10 places I wish GTA 6 was set instead of Vice City

GTA 6 is set in Vice City. I get why. Of all the GTA locales over the decades, we’ve seen Vice City a handful of times, none of which were enough to give the city a distinct identity like Liberty City developed. Now’s the time to change that. But I can’t help thinking about how different GTA 6 and the broader series could be with a change of setting, something that wasn’t just another big, bad city. These are 10 of the things that popped into my mind.

1

The moon

In a hypothetical future where the moon is settled, of course. Not now! That’d just be running around on a big rock.

I’m imagining something like The Expanse but done up in GTA-style, with two interstellar criminals finding ways to build a new life after getting sent down (up? out?) on Earth. Rockstar’s social critique would transfer just as well to a futuristic sci-fi setting, if not even better since it’s less bound by the constraints of reality. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to swap standard weapons and vehicles for much cooler visions of the future. Flying a helicopter to your clubs around Miami? Snore. Swiping a corvette-style spaceship and using it for off-planet heists? Yes, please. Maybe the forthcoming The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will capture similar vibes?

2

A rural area

Image: Ubisoft

Big cities aren’t the only place where misdeeds and oppression thrive. All the factors that make somewhere like Miami or New York — sorry, “Vice City” and “Liberty City” — ideal settings for a gritty crime tale are just as true of small town USA. It worked for Far Cry 5, after all.

Social pressures are heightened thanks to closer proximity, and the gap between the haves and have nots is often more blatantly obvious. The decline of industry and the seemingly impossible task of revitalizing dying towns means fewer opportunities to turn a bad life around, as the dream of a better life slips further and further away. Okay, so Main Street is less glitzy and exciting than the flashy dens of iniquity in most GTA games, but it’d still be good.

3

London

Image: Ubisoft

Surely the network of U.K. studios with so much to say about American culture could turn its gaze inward, just a little, for once? Or are they gonna let Watch Dogs: Legion rule unchallenged?

4

In L.A. Noire

Image: Rockstar Games

Or something like L.A. Noire. You’re usually the criminal in GTA, but imagine a post-GTA story. You’ve already made it good, and then — you get busted. But! If you’re willing to turn informant and use your connections to help detectives do… whatever it is they need to do, you’ll get off lightly. There’s a reason people hopefully speculate Lucia or Jason will have a similar role in GTA 6: partly because it’d be a refreshing change from how GTA usually handles its heroes, but also because the series would just lend itself so well to the crime thriller genre. One of L.A. Noire‘s canceled mechanics would’ve been a great fit for GTA 6, too.

5

Baldur’s Gate

Image: Larian Studios

What would a fantastical GTA look like? No better way to find out than dropping it in the middle of one of Dungeons and Dragons’ most well-known settings. I know epic fantasy tales are all the rage thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3‘s success. But with rogues and thieves of all kinds, not to mention big cities crawling with injustice and foul doings, the Forgotten Realms are practically crying for a crime game.

Although since cars don’t exist in D&D, I dunno what you’d call it. Grand Theft Dragon?

6

1st-century Rome

Image: Wikimedia Commons

While we’re speculating about how GTA might translate to non-modern settings, let’s do a Ubisoft and leap back through time. Say, the early days of the Roman empire when political corruption was rampant, and society was volatile. Lucia and Jason are Britons or Germanic folks or maybe Carthaginians incarcerated in Rome and then set loose to make new lives in a world hostile to the very idea of their existence, by taking Roman values to their extremes and using them against the people who brought them low. Sounds pretty modern, yeah? Years may pass, but the themes of human history remain the same.

7

The ’80s

Image: Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive

The 1980s were a hot mess culturally, socially, economically, politically, cocainely — basically in every way. Name a problem in modern society, and there’s a good chance you can trace its origins or a significant shift in its lifecycle to that decade. Not just in the U.S. either. It was a time of huge change globally, so it’s a bit weird that we only have one game, Yakuza 0 from Ryu Ga Gotoku, that really makes good use of the setting.

8

Washington D.C.

Image: Joshua Santos/Pexels

The setting is whatever the equivalent of Washington D.C. is in GTA world. A foolish politician lets something slip while visiting one of their regular haunts, a club owned by you. And that little detail drags you into a world much more dangerous than the one you brought under your thumb. Video games haven’t really tried political thrillers yet, despite the genre’s popularity in other forms of media, and if anyone could do it well, I bet it’d be Rockstar.

9

Suburban Indiana

Image: Wikimedia Commons

I’m sure GTA has its equivalent of cities that make it on lists of the best places to live, or the safest or cleanest or whatever. In the real world in 2026, that’s Carmel, Ind. Which doesn’t exactly sound sexy or exciting as a setting, but if you really want to amp things up, set us loose in a place like that! Rockstar has capitalized on the “thrill” of being bad for a long time, but it’s always the equivalent of one drop of bad in an ocean of horrible. Being another chump cog in the crime machine is old news. Being the one who cracks a pristine, wholesome place and brings it down to your level? Now that’s bad.

10

Liberty City

Image: Rockstar Games

Okay, I know we’ve been to Liberty City a lot before, but it only really took on a unique identity in GTA 4. There, it’s the epitome of everything wrong with American culture and the false promises it’s built on, which, by extension, is the soul of GTA. Vice City is just… Florida. It’s obscene wealth juxtaposed with crippling poverty, extremes of all kinds, a pervasive, almost Las Vegas-like sense that nothing matters, like you’re cut free from the real world with no ties to the standards that govern it. Or that was the attitude when I lived in Florida for 20 years, anyway. Of those two settings, you can do a whole lot more meaningful storytelling with Liberty City.