Vice City in GTA 6: From 1986 to 2026, the Big Return

Yes, Vice City is back. With GTA VI, Rockstar plants its flag again in its Miami stand-in, twenty-four years after the 2002 original. But the city has changed era, engine and scale. Here’s what separates the iconic 1986 Vice City from the modern one in Grand Theft Auto VI.

Same name, two eras that couldn’t be further apart

The 2002 Vice City was frozen in 1986: pastels, white suits, synth and cocaine, an unabashed homage to Scarface and Miami Vice. The GTA VI one is set in the 2020s. Rockstar sums it up in a line on its official page: protagonists Jason and Lucia end up “on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America.” Gone is the pure 80s nostalgia; in comes the Florida of the social-media era, vertical clips and influencers.

From RenderWare to RAGE: twenty-four years of technical leap

The original ran on RenderWare, the engine shared with GTA III and San Andreas, tuned for the PlayStation 2. GTA VI is built on Rockstar’s in-house RAGE engine, in the technical lineage of Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). The studio hasn’t publicly detailed GTA VI’s tech, but the two trailers show a density of pedestrians, weather and world simulation that was out of reach in 2002. The bar has moved: where Vice City rendered a few dozen NPCs on screen, GTA VI is aiming for crowds.

A standalone city in 2002, a whole state in 2026

In 2002, Vice City was a compact city, two big islands linked by bridges. GTA VI makes it the beating heart of a complete state, Leonida, Rockstar’s version of Florida, with the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park. The region-by-region breakdown is in our tour of the Leonida regions and on the map page. To gauge this leap against the previous game, also see our GTA 5 vs GTA 6 comparison.

The same DNA: sun, neon and satire

Despite the gap, the spirit remains: the contrast between the flashy luxury of the beaches and the violence behind the scenes, the biting satire of America and an ever-present soundtrack. A note for purists: technically, the last trip to Vice City was Vice City Stories (2006), a PSP prequel set in 1984. But in a mainline GTA, this is the first time since 2002 that the city becomes the central playground again.

The table below sums up what separates the two Vice Citys.