Now that we've actually seen Vice City, this dedicated GTA 6 map community can finally get to work on accurately drawing out the entire game

GTA 6
(Image credit: Rockstar)

The arrival of the GTA 6 trailer means that we've had a pretty good look at the world of Vice City. But for one dedicated community, the trailer was just the next step in a complex GTA 6 mapping project - and now the real work can begin.

Earlier this week, Reddit user FluidAd6587 posted the latest iteration of a map put together the dedicated 'GTA 6 mapping' Discord. Based around the southern tip of Florida - the real-life state that Vice City's fictional home of Leonida is inspired by - the map takes into account major roads, buildings, and landmarks, and even gets granular enough to take a guess at the land use of specific parts of the map. Substantial areas are largely empty, but in the areas that have shown up in the trailer, the community is going through road by road and building by building in an attempt to create the most accurate GTA 6 map possible.

most recent edition of the GTA VI mapping project from r/GTA6

The work of recreating the map is being done round the clock in the community's Discord, and the latest version was posted barely an hour ago at time of writing. In that update, community lead DuPz0r confirmed that the focus had been on specific areas, like the Gator Keys region, downtown Vice City, and the city's port.

While it might seem as though the GTA 6 trailer was pivotal to this work, DuPz0r and company have been working on the map in significant detail since September 2022, when the substantial GTA 6 leak provided our first look at the game's world. Since then, there have been periods of downtime, and flurries of activity. The arrival of the trailer has led to an obvious gold rush, but the extreme precision of the community means that substantial work has been being done on the map for many months, and it's been recognizably Floridian for nearly a year.

Quite what the GTA 6 map will end up looking like remains something of a mystery - it's clear that this is a massive space, with several urban areas and many other rural spaces. It's also pretty clear that the trailer and the leaks are likely all we'll have to go on for some time, as Rockstar is likely to batten down the hatches on the game for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, it's some impressive work, and it'll be interesting to see how the project evolves between now and trailer two.

The GTA 6 trailer wasn't just cinematics, according to a former Rockstar developer who says "It's really gonna look like this."

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.