Three cities carry the name Vice City. The first is GTA Vice City, released in 2002 and set in 1986. The second is the present-day Vice City of GTA 6, out on 19 November 2026. The third is ours: a Vice City on SA-MP where real people have been living since 2019. We put the first two side by side and saved the third for last.

Side by side: GTA Vice City (2002) and GTA 6

Vice City in 2002: 1986, neon and Tommy Vercetti

GTA Vice City was about Miami in the 80s: pastel suits, neon signs, Flash FM on the radio. Tommy Vercetti does 15 years, gets sent from Liberty City to Vice City, and a deal goes wrong on his first day. The rest of the game is Tommy taking the city one piece at a time.

By today's standards the map is small: an eastern island along the beach, the mainland to the west and a few small islands in between. The bridges west open as the story moves on. You buy businesses like the Malibu Club, Sunshine Autos and Kaufman Cabs and they pay you back. And yes, Tommy cannot swim; fall in the water and you are done.

If you want to play it today, the Definitive Edition came out in November 2021. We wrote separate guides to its districts, characters and radio stations; the links are at the bottom of the page.

Vice City in GTA 6: Leonida today

GTA 6 is set in the present. In the trailers we see the city through phone cameras and social media clips; the pastel crime-movie mood of 1986 has given way to the noise of right now. It is still beaches, neon and palm trees. It is just not alone any more.

This time Vice City is one part of the state of Leonida. Alongside the city Rockstar has shown five more regions: the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga National Park. The city that was the entire game in 2002 is now one corner of the map.

There is more than one lead, too: Lucia Caminos, fresh out of prison, and Jason Duval, getting by on small jobs in the Keys. Tommy came to take over the city; Lucia and Jason look like they are just trying to stay on their feet.

What has not changed

Same name, same inspiration: Miami. In both games there is a crime story running behind the sunny side of the city. Which old districts and landmarks return is something we will see when the game is out; we did not list anything here that we only think we spotted in a trailer.

The third Vice City: the one people live in

Our Vice City goes back to 2014. Our first attempts on a Vice City map pulled in 20 or 30 players and closed (those were the days you fell through the map). The Vice you see today opened on the evening of 3 November 2019, when the big question was "will we ever see 100 players?" Today we have passed 50,000 approved users.

Our city is our own fiction, set in the state of Florida. Names like the Malibu Club, Sunshine Autos, Ocean View Hotel and Starfish Island live on here, with one difference. In 2002 Tommy bought the Malibu Club; in GTA 6 Rockstar wrote what happens. Here the players decide who runs that club, whose word counts on the beach and who ends up leading the VCPD. There is no script, and seven years of that story are on record in the Vice Chronicle.

We do not play a copy of real life either. We play fictional characters in a fictional American city that borrows from real life. Our favourite films and series were written that way, and wanting to do the same is how we started.

Which one should you play?

All three, if you ask us. The 2002 Vice City is a time capsule; start it one evening and you will still be there at sunrise. GTA 6 will most likely be the game of the year, so do not miss it if you own a console. And if you want to write your own character and actually live in that city, the door is open: register, send your character application, 54.37.194.16:7777. Time to play the game.

Vice Roleplay is not affiliated with Rockstar Games. This page is a fan guide to the game.

• When does GTA 6 come out?
• GTA Vice City map (2002)
• Places in our Vice City
• GTA 6 roleplay