The trailer for one of the most hyped games in a decade, Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6, was released early on Monday and it revealed their new setting to be a rendition of modern-day South Florida.
From women twerking on the roof a of a moving car to a muscled-toned couple running in the beach with their teeny-tiny chihuahua to the graffiti-lined walls of Wynwood, Rockstar developers truly captured the essence of Miami and South Florida with their 8th title in the series.
One of their first shots of the trailer is a beautiful skyline of Miami Beach with a few notable buildings easily recognizable like the Royal Palm hotel, the colorful lifeguard houses, a banner plane advertising for a nightclub called 'Nine1Nine,' like Miami's own "E11even".
A few moments later we're taken to Ocean Drive where we see the famous neon-colored row of hotels like the Breakwater, the Beacon Hotel, and the Avalon where you can see the famous yellow-and-white classic car parked in the front.
The Hurricane season is on. Our meteorologists are ready. Sign up for the NBC 6 Weather newsletter to get the latest forecast in your inbox.
The inspiration behind the game is clearly a theme of all the wild stuff of the 'Florida Man' and 'Florida Woman' archetypes that have made the news and seemingly go viral, like the prisoner seen with purple hair and face tattoos that resemble 'The Joker' from the Batman comics.
The actual Miami 'Joker' is Lawrence Patrick Sullivan and, yes, he's been arrested for a litany of crimes, including pointing a gun at passing cars.
The trailer also includes a scene of a naked man being chased on foot by a police officer which is clearly reminiscent of a video from 2022 where a 34-year-old Brandon Wright stripped naked and threw a machete at someone after demanding their clothes.
Local
The similarities do not stop there, as the developers went all the way back to 2017 when a woman was caught twerking on top of a car while driving down the MacArthur Causeway and immortalized the moment forever in the trailer.
There’s no escaping the wildlife in South Florida either, as there’s also a scene of giant alligator being pulled out of a swimming pool by a trapper, which is safe to say is pretty common down here.
Those are some of the more famous instances that we can see in the 90 second trailer, which has become the most watched video in YouTube in the first 24 hours of publication, a record even Guinness confirmed way before the 24 hour deadline, with a whopping 90,421,491 views.
As a domino effect, the song used in the trailer, Tom Petty’s ‘Love is a Long Road’ also had a huge increase of 36,979% plays on Spotify since the trailer released, according to IGN.
This would be Rockstar’s eight Grand Theft Auto title in the series and the second one to return to the fictional ‘Vice City’ as they did back in 2002, when the setting had more of the ‘80’s Miami Vice’ and ‘Scarface’ vibes.
In this this contemporary edition, the story follows a woman named Lucia and an unnamed character in a ’Bonnie-and-Clyde’ story arch, making this game the first time the lead protagonist is a female.
While the trailer brought a lot of joy to the game’s fan base, given that Rockstar is pretty secret with the media when their games are under development, it did come with a small caveat as the game’s official release date was teased for the year 2025.
