What ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Gets Right (and Wrong) About Miami

The last time I was in Miami, I packed my schedule with all the most touristy things you can imagine: partying at E11even, brunching in Wynwood, ceviche-maxxing in South Beach. It was a college spring break trip, so I was happy enough to embrace the clichés by tequila-shotting my way down Ocean Drive. Grand Theft Auto, for its part, also loves a Miami stereotype. GTA: Vice City, released in 2002, was Rockstar Games’ love letter to the gritty city depicted in Miami Vice, all neon lights and drug dealers on yachts, some parts of it more realistic than others. The game became a mass-cultural event and helped launch GTA toward its current industry domination.Grand Theft Auto VI, the series’ highly-anticipated, 13-years-in-the-making new installment, will tap back into that same Miami mystique. But this time, it's a present-day rendition of the 305. Think influencer girlfriends, rooftop parties, camo shorts, and alligators in all kinds of wrong places. On the heels of a new trailer full of previously-unseen gameplay footage, we got curious about how closely Rockstar's Vice City stacks up with the real Miami, so we asked a wide-ranging cohort of locals—from crypto bros to OnlyFans stars—for their thoughts. Here's what they had to say.“I think they nailed the fact that Miami is almost impossible to exaggerate. You look at some of the scenes and think, ‘There’s no way that’s real,’ but if you actually live here, you’ve probably seen something crazier on a random Tuesday. There are obviously all the classic Miami things, the boats, the beaches, the nightlife, the supercars and people who look like they’re permanently ready to go out... but that really is part of the personality of the city. Miami is very glamorous, but it’s also chaotic and unpredictable, and I think the game seems to understand both sides of it. What feels especially accurate is how much social media seems to be part of the world. Miami is a city where everybody is filming something, posting something or trying to become the main character. Obviously GTA takes everything to another level, but that part honestly doesn’t feel very far from real life. I’m excited to see what places people recognize once we can actually explore the city. Miami has such a specific look and energy that you can immediately tell what they’re referencing, even when they’ve changed the names. I have a feeling people who actually live here are going to spend half the game pointing at the screen saying, ‘I know exactly where that is.’”“What struck me is how specific the wardrobe feels. You can almost tell where someone exists within Miami before they say a word. The yacht girls look exactly like Miami yacht girls. The yacht owner looks exactly like the kind of Miami guy who might be having a midlife crisis on his boat. Even the more unhinged characters feel specific to a certain pocket of the city rather than like generic stereotypes… I’m also really interested to see where [Lucia and Jason] go through clothing. If their story takes them into different social circles or there’s any kind of social climbing involved. In a city like Miami, what you wear can say a lot about where you are, where you think you belong, and where you’re trying to get to.”"Miami, Florida is where you go for your last chance. Miami, Florida is where you know, whatever you've done bad, your neighbor has done worse. You may be hiding from tax returns, but your neighbor is hiding a dead body… people in Miami will do absolutely anything to avoid a 9-5 job. Miami is the sort of place where your Uber driver is driving a Bentley, and you don't ask any questions because you know he has a few side hustles, and this trailer encapsulates this."“Miami has always been larger than life. The nightlife, the cars, the heat, the characters. Everything’s louder, faster and a little unhinged. Half the time it already feels like you’re living inside GTA. GTA VI just gave you the controller.”“I think it's a real Florida, or South Florida, story. In the trailers, you see a lot of places that are clearly not Miami. There are those outskirts, there's the boonies, the Everglades – which are totally different cultures…. But I think it captures the subcultures really well. There's this scene in the new trailer, [where] there's this fast-talking guy that gets off a private jet, making deals, bossing people around – these are characters I've met in real life. Ultimately, GTA is one of the greatest pieces of cultural commentary and satire that exists. So it's all exaggerated and a bit bombastic, but ultimately, it really captures the various subcultures of Miami… I've seen more car and boat chases in Miami than every other place I've been in my life combined. It's the perfect place for a Grand Theft Auto game. That stuff happens."Usama, student“Being someone that went to UMiami, you hear a lot of crazy stories that go around campus, especially concerning liquor, drugs, some sketchy stuff that goes around… I like how [the trailer] shows a lot of the darker and more grungy areas within Miami – that's a lot of areas in Miami, especially in South Miami where I live. You can see some more grungy liquor stores, the not-safe places, but also the kind of more high-rise luxury places like Brickell. I also liked how the trailer showed the different biomes and nature which is present in Miami, which a lot of people don't know about."Ryan Pfeffer, Miami senior editor at The Infatuation"I love how nightlife seems to be such a big part of the game, because it's such a big part of Miami, too. I spotted a few obvious parodies [in the trailer]: at 17:36, they're entering a club called Jack Of Hearts. I have to assume it's a shout-out to the legendary Miami gentlemen's club King of Diamonds, which is to Miami what Magic City is to Atlanta. There's also a banner plane pulling an ad for Nine1Nine at 18:30… an obvious dupe for E11even, the megaclub/strip club that's open 24/7 and is a reliable den of Miami hedonism. At around 9:40, the rooftop restaurant they go to really reminds me of Juvia, a very popular South Beach spot that's now closed, but was probably open when they started developing the game. The name Effluvia also makes me think that's what they had in mind. Hank's waffles could be a little nod to Jimmy's Diner, although the two don't look alike…Overall, I just think they did such a great job of capturing the texture of Miami. The streamers causing chaos, the tow truck driver in a fist fight in the middle of Ocean Drive – all things you might actually see on any given day in this city, unfortunately. The causeways – those bridges that take you from mainland Miami to Miami Beach – are almost perfect recreations. The ubiquity of banner planes in the sky is spot on for South Beach. The number of cranes dotting the skyline is also accurate for a city that's pretty much constantly under construction. They've recreated entire city blocks in painstaking detail, and I really can't wait to just drive around, which is probably the only time I've ever been excited about driving around in Miami."“Every time I’m in Miami, I think back to riding dirt bikes through the back streets of South Beach on Vice City — streets that somehow still look almost exactly the same in real life. I’ve worked, partied, and chilled in Miami, and I can confirm that a lot of the stereotypes are very real. Some of the characters you come across genuinely feel like they belong in a video game. One of my favorite things to do there is just stroll along South Beach and people-watch. You see every type of person imaginable, and there’s always something going on. At times, Miami doesn’t even feel like a real place. You can find complete chaos or total calm depending on what you’re into, which is probably exactly what makes it such a perfect setting for GTA.”"It was pretty spot-on on a few things. For one, I do know someone who goes by Boobie, which is really funny… The Spanglish of it all was pretty good, and one of the themes being a Latin American media company opening its first US headquarters in Miami – pretty spot-on; Megamundo being the name was pretty funny to me. The jet skis, the strip clubs of it all, starting with that song ["Stuntin' Like My Daddy"] with Lil Wayne and Birdman—very Miami. And the use of the word bro, the small dresses. It would've been fun if they had a nicer, classier part of Miami, to have some crime in. It's not just Miami Beach."“Miami is a wild place with a lot of different sides, and it’s cool to see GTA capture all of them; from Wynwood and Little Haiti to Brickell and South Beach. Some of the buildings, hotels, and clubs are so accurate it's scary. Miami can be supercars and mega-yachts one minute, then alligators in the Everglades the next. It’s my favorite city in the world, and honestly, whatever ridiculous stuff goes down in GTA, there’s a pretty good chance it’s already happened here in real life. And if you haven't been to Miami, it looks like GTA will sum it up nicely for you.”This story originally appeared in British GQ.