Rockstar Games travelled extensively across Florida and spent time with police officers, gang members and local communities while researching the world of Grand Theft Auto VI.
Rockstar Games went to extraordinary lengths to research the world of Grand Theft Auto VI, travelling across Florida and spending time with everyone from police officers to gang members as it worked to recreate the state for the upcoming game.
Speaking to Love Magazine, Rockstar head of development Aaron Garbut explained how research trips form an important part of the studio’s development process.
Garbut said: “Every game we make starts with research trips. It’s where to get to explore both the place and our ideas as a group.”
For GTA VI, a small team initially travelled from Miami through surrounding towns before heading through the Florida Keys to Key West.
Subsequent trips involved more Rockstar developers, who explored the region’s culture, people and stories in greater detail.
Garbut said he documented the trips using a camera and phone, capturing everything from everyday life to more unusual experiences.
On one occasion, Rockstar developers flew low over the mangrove inlets of the Everglades before hovering over a stadium hosting a Beyoncé concert.
Garbut said: “We do go in-depth, we hang with locals and we hear lots of stories and learn as much as we can. We travel around with cops and with gang members.”
The research also exposed the team to the darker side of Florida, with Garbut describing some of the stories and locations they encountered as “terrifying”.
Rockstar’s aim, he explained, is to capture the extremes of modern Florida, from wealth and poverty to tourism, crime and excess.
He said: “Miami itself is really those extremes — lovely people, incredible wealth, incredible poverty, excess, craziness, the hustle, and showing it all off.”
That attention to detail extends beyond GTA VI’s main story and missions.
Rockstar said pedestrian conversations, radio programmes and advertisements are all treated as important components of the world rather than background filler.
The studio is also deliberately avoiding direct references to viral real-world events.
Given the lengthy development cycle of a Grand Theft Auto game, Rockstar believes such references could quickly become outdated.
Instead, GTA VI’s satire will focus on broader aspects of modern culture, conspiracy theories and “the strange ways people react to events”.
With Rockstar promising an enormous and densely populated version of Florida, the studio’s extensive research could help make GTA VI’s fictional Leonida feel less like a video game map and more like a living, unpredictable place.
Rockstar travelled across Florida with gang members and police officers for Grand Theft Auto VI research
