It is obvious that GTA 6 is going to be a cross-platform megahit on PS5 and Xbox Series X when it releases, with Rockstar's GTA V finally followed up on after what will be going on a decade since that game hit store shelves.
Indeed, right now GTA 6 looks very unlikely to launch this year on PS5 and Xbox Series X, with a 2022 release date slated by most analysts. That will be a whole nine years on from GTA V and its setting of the fictionalised North American city of Los Santos.
However, while GTA 6 will almost certainly introduce a whole host of new features and mechanics, one thing it doesn't now look like will be new is the setting of the game, with a fresh leak indicating we're about to go back to Vice City.
The leak consists of a top-down topographical map that emerged in an anonymous Imgur post online (opens in new tab) with the title "GTA 6". The map is not high definition and there are no markers on it either, but its main city's similarity to that in GTA: Vice City is evident, and is something that has seen it reported as a return to the in-game territory of Vice City, but now with markedly more map visitable outside of the city limits.
Take a look at the leaked GTA 6 map below:
The leaked map reportedly showing the in-game world of GTA 6, which is apparently a return to the location of GTA: Vice City.
Is this the GTA 6 map or a false leak? No one knows, but one thing is clear, at least to me, if GTA 6 takes us back to Vice City and its environs for the last game I'm going to disappointed. And here's why.
Of all the places on Earth you could of set the next GTA, and specifically considering you're developing a game that has access to the immense power on offer of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, why take us back to another fictional version of a North American city and immediate environs? We've seen that before, multiple times. It's old hat.
GTA has always been about boundary-pushing open world environments in which gamers can live out their own (usually violent) power fantasies, so why limit yourself to go back to the same old location and area of Earth?
Why not set a GTA game in one of the world's most exotic city states, such as Singapore or Monaco? What about a metropolis we've never seen before in a GTA game like Dubai, Shenzen, Tokyo or Hong Kong? Heck, even GTA: London 1969 shifted the game to a fictionalised version of London during the 1960s.
I wanted to see a bold new location choice in GTA 6 that would be brought to life by the graphical power delivered by Xbox Series X and PS5, not a higher-resolution, expanded version of a been-there-done-that in game world.
For me the word "limitless" is associated with the modern three-dimensional GTA franchise, as the series' best quality is that it communicates to you that you can go do anything and go anywhere (even if that is not true) – so why didn't Rockstar do so with GTA 6?
Here's hoping this map is not from GTA 6, then, and that I will be able to play a female character (finally!) in an entirely new and exciting location.
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