Vice City 2002 vs 2026: what GTA 6 kept from Tommy Vercetti's city, and what it rebuilt

GTA 6 goes back to Vice City, but not to that Vice City. The 2002 game's city was a 1986 period piece and the whole map. GTA 6's is a present-day city in a different universe, rebuilt from scratch, and one part of a whole state. What carries over is the name, the Miami inspiration, the beachfront and, as of last month, Flash FM. Nearly everything else is new.

Below, piece by piece, with what Rockstar has confirmed marked as confirmed and our own reading marked as our guess. If you want the short version as a table, it is on our Vice City 2002 vs 2026 page.

Two Vice Cities, two universes

Confirmed. Rockstar runs its games in eras. Vice City (2002) belongs to the 3D Universe with GTA III and San Andreas. GTA 6 belongs to the HD Universe that began with GTA IV in 2008 and carried on through GTA V. When the era changes, the cities are rebuilt: GTA IV's Liberty City is not GTA III's, and GTA V's Los Santos is not San Andreas's. Vice City is the last of the three to get the treatment, and it waited the longest, more than twenty-four years.

So nothing from the 2002 story is history in the new city. No Vercetti Estate, no Malibu Club as Tommy left it, no Lance Vance. If a familiar name turns up on November 19, read it as a nod, not a continuation.

1986 vs now

The 2002 game was built in under a year on GTA III's engine and set fifteen years before it, in 1986. It was the series' first period piece, and it committed: pastel suits, synth on the radio, Scarface and Miami Vice in every frame. Its Vice City was a city at the top of the cocaine decade, all new money and new towers.

GTA 6 is set now. Confirmed: Rockstar's premise is that Jason and Lucia have always felt the odds were stacked against them, an easy score goes wrong, and they are pulled into a conspiracy that stretches across Leonida. The city around them has phones, cruise ships, construction cranes and a nightlife that Rockstar's own screenshots show from a dozen angles, most of them being filmed by someone.

Our guess: the tone is the biggest change of all. The 1986 city was a fantasy of excess played with a smirk. The HD Universe aims at the present with a sharper edge, the way GTA V aimed at Los Angeles. Expect the 2026 Vice City to be about the gap between how Miami looks on a phone and how it feels to work there.

The map: the whole game vs one city in a state

Confirmed. In 2002 Vice City was the entire map: two main islands joined by bridges, a scatter of smaller ones, about 4.25 square kilometres in all, roughly twice GTA III's Liberty City. From a helicopter you could take in most of it in one sweep.

In 2026 Vice City is one city in Vice-Dale County at the centre of the state of Leonida. South of it are the bridge-linked Leonida Keys; west, the Grassrivers wetlands; up the Gulf coast, the faded beach town of Port Gellhorn; inland, Ambrosia; at the northern edge, Mount Kalaga. Rockstar has not published a size for the city or the state, but it describes Vice City as the most detailed street-level city it has built.

There is a second difference that is easy to miss. The 2002 game opened at Escobar International, with Tommy in the city from the first minute. GTA 6's story, Rockstar confirmed this week, begins in Port Gellhorn. Jason and Lucia have to earn Vice City.

Our guess: square kilometres will be the least interesting comparison. The 2002 city was big for its time and mostly facades. The question for 2026 is density: how many of those doors open.

The districts, then and now

In 2002 the east island had the beaches: Ocean Beach and Washington Beach with their art-deco hotels, and Vice Point to the north with the Malibu Club and the mall. Between the islands sat Leaf Links golf club, Starfish Island and its mansions, and Prawn Island with the film studio. The west island had Downtown, Little Havana, Little Haiti, Viceport on the docks and Escobar International.

Confirmed for 2026: Ocean Beach, with pastel art-deco hotels along white sand; Little Cuba, modelled on Miami's Little Havana, which Rockstar describes down to the panaderías; and the Tisha-Wocka Flea Market, one of the few single landmarks named before launch. Rockstar also points to a cruise port, an international airport modelled on Miami's, and a Vinewood-style Vice City sign.

Names like South Beach, Downtown, La Perle and The Marina come from fans mapping the trailers, not from Rockstar, and may change on November 19. Our Inside Vice City guide walks them block by block, and the map marks which is which.

So Ocean Beach is the one name confirmed in both games. Little Havana became Little Cuba. Our guess: that is the Liberty City rule again. Between GTA III and GTA IV, Rockstar kept the shape of the real city and moved the names. Expect the same for the islands, the golf course and the docks.

The leads: one man, then two

Tommy Vercetti walks out of prison after fifteen years, is sent south by the Forelli family to open their Vice City operation, and watches the deal get ambushed within the hour. The rest of the game is him refusing to be anyone's errand boy again, taking the city one business at a time. Ray Liotta played him, at the head of a cast that included Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, Gary Busey, Danny Trejo, Luis Guzmán and Philip Michael Thomas of Miami Vice as Lance Vance.

Confirmed for 2026: Jason Duval grew up around crooks, did a stint in the Army and came out wanting an easy life. He now runs product for smugglers in the Leonida Keys. Lucia Caminos was taught to fight by her father, went to Leonida Penitentiary for fighting for her family, and intends to make nothing but smart moves from here. Rockstar's character page adds that she spent her early years in Liberty City.

Our guess: that last detail is a quiet echo. Tommy came south from Liberty City too. Different universe, different Liberty City, so it is not a link in the story, but Rockstar writes these pages with care. The bigger difference is the shape. Tommy's game was a takeover: one man, one city, an empire by the credits. Two leads who depend on each other, in a state rather than a city, points somewhere else.

The look: the 1980s as a costume

Confirmed. Every GTA 6 pre-order comes with the Vintage Vice City Pack: a pastel suit and period hairstyles for Jason, a red sequin mini dress and big curls for Lucia, and a 1955 Vapid Stanier. In other words, Rockstar is offering 1986 as fancy dress in the present-day city.

Our guess: that tells you exactly what Rockstar thinks people remember. Not the missions, the look. Ruby's Miami to Vice City guide has more on how the new city dresses when it is not in costume.

Getting around

The 2002 game was the first of the 3D games with motorcycles, which had been cut from GTA III and were the most requested addition, and the first with helicopters you could fly properly. The PCJ-600 sports bike arrived here and has turned up in almost every GTA since.

Confirmed for 2026: Rockstar's trailers and screenshots show cars, motorbikes, boats, airboats in the Grassrivers, jet skis off the waterfront and a helicopter over the skyline. Full vehicle lists come at launch; our vehicle database will fill in from verified in-game facts.

The radio

The 2002 game's nine stations were, for a lot of people, the game: Flash FM for pop, V-Rock for metal, Emotion 98.3 for power ballads, Wave 103 for new wave, Fever 105 for disco and soul, Wildstyle for early hip hop and electro, Radio Espantoso for Latin, and talk on VCPR and K-Chat.

Confirmed for 2026: on October 8 Rockstar previewed six Leonida stations. Flash FM is back, playing pop in the present day, alongside Dirty South Classics, Cocoteo FM, Afro Bank FM, Back Country Radio and The Chamber 106.6. Rockstar said some stations are tied to parts of the map. It has not said whether six is the full lineup.

Our guess: the lineage is easy to read. The Chamber 106.6 is V-Rock's heir for metal, and Cocoteo FM picks up where Radio Espantoso left off for Latin music. More on how the dial has changed across the series in GTA radio through the years.

Six stars, then and now

Confirmed. Both games top out at six wanted stars. GTA V dropped to five; GTA 6 brings the sixth back for the first time since GTA IV. The difference is how you get them. In 2002 the stars lit the instant you did something wrong. In GTA 6 a crime has to be witnessed, and four icons beside the stars show what the police know: your vehicle, your clothes, your face and whether you are with a partner. Our wanted level explainer has the detail.

There is a neat echo here. In 2002, a change of clothes at one of Tommy's outfit pickups wiped the stars outright. In 2026 a full change of outfit clears the clothing lead. Forty years on, the advice is the same: dress forgettable.

What the 2002 game gave every GTA since

Vice City introduced the empire loop, properties that earn money and unlock missions, which ran through San Andreas, GTA V's businesses and GTA Online. It gave the 3D games motorcycles and real flight, interiors that mattered and a voiced leading man. It made a licensed soundtrack part of the identity of a GTA, and it sold more than 17.5 million copies. GTA 6 runs on all of it.

What to look for on November 19

Our guess, not Rockstar's promise. Whether Ocean Beach has a hotel that nods to the Ocean View. Whether a club in the new Vice Point, if there is one, borrows anything from the Malibu. What Flash FM actually plays in 2026. And whether Little Cuba and the fan-named La Perle line up with the old Little Havana and Little Haiti. The full classic is on our Vice City page, and the original story of the 2002 game is in Vice City (2002): the neon city GTA 6 goes back to.

Vice City 2002 vs 2026: the side-by-side table