GTA 6: Rockstar embedded a research team in Miami — and met real ex-criminals to build Vice City
Rockstar's Miami field office
Long before a single frame of gameplay aired on Netflix, Rockstar was doing fieldwork. According to Eurogamer, which reviewed the findings, the studio sent multiple teams of developers to Miami over the past decade — and set up a dedicated research team embedded in the city to study the real-world culture that Vice City is built on (Eurogamer). The details come from an exclusive Dazed feature with Rockstar's creative leads, published ahead of the magazine's autumn issue (Dazed).
"Anyone notorious or influential"
The most striking part is who the studio talked to. Rupert Humphries, senior vice president of narrative at Rockstar, told Dazed: "We will meet with ex-criminals, law enforcement, club promoters, gun dealers and anyone notorious or influential who'll take our calls. We hang out, get a feeling for the place, listen to the stories..." (Dazed). It is classic Rockstar method — the same appetite for authentic texture that shaped Liberty City and the Old West — but applied, the studio says, at a scale it has never attempted before.
From Little Cuba to South Beach
The research shows up in the details. Humphries cites Miami's music scene, "particularly Miami bass", and artists such as Kodak Black and Sexyy Red, as well as the city's geography of hip-hop: house parties in Overtown, clubs like Booby Trap on the River, and high-end South Beach venues where bottles cost thousands of dollars. Rockstar has also worked since 2023 with Miami-based stylist Jillian Carr, who designed an in-game "fashion ecosystem" for a city she describes bluntly: "Vice City is built around vanity" (Dazed). Writer Michael Wiafe says the team approached Florida "with an open mind, a genuine appreciation and a deep curiosity" rather than a cynical eye — and more than 50 real street artists were commissioned for murals in districts like the Stockyard, based on Miami's Wynwood (Eurogamer).
A team that doubled for one city
The effort is visible in the studio's structure. Rockstar's development team has more than doubled in size since Red Dead Redemption 2, and the company now runs an entire Los Angeles branch dedicated to pedestrian and NPC dialogue (Dazed). The process itself is a slow funnel: as Rob Nelson, head of development at Rockstar North, explained in an interview relayed by RockstarINTEL, the studio starts with a location, visits it, picks its "special areas", and only then builds characters and missions around the places (RockstarINTEL). For GTA VI, that funnel ran for roughly a decade — development reportedly began around the release of GTA V in 2013 (01net).
Why this matters
The Miami fieldwork is the missing piece behind the "reactive world" Rockstar keeps promising: NPCs that react to a rifle on your shoulder, a criminal profile that remembers your face and clothes, a world where actions carry consequences. Whether that authenticity lands as immersion or parody will be decided on November 19, 2026, when GTA VI launches on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S (Dazed). If the research holds up, Vice City may feel less like a caricature of Florida — and more like the state itself, with the volume turned up.