The Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer depicts the city’s extremes — what does it tell us about US culture?
South Florida. A place where sea, sand and sexy are always in season.
A place where the world’s most famous footballer scores match-winning goals in flamingo pink.
And a place where a multibillionaire considers how to commercialise space travel.
When Lionel Messi and Jeff Bezos moved to Miami this year, they added a certain shimmer to a city already well-known for its sparkle.
But there’s a dark side, a criminal underbelly, too.
The intersection of these worlds was on full display this week during the trailer release of Grand Theft Auto 6.
Its emergence ended a decade-long streak of relative silence from Rockstar, the game’s creators, and broke YouTube records, grabbing 93 million views in 24 hours.
The video was described by LeBron James in a tweet as «INSANE». And it became the most viewed content on the platform — excluding music videos — in less than a day.
The 90-second teaser confirmed the game will be set in Vice City, a hyper-fictionalised version of Miami, and it immediately sparked debates online over how fair and realistic this depiction was.
It showcased many of Miami’s cultural landmarks — beach joggers and boat partiers, luxury cars and rooftop pools. Neon-lit streets. Flamingos.
(Yes, there are actually flamingos. The cotton-candy coloured birds can be seen at the Hialeah Park Racing and Casino.)
But there was also a different side of the city on display.
A crocodile crept through a convenience store, strippers danced over dollar bills and shotgun-wielding police kicked down a door.
The sight of a woman twerking atop a speeding car seemed other-worldly absurd, but it blended in seamlessly with what appeared to be exact replicas of Miami’s basketball arena Kaseya Center and murals in the Wynwood neighbourhood.
It was this precise mix of the inconceivable and the actual that blurred the lines between fact and fiction.
GTA trailer sparks soaring streams for 70s rocker
US is in grip of Messi madness after Miami arrival
That was exactly the aim for Rockstar, the developers behind the GTA series, according to Chris Livingston, senior editor at PC Gamer, a leading gaming publication.
