Opinion: Vox is a city man, and GTA 6 wants him in a swamp with 170 species of animal

This is Vox, with an opinion. The animal numbers come from Game Informer's September cover story, written with Rockstar's cooperation; the map details come from Rockstar and Edge. Sources are at the bottom. The opinions, and a lifelong fear of geese, are mine. Fair warning: I swear in this one.

Let me set expectations. I have lived in cities my entire adult life. My relationship with nature is that I have seen it through a train window and found it fine. When Bama writes about the swamp at night, I read it the way other people read horror.

So naturally, the week before launch, the editors gave me the wildlife.

The number

Game Informer's cover story says Leonida has more than 170 animal species, across land, air and sea. GTA V had about 28. Rockstar has gone from a petting zoo to an ark.

Now the small print.

• The reported breakdown is roughly 60 kinds of bird, 30-plus land mammals, and a long tail of fish and reptiles. So about a third of the headline is birds. I respect birds. I also note that "170 species" sounds a lot bigger than "about 60 birds, 30 mammals and a great many fish".
• Some animals are sorted into rare, discoverable and legendary tiers, and some can be tracked. That is a hunting system wearing a nature documentary's coat, and Red Dead players are already sharpening knives.
• Animals get a new fur system for their pelts. Nobody spends engineering time on pelts unless the player is going to own one. I find this more threatening than the alligators.

Where the animals are

Rockstar's own description of Mount Kalaga National Park lists hunting, fishing and off-road trails as the reasons people go there. Grassrivers is the Everglades with the serial numbers filed off: sawgrass, airboats, and alligators in what feels like every third official screenshot. The Leonida Keys have the reef, the iguanas and, in one screenshot, an iguana strolling in front of a woman on a mobility scooter, both of them completely unbothered, which is the most Florida image any company has ever produced on purpose.

Then there are the invasive species. The same reporting names three: cane toads, feral cats and rhesus macaques.

Monkeys. In Leonida. Somebody at Rockstar read about Florida's real wild monkeys and could not let it go, and honestly, same.

The part where I have to go there

Here is what wrecks my plan of staying in Vice City for eighty hours. Edge says the map opens up relatively early: you can head north and explore without following the story. And Rockstar told Edge that days and nights now run longer, because at GTA V's speed "everything felt too fast."

So the swamp is not a late-game zone I can put off until I feel brave. It is out there from roughly the start, with a long sunset attached, and every person who has read this far is going to go. Including me. Damn it.

My conditions

I will visit the wilderness on the following terms.

• I'm going by airboat. A vehicle class that exists only because of one terrain is a commitment I respect. If I am going to meet an alligator, I want to be moving very fast in the other direction.
• I'm not hunting. I'm sure it will be deep and meaningful. I spent a decade in Los Santos running over pedestrians by accident, and I would like one relationship in this series to be voluntary on both sides. I'll take photos.
• I'm finding the monkeys. If the macaques are real, I want them. If Rockstar named them and then left them out, I will write a very calm opinion piece about it, and it will be the angriest thing I have ever filed.
• I'm leaving before dark. Bama has already told you what might be out there after sunset, and the nights are longer now. Hell no.

The verdict

Here is the uncomfortable bit for a professional cynic. Of everything Rockstar has announced, this is the part that sounds least like marketing. A number you cannot check until launch is normally my favourite thing to be rude about. But pelts, tiers, tracking and three invasive species are not things you invent for a press release. They are things you build, and then spend years tuning so a deer does not walk through a bloody wall.

So yes. The city man is going to the swamp. Once. With an airboat, a camera and a firm departure time. If the monkeys are there, I will admit Bama was right about everything, in print, which is how you know I mean it. If they are not, you will hear about it.

The complete wildlife guide has every animal Rockstar has shown so far. Read it. Its authors are nicer than me.

Every GTA 6 animal in the wiki