Highlights

  • The soundtrack of every Grand Theft Auto game is important, but it truly defines GTA:Vice City , and the 2025 release including hits from the time, or new songs with a similar vibe will do well to make it feel consistent.
  • Grand Theft Auto has fleeting moments where crime is occurring in the world around the player, but Vice City's underbelly is obvious to fans of the 2002 game, and littering the space with more active crimes (akin to the likes of Spider-Man ) would help the game feel like the player isn't the only one doing evil deeds.
  • GTA: Vice City deploys a deceptively small map, and taking cues from GTA 5 to provide a huge, but topographically diverse map would make all sides of the game more replayable.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is attempting to follow up what is arguably gaming's biggest achievement. Its predecessor is one of the most renowned pieces of fictional entertainment ever made, and has enjoyed 10 years of success over multiple different iterations. That game took to the sunny streets of Los Santos with a sprawling map, dense story, and endless amusement in the online portion of the game that is still going strong today.

However, though leaks confirmed it, Rockstar released a trailer showing off some of the nuances of Grand Theft Auto 6's setting. It's going somewhere familiar, as Vice City will once again be in the spotlight. The location was at the center of a truly beloved PlayStation 2 game, but 23 years after that game debuted, it will have to look and feel different. Fans' desires will be endless, yet there are some rational things the developer can do to make it stand out.

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Vice City Needs to be Expanded

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The PlayStation 2 trilogy of Grand Theft Auto games were some of the most influential of that generation, due in no small part to the non-linearity of the maps they provide. San Andreas was the peak of the three in terms of scope, and though Vice City never felt restrictive, its actual size was somewhat small. Grand Theft Auto 6 needs to take the size and structure of GTA 5's Los Santos and find a way to stretch Vice City and all its attractions into a map of that caliber.

To make downtown Vice City feel nostalgic and familiar while adding new areas that fit seamlessly with the tone and presentation fans have become familiar with is a tough task. As each Rockstar Games open world is often seen as the new benchmark, the pure size of the map has to be substantial to justify keeping players' attention in both the singleplayer and online offerings. Like a Dragon shows that small spaces can be used effectively, but Vice City should steer in the opposite direction for the sake of its longevity.

Vice City's Soundtrack is Essential to the Experience

GTA6 Vice City Music

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a time piece, and a reentry into the glitzy, neon-infused streets of a fictional Miami in the 1980s. The music that accompanied the game was perfectly in-keeping with that idea. Radio stations blaring tunes from Kim Wilde and Michael Jackson while players cruise down the beachfront was what made Vice City so distinctive from the games it was sandwiched between, but in this regard, Grand Theft Auto 6 being set in the modern day could be an obstacle that Rockstar will have to overcome.

80s music is a must in Vice City if it wants to capture the true charm of the setting, but not balancing it with modern offerings could make it feel out of touch. The somewhat recent reemergence of 80s-ish funk music from artists such as Bruno Mars, Daft Punk, and The Weeknd might help to bridge that gap somewhat, but having different, current genres to go along with a strong 80s soundtrack would be welcomed by fans and would further show that the setting is still Vice City, but all grown up.

Crime is King in Grand Theft Auto

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It's obvious by the title alone that Grand Theft Auto 6 will have players indulge in illegal activities, but the trailer for the 2025 game shows a great deal of anti-social behavior happening all over the landscape. GTA has done a good job of showing pockets of crime happening around the player at intervals around the open world, so doubling down on this and making it feel like a truly crime-ridden place would help make the world feel even more alive.

In previous GTA games, it could feel as though the player is upsetting the peace with their antics as most others are driving within the law, and strolling through the streets without a care in the world. Often this was a hardware limitation tied to less powerful machines, but PC technology as well as home consoles have come a long way. Including frequent and realistic crimes that NPCs commit at regular intervals, be it erratic driving or robbing nearby stores, could keep the experience fresh.

Swimming in the Sea Around Vice City Would Right a Wrong

GTA: San Andreas included swimming as a mechanic, yet Vice City did not, and for a map surrounded by water, this was an obvious restriction, one that could be really frustrating to those who enjoyed the freedom of exploration away from the story.

According to the game manual, the narrative reason why players couldn't swim in the surrounding water in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was because it was infested with sharks.

Grand Theft Auto 5's swimming, however, is actively encouraged, with underwater areas that feel well fleshed out. To take that into GTA 6 would correct one of the biggest problems with the 2002 release, and could add a lot more diversity to the space. That's not to say the upcoming Rockstar release has to take cues from Subnautica, but it could satisfy the curiosity of gamers who always wondered why they couldn't swim out to sea the first time they visited Vice City.