Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says Rockstar teams explored Miami for Vice City, from police ride-alongs to night-time research and aerial photos taken above a Beyoncé concert.
Sources techradar.com · bloomberg.com · bloomberg.com
Vice City did not come only from a blank sheet of paper. In a video by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, covered by TechRadar, Rockstar leaders describe research trips to Miami during GTA VI’s development. The most cinematic detail is also the most ordinary: artists took a helicopter to photograph the city, then found themselves hovering over a Beyoncé concert.
The account comes from Schreier’s conversation with Rockstar executives after visiting the studio. It adds to his Bloomberg report on building Leonida. It is neither a scene from the game nor an announcement that the singer is involved in a mission.
Miami is a reference for Vice City, while Los Angeles also inspired parts of the fictional state of Leonida. Schreier reports that Rockstar teams, including artists and leaders, made several trips to the city. They visited different neighborhoods, studied their light and architecture, and joined police ride-alongs. The goal was not to copy a street map one block at a time. It was to gather believable details and impressions for a world that must work as both a setting and a playground.
A helicopter trip gave artists a chance to take aerial photographs. Passing over a Beyoncé concert gave them a view of the city that no street-level visit could provide. The anecdote does not mean Rockstar filmed the concert or secured rights to include it. It mainly shows the range of research methods used by the team.
Read also GTA 6: Miami adds a Sanguich sandwich and a Leonida coffee collaboration
Jonathan Ashcroft, Rockstar’s senior vice president of technology, told Schreier he spent his fortieth birthday in a nightclub during one of these trips. A group of Scottish developers stood out in the crowd and paid attention to the lighting instead of simply joining the party. The night also gave them a chance to see how light changes between spaces and at different times.
Conversations with locals provided another kind of material. Ashcroft said some people began sharing past crimes, or those of friends, as soon as they learned the visitors worked on GTA. This is an account from a studio executive, not a representative sample or an independent verification of those stories. Rockstar has not said that any of them were copied directly into the plot.
These trips document Rockstar’s reference work, not the final content of every mission. The real city becomes an interpretation: Vice City and Leonida remain fictional places, arranged for movement, characters and pacing. Schreier’s report adds context to details already reported about narrower roads and the freedom given to teams to enrich the world. It does not prove that every observation will appear in the playable release.
Rockstar has not published a full travel diary or a list of reproduced locations. The helicopter photographs therefore reveal neither the final map nor a new district. Our report on interiors discussed by developers and our coverage of roads and the weapon interface offer more context on the same production process.
Three weeks before launch, the anecdote adds a human view of a development often reduced to its scale or budget. It shows how Rockstar looks for details in the real world before adapting them. It confirms no new feature. GTA VI remains scheduled for November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S; the next concrete details will need to come from an official presentation or another attributed interview.
Sources techradar.com · bloomberg.com · bloomberg.com
Reported Reported by the press, not confirmed by Rockstar
By Solange Rocheval · GTAVIFRANCE newsroom
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