Miami idea, and nothing else. It is not a remake.
Leonida, the state Rockstar invented
Leonida is not a real place and has never been one. It works the way San Andreas works for California in GTA 5, a compressed fictional version of a real state. Four things about it are settled.
Leonida is fictional. Florida is the inspiration, not the blueprint.
Vice City sits inside Leonida and is the state's major metropolis.
Rockstar has not published a world map of Leonida.
Rockstar has never called Vice City the capital of Leonida.
The official wording is short and has not changed since day one. Grand Theft Auto VI heads to the state of Leonida, home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City and beyond. That line comes from the press release put out on December 4, 2023, the day Trailer 1 went live, and it is still the shortest correct answer to where the game is set.
The Florida parallel is deliberate and not remotely hidden. A swampy interior, an island chain in the south, a run-down stretch of gulf coast, sugar country in the middle, forest and high ground in the north. If you know the real state, you will recognise the outline of it. What you will not get is a copy. Rockstar shrinks real geography hard, invents the names, and keeps the flavour rather than the map.
What Rockstar has named, region by region, is the part worth memorising.
The regions Rockstar has named
After Trailer 2 in May 2025, Rockstar published screenshots and a short description for six areas of Leonida. These six are the officially named places. Everything past this list comes from fans reading trailer frames.
Vice City
The urban core and the reason most people are here. Rockstar's own description is also the clearest statement about the time period anywhere in the marketing: a long way from the '80s, but still the sun and fun capital of America, with the glamour, hustle and greed of the country captured in a single city. The neighbourhoods named so far run from art deco hotels and white sand at Ocean Beach to the panaderias of Little Cuba.
The island chain in the south, standing in for the Florida Keys. Rockstar's line is that the dress code is casual and the bars are loaded, which is a tidy way of saying boats, beaches and easy money. It is also where Jason is introduced, so it is not background scenery.
The wetlands, built as the Everglades equivalent. Rockstar calls it the untamable jewel of Leonida's crown and adds that you never know what lies beneath the surface of this primordial expanse. Expect airboats, alligators and things somebody wanted to get rid of.
The forgotten coast, in Rockstar's own phrase. Cheap motels, shut-down attractions and empty strip malls that will not bring the tourists back. This is the faded gulf coast rather than the postcard Florida, and so far it reads as the poorest corner of the state shown.
The industrial and agricultural middle. Rockstar frames it as the place where the battle for the health and wealth of Leonida begins, where American industry and old school values still reign supreme. Screenshots have shown a sugar refinery, which fits central Florida almost exactly.
The northern wilderness. Rockstar describes room to breathe on the state's northern fringes, a national landmark offering prime hunting, fishing and off-road trails. It is the closest thing Leonida has to a mountain region and the strongest sign that the map is not just city and swamp.
This is the question with the least official material behind it and the most confident answers online. The state of play in four lines, then the reasoning.
Confirmed: the present day, explicitly not the 1980s.
Confirmed: contemporary technology, including smartphones and in-game social media.
Not confirmed: any calendar year.
Not confirmed: how much in-game time the story covers, or whether it jumps.
Present day is safe. Rockstar's description of Vice City leads with the distance from the 1980s, and the Extended Look shown on August 27, 2026 is built around contemporary life. Characters use phones, browse working social feeds, and the in-game answer to Instagram returns under the name Snapmatic. A world with livestreams and viral posts is not set in any decade before this one.
A specific year is a different matter. Rockstar has never named one. There is no dated newspaper in the footage, no calendar, no line in a press release. The sites printing 2026 or 2025 are extrapolating from two things, the release date and the series habit of setting its modern entries close to their own launch year. That is a sensible guess and it is still a guess.
This is not the 1986 Vice City
The name is the same. Almost nothing else is, and the mix-up costs people real money on preorders they misunderstood. The differences first.
2002 game: 1986, one city, one protagonist, its own continuity.
GTA 6: the present day, a whole state, two protagonists.
No announced story connection between the two.
No announced returning characters.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out in 2002 and was set in 1986, with Tommy Vercetti and a soundtrack built from that decade. GTA 6 is a new game, made new, set now. It is not a remake, not a remaster and not a continuation of that story. No returning character from it has ever been announced.
What does carry across is the idea and the name. A Miami equivalent called Vice City, revisited decades later and rebuilt at a completely different scale, since the old game was one city and the new one is a whole state. Fans have spotted familiar landmark names in the trailers, and Rockstar has clearly leaned on the recognition. Whether the two games sit in one shared continuity is a long-running fan argument about series lore, not something Rockstar has stated for GTA 6.
Jason, Lucia, and why it has to be a whole state
The setting is not just scenery in this one. Rockstar's premise is a couple on the run, and a state rather than a city gives them somewhere to run to.
The official premise
Rockstar's framing is that Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them, and that an easy score goes wrong and drops them into a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida. The comparison Rockstar and its coverage keep reaching for is Bonnie and Clyde, a criminal couple rather than a lone protagonist.
Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos, the first pair of playable leads in the series and the first playable woman in a mainline GTA. Jason is introduced in the Leonida Keys and lives off drug running and collection work. Lucia has just come out of Leonida Penitentiary. Rockstar's bios stay short and give you a starting point rather than a plot.
A story about two people who cannot stay anywhere for long only works if there is a somewhere else. The named regions read like a route rather than a set of postcards: the Keys in the south, the city, the swamp, the faded coast, the industrial middle, the high ground in the north. That is the shape of a story about running, and the strongest hint anyone has about how the map gets used.
Short list, all of it genuinely open. If a page answers any of these confidently, check its source rather than its tone.
Whether you can travel to Los Santos or any earlier GTA city. Nothing has been said, in either direction. There is no confirmed connection between Leonida and any other GTA map.
Whether the whole state is open from the start or gated behind story progress.
How the six named regions divide up in-game, since official material also uses a county naming scheme that does not line up one to one with the six region names.
Whether Leonida grows later. No post-launch map expansion has been announced, and there is no confirmed online mode at launch to hang one on.
The exact year, which is the single most requested number on this whole subject and the one nobody has.
One last piece, since the setting question usually arrives attached to a purchase decision.
When and where you can actually go there
The practical facts around the setting, kept separate so they are easy to check.
as of August 28, 2026
Release: November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
PC: no release date announced.
Preload: opens November 12, 2026.
Price: 79.99 USD for the Standard Edition and 99.99 USD for the Ultimate Edition, and the same figures in euros.
Preorders: open since June 25, 2026.
Online: no online mode confirmed for launch.
FAQ
Which city is GTA 6 set in?
Vice City, Rockstar's version of Miami. It sits inside the fictional state of Leonida, Rockstar's version of Florida, and the game covers the wider state as well as the city.
Is GTA 6 a remake of Vice City from 2002?
No. It is a new game. The 2002 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was set in 1986 and covered one city. GTA 6 is set in the present day and covers a whole state. They share a city name and a Miami inspiration, and nothing announced beyond that.
Does GTA 6 take place in Miami?
Not literally. Vice City is a fictional city modelled closely on Miami, in the same way Leonida is a fictional state modelled on Florida. Real Miami landmarks appear only as invented equivalents.
What state is GTA 6 set in?
Leonida, which does not exist. It is Rockstar's stand-in for Florida. Six regions have been officially named so far: Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park.
What year is GTA 6 set in?
Unconfirmed. Rockstar has said the game is a long way from the 1980s, and the world is clearly contemporary, with smartphones and working social media. No calendar year has ever appeared in official material, so any specific year you see is a guess.
Can you travel to Los Santos in GTA 6?
Nothing has been confirmed. Rockstar has never announced a link between Leonida and Los Santos or any other earlier GTA map, and has not ruled one out either. Treat every claim in either direction as unverified.
