On GTA 6 map size, Rockstar now has a comparison on the record: Leonida, including Vice City and the areas around it, is nearly as large as the playable maps of GTA IV, GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined. The claim comes from Edge magazine’s GTA 6 cover feature, written by Simon Parkin after a visit to Rockstar North in Edinburgh and published free on GamesRadar+ on October 29, the day Edge 430 went on sale.
The 16-page report also covers NPCs, weather, police and expectations. Three Rockstar North leads speak on the record: Rob Nelson, co-studio head and head of development; Aaron Garbut, also a co-studio head and head of development; and Phil Hooker, who shares the head of development title and is responsible for driving the game towards stability.
Vice City is only part of Leonida: Rockstar told Edge the whole map is nearly as large as GTA IV, GTA V and RDR2 combined. Image: Rockstar Games
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GTA 6 map size: what Rockstar told Edge
Edge describes the map as “roughly twice the size of GTAV’s” and attributes the bigger comparison to the studio: “Rockstar says its total landmass, including Vice City and the surrounding areas, is nearly as large as the playable maps of GTAIV, GTAV and RDR2 combined.” Rockstar did not give a figure in square miles, so we don’t either.
Garbut stressed density over size. The game contains “an order of magnitude more interiors” than its predecessors, he told Edge. “Every back alley is as densely detailed and interesting as the others. You can go anywhere, any random location, and so many people have thought about that location.” For the regions Rockstar has named so far, see our GTA 6 map guide to every Leonida region.
GTA 6 NPCs: around 600,000 animations
According to Edge, Rockstar set up a Los Angeles-based team of writers, directors and producers to make Leonida’s pedestrians more individual. Edge reports that the studio art-directed every NPC, “creating around 600,000 animations”. Each pedestrian gets personality traits that shape how they react: temperament, aggression, where they are, what they have seen and how the player has treated them. Districts have their own “demographic and professional textures”.
Nelson describes building that population as asking: “Who’s going to be aggressive? How many people are going to go for a weapon? How many are going to test me?” He also explained why the old behaviour had to go: in GTA V, “you could literally produce one of those weapons in front of somebody and they would not react unless you aimed it at them.” In GTA 6, Edge says, carrying a shotgun in your hands can be enough to make a crowd scatter.
Edge reports Rockstar art-directed every pedestrian, with around 600,000 animations and personality traits. Image: Rockstar Games
Other new details in the Edge GTA 6 feature
| System | What Edge reports |
|---|---|
| Criminal Profile | Tracks Jason and Lucia’s behaviour from “Professional” to “Irredeemable”; Rockstar says it influences how the story unfolds |
| Police “heat” | Icons show what police know (description, clothes, partner, CCTV, weapon); changing clothes or splitting up helps |
| Weather | Clouds move independently; wind affects boats and aircraft. “This game is much more granular,” Garbut says |
| Day and night | Cycle extended “substantially”; with GTA V’s timings, Nelson says, “everything felt too fast” |
| Roads | Narrowed to “a more believable size” (Nelson) |
| Vehicles | Every car has a fuel gauge and engine health; buses and trains fully work |
Edge also says Jason and Lucia’s closeness is measured on a four-point scale. The two lead characters are profiled in our GTA 6 characters list.
“A pyramid on Everest”: Rockstar on expectations
Garbut told Edge that matching the standard of GTA V and RDR2 would not be enough. “We can’t just trot out something that’s what people might expect, or that was the easy thing to do,” he says. “We’ve not compromised on the scale, the detail, the interactivity, the story, the open world.” His summary: “I feel like we’ve built a pyramid on Everest.”
Hooker is more cautious: “I can’t guess the public reaction,” he says, adding, “We’ve made what we wanted to make.” Nelson calls the outside pressure “unprecedented”. “It’s ready,” he says of the final stretch. “It ceases to become ours, and it becomes everybody’s.”
What it means for players
Most of these details come from Edge’s account of a 90-minute session in which Nelson played the current build, with the quoted lines from Rockstar’s three leads; Rockstar has not published the figures in its own announcements. The feature does not mention an online mode, which Rockstar still has not announced (see what Rockstar has said about GTA 6 Online).
What’s next
GTA 6 launches on November 19, 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Our GTA 6 release time, pre-load and file size guide has the unlock times by region, and the GTA 6 pre-order guide compares the Standard and Ultimate editions.
Sources: Edge / GamesRadar+, “Grand Theft Auto VI exclusive: The state that never sleeps” (Simon Parkin, October 29, 2026); PC Gamer; Rockstar Games.
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Featured image: Rockstar Games
